Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2014

Companies manage these three types of innovation with an innovation portfolio – they build innovation internally, they buy it or they partner with resources outside their company. Corporate business development and strategic partner executives are flocking to Silicon Valley to find these five types of innovation.

Acquisition 332

Acquisition Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Startup 332

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

We hired everyone according to our plan. My wife was a great partner here. When my co-founders and I got the company scalable and repeatable, we hired an operating executive as the CEO and returned a billion dollars to each of our two lead investors. This can’t be happening to me. Stage 2: Deny any of it was your fault.

Redemption 330

Redemption Cofounder Silicon Valley Burn Rate 330

Steve Blank

JANUARY 19, 2011

has evolved an entrepreneurial ecosystem with two of the most unlikely partners – venture capital investors and technology entrepreneurs. He was a great engineering manager and recruited, hired and inspired a world-class team. Why don’t you go back to the partner who led the deal and ask for his advice?”. Uh oh, I thought.

Silicon Valley 235

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Software Review Technical Review 235

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 25, 2022

How do they make these transitions without alienating and losing their existing customers, distribution channels and partners? The company had hired a leading management consulting firm that helped them select 15 critical areas of change the Tsunami Initiative was tasked to work on. But often, no existing solution exists.

Framework 389

Framework Distribution Channel Leadership 389

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2020

Jeff Epstein is on the board of Shutterstock, Twilio, Kaiser Permanente, and was the CFO of Oracle, DoubleClick, Nielsen and King World and is an operating partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. Choices include: Hiring freeze. He teaches the Lean LaunchPad class at Stanford with me. Review all marketing programs.

Salary 327

Salary Lean Equity Government 327

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2017

Create awareness for fundraising (VC, angels, corporate partners). Founders ask me all the time whether they should hire a PR agency. Hiring a PR agency too early is a sign that the CEO is treating this as someone else’s problem. For example, our goal could be: Create demand for our products and drive it into our sales channel.

Marketing 310

Marketing Technical Review Audience PR 310

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

We hired everyone according to our plan. My wife was a great partner here. When my co-founders and I got the company scalable and repeatable, we hired an operating executive as the CEO and returned a billion dollars to each of our two lead investors. This can’t be happening to me. Stage 2: Deny any of it was your fault.

Redemption 222

Redemption Cofounder Silicon Valley Burn Rate 222

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

If you’re a venture capitalist … you have limited partners that give you money to invest on their behalf, and you’re responsible for giving them outsize returns. Hire around you to fill those weak spots. …. whether that’s partners or employees that you bring on. Nayeem : (Nods.) Nayeem : I didn’t, no.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

Successful pinball companies didn’t hire Hollywood talent. Meanwhile our company was pouring an enormous amount of dollars into building tools and video compression technology, while also hiring a lot of high-priced Hollywood talent like art directors, and script and story editors. Instead I said, “Oh, OK, glad it’s all under control.”

Silicon Valley 207

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 207

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

I had hired the VP of marketing from a potential software partner who was responsible to get all this 3 rd party software on our computer. In reality we hadn’t gotten any closer to our goal than the day we hired him. An owner needs a result, a hired hand (unless behaving like an owner) follows the menu.

Silicon Valley 324

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 324

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

They provide consulting, promotion, product testing, hiring, training and incubation services to startups. The ultimate goal of Innofund is to get the startups far enough along in technology and market validation so other sources of financial capital (banks, VC’s, corporate partners) will invest. Technology Business Incubators (TBIs).

Programming 278

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 278

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

Feasibility requires the teams to figure out what are the key activities, resources and partners they would need to deliver their product or service to their beneficiaries and their State Department sponsors. They’re also focusing on developing relationships with and getting buy-in from key partners like the Red Cross and other NGOs.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington Lean United Kingdom 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

Feasibility requires the teams to figure out what are the key activities, resources and partners they would need to deliver their product or service to their beneficiaries and their State Department sponsors. They’re also focusing on developing relationships with and getting buy-in from key partners like the Red Cross and other NGOs.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Washington United Kingdom Lean 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 26, 2020

He also said, “The most important hire I made in my time at the JAIC was the chief technology officer, Nand Mulchandani.” So you have to find that partner that has a belief in solving a problem. I get that all the time. I can’t tell you the weird stuff that I get sent my way. They have to know what is real and what is not.

