Steve Blank

OCTOBER 23, 2023

The larger the company, the more they’ll separate out business development and sales, with business development focused primarily on lead generation and sales focused on sealing the actual sale of the product or service. You just have to go in and work through the mechanics of selling them on your product or service.

Government 212

Government Advisory Board Salary Sales Cycle 212

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 21, 2016

Stories about companies with lots of ping pong tables, free yoga classes, gourmet chefs—it’s starting to feel like the TV series “Silicon Valley” is a little too much like the real-life Silicon Valley. See Also: The Importance of Partnership Agreements, NDAs, and Security: Lessons from HBO’s “Silicon Valley”.

Hiring 60

Hiring Silicon Valley Technical Review Startup 60

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

And the wrong message is frankly strewn all over Silicon Valley. And this is fueled by the VC culture in Silicon Valley. I think the one thing that niggles me that most is reserving the word “startup” for only super-growth, Silicon Valley style businesses. Or pivoted too quickly.

Silicon Valley 390

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Startup Technical Review 390

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2014

For decades large companies have gone shopping in Silicon Valley for startups. acquire startups for their teams (and discard the product). buy out another company’s product line for the product. acquire a company for the product and its installed base of users.

Acquisition 332

Acquisition Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Startup 332

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

Costs of product on YouTube content is literally 99% cheaper than traditional TV and; Distribution of content can now go viral and can predictably distributed via social networks. But here’s what Silicon Valley doesn’t get about Hollywood. And what Hollywood does’t get about Silicon Valley?

Silicon Valley 374

Silicon Valley Los Angeles Distribution Java 374

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2014

Much has been written about when it is time to hire a “professional CEO” to run a startup company and of course that has long been a norm in Silicon Valley when founders find that their inexperience may be a limiting factor in company growth ( know as the Peter Principle ). So why did Larry need to return?

Founder 309

Founder CTO Hire Silicon Valley Leadership 309

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

But not anal if one founder who shares equity graciously with early employees who are treated as “co-founders” My idea startup team is heaving on tech personnel but also has strong product management. PM’s are underrated in Silicon Valley these days. Don’t hire a homogenous team.

Cofounder 388

Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 388

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 6, 2016

Silicon Valley itself was built on the sciences with a foundation of trial-and-error and then improving the model and trying again. I believe this scientific method and trial-and-error approach is one of Silicon Valley’s most valuable strengths. Could big business accept its own creative destruction?

South Korea 261

South Korea Silicon Valley Los Angeles Japan 261

The Next Web

FEBRUARY 22, 2014

Here are a few ways hiring based on titles alone fails to serve the needs of a growing business. Approach this process with a thoughtful and honest attitude to reveal the core skills your new hire should possess. Banking juggernaut Goldman Sachs recently hired former U.S. It limits you to one skillset. Siewert Jr.

Hiring 133

Hiring Silicon Valley Technical Review Agile 133

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

Entrepreneurs beyond Silicon Valley, including those working abroad, often have to retool Lean Startup methods to apply them in places with very different business cultures. Those conversations can often circle around the difficulties of entrepreneurship outside Silicon Valley. On September 24 in the U.S.

Silicon Valley 168

Silicon Valley Lean Puerto Rico Japan 168

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

I would discover that there was a more effective alternative in building a marketing department than hiring traditional marketers with MBA’s. I set up an advisory board as a vehicle to get these industry experts engaged with the company and product.

Engineer 198

Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 198

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 4, 2020

Execut­ing an idea and selling products is a path to providing for people we care about. Our families — and the families of the employees we eventually hire—come first. To fulfill these promises, you have to have the idea, build the product, and take it to market. Are you self-funded? The software exists, and you add users.

Entrepreneur 205

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Silicon Valley Bandwidth 205

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

But for the last decade “innovation” in Chinese software meant something different than it did in Silicon Valley. The large players like Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent historically would be more likely to simply copy a startup’s features than to hire their talent. Of course “copy” is too strong a word. I can’t imagine a U.S.

China 323

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 323

The Next Web

FEBRUARY 1, 2014

is a venture capitalist investing in Silicon Valley and Singapore. You can find out whether your idea will succeed ahead of time by gauging the potential demand for your product or service. However, there is a middle alternative between the end points of hiring a full-time developer and going without one: outsourcing.

Web 160

Web Silicon Valley Salary Demand 160

Venture Chronicles

AUGUST 2, 2013

I have covered a couple of topics in this series, the first being hiring the best people and the second organizing for success based on the attributes of the people you are hiring. 3) It all starts with the product: Companies can overcome a great many challenges with band-aids, duct tape, and bailing wire.

Product 62

Product CTO Hire Architecture Startup 62

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 11, 2010

In Discovery startups take all their hypotheses about the business model: product, market, customers, channel, etc. The phone call would sound something like: “We have a company with great technology and a hot product but at the last board meeting we determined that they have a marketing problem. No One is Buying Our Product.

Burn Rate 248

Burn Rate Silicon Valley Marketing Boston 248

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Reading the NY Times article “ Jeffrey Katzenberg Raises $1 Billion for Short-Form Video Venture, ” I realized it was time for a new startup heuristic: the amount of customer discovery and product-market fit you need to find is inversely proportional to the amount and availability of risk capital. He just hired Meg Whitman.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 15, 2017

Claims administrators are companies some insurers hire to investigate accidents and figure out how much to pay injured parties. In fact, the selling of insurance products (by brokers) has gone largely unchanged in recent history. Brokers need licenses too, but these are easier to get and maintain. But there’s more.

Technical Review 183

Technical Review Los Angeles Artificial Inteligence San Francisco 183

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

After 20 years of working in startups, I decided to take a step back and look at the product development model I had been following and see why it usually failed to provide useful guidance in activities outside the building – sales, marketing and business development. So what’s wrong the product development model?

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

You hire people who look good on paper. So one of the surest signs you’ve hired a leader is the willingness of his or her former team to re-assemble. When you’re hiring most reference checkers focus on the person’s former bosses. Working hard together at a big company just isn’t the same. You REALLY know.

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire Cofounder San Francisco Silicon Valley 320

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

But what made the overwhelming impression for me was finding an entrepreneurial software cluster on par with the Internet software portion of Silicon Valley. The table below maps the type of software in China to their global equivalents in each product category in the Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) sector.

Silicon Valley 267

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 267

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 4, 2018

The Silicon Valley-oriented technology press outlets don’t cover us because we’re not in San Francisco, even though we’re more successful than most of the startups they cover. After the success of Smart Bear, I should be setting my sights on something big, not this. We just announced a few more things.

Engineer 152

Engineer Revenue San Francisco Security 152

Transformify

AUGUST 20, 2018

Transformify Recruitment CRM and Generate FS have joined forces to help employers hire top talent worldwide. As IT talent becomes scares in many technology hubs like London, New York, Silicon Valley, Singapore, Sydney, Berlin and many other big cities, the employers are left with no other option than looking for talent elsewhere in the world.

Saudi Arabia 40

Saudi Arabia Czech Republic Hiring South Korea 40

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

This post describes how following the traditional product development can lead to a “startup death spiral.&# In the next posts that follow, I’ll describe how this model’s failures led to the Customer Development Model – offering a new way to approach startup sales and marketing activities. The board raises a collective eyebrow.

Customer Development 224

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 224

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

But for the last decade “innovation” in Chinese software meant something different than it did in Silicon Valley. The large players like Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent historically would be more likely to simply copy a startup’s features than to hire their talent. Of course “copy” is too strong a word. I can’t imagine a U.S.

China 215

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 215

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Your product and company vision needs to match your appetite for funding. He stressed that your product and company vision needs to match your appetite for funding: One thing that we learned very early on was, have a plan for fund-raising. … Hire around you to fill those weak spots. …. Nayeem : I didn’t, no.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 11, 2014

” Sean is somebody widely respected in Silicon Valley (although he now lives in SoCal) for having helped many early-stage companies go through major growth periods by quantitatively testing features with audiences to help diagnose what led to growth. I recommend hiring or appointing a growth hacker.”

Technical Review 384

Technical Review Hockey Stick SEM Channel 384

crowdSPRING Blog

NOVEMBER 8, 2018

Silicon Valley has dominated the U.S. Despite repeated efforts, only a few cities outside the Valley (New York and Boston) have historically had the critical mix of VC funding, network, and talent to fuel vibrant startup centers. cities (outside of Silicon Valley and the East Coast), to build your startup.

United States 113

United States Las Vegas San Francisco Denver 113

Steve Blank

MARCH 2, 2011

He’s as good as any startup CEO in Silicon Valley. Working with him, I’ve been impressed to watch his small team embrace Customer Development (and Business Model Generation ) and search the world for the right product/market fit. And they’ve being doing this while driving product cost down and performance up.

Silicon Valley 222

Silicon Valley Agile Customer Development Early Stage 222

Version One Ventures

DECEMBER 18, 2013

And in 2013, Version One got its first analyst, with the hiring of Angela Tran Kingyens. This not only doubled our size, but also bolstered our physical presence in Silicon Valley. New B2B startups can improve on earlier versions by lowering the costs of transactions and helping identify the right suppliers and products.

Technical Review 153

Technical Review Silicon Valley Portfolio B2B 153

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 1, 2014

As the emeritus Chief Technology Officer of the United States, he still connects government and Silicon Valley. He’s a founder of Andreessen Horowitz, which has backed Facebook, Skype, Jawbone, and dozens of other companies whose products you use. Todd Park convened the team that saved Obamacare. Eric Ries will interview him.

Lean 165

Lean Fractional CTO Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE 165

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 10, 2018

Already, a Silicon Valley startup called Atrium has developed an app that hopes to automate nearly every task that forces startups to hire lawyers, which might include acquiring funding, merging, and being sued. For now, Atrium is using real lawyers to provide clients with advice and action.

Software Review 70

Software Review Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Software 70

Ben's Blog

MAY 18, 2012

Conventional wisdom among smart technology entrepreneurs says not to hire people with Masters in Business Administration (MBAs) into startups. My friend Peter Thiel once warned a young entrepreneur: “Never ever hire an MBA; they will ruin your company.” In any case, the episode did not make me want to hire more MBAs.

Hiring 78

Hiring Silicon Valley Engineer Demand 78

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

But what made the overwhelming impression for me was finding an entrepreneurial software cluster on par with the Internet software portion of Silicon Valley. The table below maps the type of software in China to their global equivalents in each product category in the Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) sector.

Silicon Valley 159

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 159

Austin Startup

MARCH 15, 2017

By the time Silicon Valley white privilege culture, tech magazines that promote only white faces, Ethereum/Bitcoin fanboys, sellout black tech wannabees and globalists promoting their blockchain consortium get a hold of this article, it’s already too late and the game already ended a while ago.

Technical Review 54

Technical Review Silicon Valley Software Review XML 54

Transformify

MARCH 23, 2020

Tech startups were running out of cash prior to launching great products over talent shortage and ever-increasing salaries and rents. At the same time, talented software engineers, designers, digital marketing experts, product managers, etc. The country experienced the worst of an earthquake and coronavirus outbreak.

Technical Review 132

Technical Review Croatia San Francisco Software Review 132