Artificial Inteligence 388

Artificial Inteligence Fractional CTO Technology CTO 388

Steve Blank

JUNE 29, 2009

You’re Hired, You’re Fired. My first job in Silicon Valley: I was hired as a lab technician at ESL to support the training department. The manager of the training department who hired you wasn’t authorized to do so – and he’s been fired. Could I work here if he wanted to hire me?&#

Agile 245

Agile Silicon Valley RSS California 245

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

And to keep executing large organizations hire employees with a range of skills and competencies. They can partner with suppliers, co-create with consumers, open-source key technologies, open their application programming interfaces, or run open incubators for customer ideas. Rent seekers fight to keep the status quo.

Private Equity 325

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 325

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

Furthermore, it could help the Independent Public Accounting firms (KPMG, EY, PwC, Deloitte, et al) create a new practice and make them partners in the Audit 5.0 If you only get what you ask for you haven’t hired people with imagination. initiative. Lessons Learned. And ensure they have the will and organizations to act on it.

Advisory Board 328

Advisory Board Artificial Inteligence SBIR Government 328

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

They provide consulting, promotion, product testing, hiring, training and incubation services to startups. The ultimate goal of Innofund is to get the startups far enough along in technology and market validation so other sources of financial capital (banks, VC’s, corporate partners) will invest. Technology Business Incubators (TBIs).

Programming 170

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 170

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2013

They outlined their retail channel and PR strategy and told me about the type of consultants they wanted to hire. Hiring Channel Sales. “So They thought about it for a moment and said, “Well we feel like we understand how to build things, but sales is something we thought we’d hire an expert to do.”. Hiring PR Agencies.

PR 314

PR China Channel Lean 314

Steve Blank

MAY 20, 2010

It was clear that he had no memory of a phone conversation my partner and I have never forgotten. This partner lived up to his reputation and helped us hire an experienced, world-class CEO from a large consulting company that we thought would be the guy to take our company to a billion dollars (think Internet-bubble Kool-aid.).

Founder 275

Founder Cofounder Salary Internet 275

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

The first hint lies in its name; this is a product development model, not a marketing model, not a sales hiring model, not a customer acquisition model, not even a financing model (and we’ll also find that in most cases it’s even a poor model to use to develop a product.) So what’s wrong the product development model?

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

Luckily, I teach with two great VCs, Mar Hershenson of Pear Ventures and Jeff Epstein of Bessemer Venture Partners who both put together presentations unraveling the mysteries of how and why startups raise money. You may be in a multi-sided market with other customer segments/partners that are critical to your business.

Cofounder 429

Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 429

Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2013

They outlined their retail channel and PR strategy and told me about the type of consultants they wanted to hire. Hiring Channel Sales. “So They thought about it for a moment and said, “Well we feel like we understand how to build things, but sales is something we thought we’d hire an expert to do.”. Hiring PR Agencies.

PR 206

PR China Channel Lean 206

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

If you were a “with it” VC you needed to have a “Content&# or “Multimedia&# company in your portfolio to impress your limited partners – educational software companies, game companies, or anything that could be described as content and/or Multimedia. We understood none of this. Not all VCs are equal.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 19, 2014

Local crop dusters meant they could hire existing planes and simply attach their Hyper-spectral camera to any crop dusting plane. As a bonus it meant the 1,400 aerial applicator companies could be a potential distribution channel partner. This is a big idea. They didn’t need drones at all.

Customer 316

Customer Algorithm Customer Development California 316

Steve Blank

APRIL 4, 2011

We were impressed when we found that they did the in-person interviews by hiring usertesting.com for $39 to set up test scenarios, gave the users specific tasks to accomplish with their minimum viable product, videotaped the customer interactions and summarized customer likes and dislikes.)

Customer 234

Customer Business Model Cloud Nebraska 234

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

She’s currently Co-Founder and Managing Partner of WestExec Advisors , and former Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a bipartisan national security think tank. How Can We Work More Closely with Allies and Partners? — On China. It’s not easy to do.

Technology 300

Technology China United States Government 300

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

I’ll resign if you guys think you can hire someone else you want to back.” Their fiduciary responsibility was to manage a portfolio of investments for their limited partners. At the end of the day VC’s have to provide their limited partners with great returns or they aren’t going to be able to raise another fund.

San Francisco 331

San Francisco Silicon Valley Limited Partner Venture Capital 331

Steve Blank

APRIL 19, 2011

I’m not sure it was a conscious effort on their part, (I know it wasn’t on mine,) but it continued for years, and in some cases (with my partner Ben Wegbreit) for decades. If it’s a specific goal or skill you want to achieve, hire a coach, but if you’re prepared to give as good as you get, then look for a mentor. But never ask.

Early Stage 295

Early Stage Audience Hiring Business Model 295

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 13, 2010

And if they’re really strategic older founders hire engineers in their 20′s and 30′s who don’t know what they’ve been asked to do is impossible (exactly the strategy of my partner Ben at E.piphany.). Older Means You Know Too Much.

Agile 328

Agile Engineer Distribution Technology 328

Steve Blank

JUNE 24, 2013

Instead of offering better products or better service at lower prices, rent seekers hire lawyers and lobbyists to influence politicians and regulators to pass laws, write regulations and collect taxes that block competition. Ally with some larger partners who see you as a way to break the incumbents lock on the market. Lessons Learned.

North Carolina 335

North Carolina New Jersey New York Government 335

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 1, 2010

We had been busy assembling our team and had just hired the last member of our exec staff. We had also just closed our Series B financing with a major overseas partner. One of the new hires was Bob, my VP of Business Development. One of the new hires was Bob, my VP of Business Development. And still does.

Japan 225

Japan Asia Silicon Valley Salary 225

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

While one could argue that a trade show is just another demand creation activity akin to advertising or PR, trade shows are the closest eyeball-to-eyeball contact you’re company is going to have with customers, competitors and partners. You’ll never have to do it again.) Trade Show Post Mortem Evaluate the experience.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 128

Steve Blank

AUGUST 17, 2009

doing postdoctoral internships, supervised by faculty members or hired staff (many from Fred Terman’s WWII Electronic Warfare lab.) Many of the other staff in the applied program were full-time employees hired to work solely on these military programs. The labs basic research was done by graduate students or Ph.Ds

Silicon Valley 142

Silicon Valley RSS California Government 142

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

A new VP of Sales (then VP of Marketing, then CEO) looks at their predecessors’ strategy, and if they are smart, they do something different (they implement a different pricing model, pick a new sales channel, target different customers and/or partners, reformulate the product features, etc.).

Burn Rate 247

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 247

Steve Blank

JULY 29, 2013

Its goal is to take the original idea and search for a repeatable and scalable business model - first by finding product/market fit, then by testing all the parts of the business model (pricing, channel, acquisition/activation, partners, costs, etc.). If any of the answers are “Yes,” then hire them a bit later as an early employee.

Cofounder 335

Cofounder Advisory Board Customer Development Leadership 335

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2012

In fact he had to convince the VP of Marketing who didn’t want to hire you. Ben ended up as my mentor at Convergent (and for the rest of my career), my peer at Ardent and my partner and co-founder at Epiphany. Congratulations.”. I would never use Mensa again on my resume and my education section would always be empty.

Silicon Valley 315

Silicon Valley Michigan IP Architecture 315