Steve Blank

MARCH 22, 2022

Tens of billions of public and private capital are being invested in Quantum technologies. Countries across the world have realized that quantum technologies can be a major disruptor of existing businesses and change the balance of military power. Currently this is a nascent commercial technology in search of a future viable market.

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Technology Algorithm Stealth Distribution 436

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2011

A tech bubble is the rapid inflation in the valuation of public and private technology companies that exceeds their fundamental value by a large margin. Today, the signs of the new bubble are the Linked-In initial public offering (IPO), Facebook’s stratospheric valuation and the rapid rise of early-stage startup valuation.

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Silicon Valley Stealth Valuation Mississippi 327

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

Dot.com Bubble ( 1995-2000): “ Anything goes” as public markets clamor for ideas, vague promises of future growth, and IPOs happen absent regard for history or profitability. With Netscape’s IPO , there was suddenly a public market for companies with limited revenue and no profit. Filed under: Technology , Venture Capital.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2019

Startup Compensation Changes with Growth Capital – 12 Years to an IPO. The three examples Suster uses – Salesforce, Google and Amazon – show how much more valuable the companies were after their IPOs. The rationale was that since there was no way for investors to make money until then, neither should anyone else.

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Stock Options Stock Vesting Common Stock 333

Steve Blank

JUNE 4, 2012

While we’re excited by the results, we’ve realized that we’ve been solving the problem for the 1% of new ventures that are technology startups. Alex explained that in his community building a successful venture that generated nice cash flows – not IPO’s – were the big win.

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Silicon Valley Lean Utah Customer Development 305

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

. — Unremarked and unheralded, the balance of power between startup CEOs and their investors has radically changed: IPOs/M&A without a profit (or at times revenue) have become the norm. Technology cycles have become a treadmill, and for startups to survive they need to be on a continuous innovation cycle.

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Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 245

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2013

government is the leading payer for most of health care, and under ObamaCare the government’s role in reimbursing for medical technology will increase. Because device IPOs are rare, and M&A is much tougher, liquidity for investors is hard to find. Companies must pay a medical device excise tax of 2.3% Venture Capital Issues.

Startup 294

Startup Venture Capital Lean IPO 294

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2011

Each region had two of the finest research universities in the United States, Stanford and MIT, which were building on the technology breakthroughs of World War II and graduating a generation of engineers into a consumer and cold war economy that seemed limitless. This all changed in 1980 with the Genentech IPO. But by the early 1960?

Engineer 305

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital 305

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2012

The Facebook IPO has reinforced the new calculus for investors. And for Silicon Valley the investor flight to social media marks the beginning of the end of the era of venture capital-backed big ideas in science and technology. Filed under: Technology , Venture Capital. Don’t Worry We Always Bounce Back.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

Startups here are primarily in what they call the TMT (Technology, Media and Telecommunications) segment. Not only does Zhongguancun have Chinese startups, but global technology companies (Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Microsoft, IBM, Sun, Oracle, BEA, Alcatel Lucent, Google) all have offices here or elsewhere in Beijing.

Silicon Valley 267

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 267

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

My first IPO at Convergent. I didn’t recognize the behavior at the time, but anyone who loves technology and gadgets has at one time or another has bought a technology toy – USB memory sticks, iPod Shuffles, umbrellas with LED lights, alarm clocks that talked, Flip Video Cameras, etc. The Novelty effect?

Video 164

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 164

Steve Blank

MARCH 9, 2016

Joining me in SiriusXM’s studio in New York were: Drew Silverstein , co-founder and CEO of the music technology venture Amper Music. We didn’t IPO it. Craig Kanarick ’s career has integrated digital technology, design and strategy. It was all strategic partnerships leading to IPOs. Drew Silverstein. Craig Kanarick.

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Silicon Valley Cofounder Entrepreneur IPO 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2010

In 1980 Genentech became the first IPO of a venture funded biotech company. The technologies are different, the speed of execution, iteration and pivots are different and the time horizons for exits are different, (2 to 5x shorter for a consumer Internet company.).

Lean 258

Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 258

Steve Blank

JUNE 17, 2011

My esteemed colleague Ben Horowitz essentially makes four arguments : 1) look at how relatively cheap Apple, Google and Amazon stock is compared to their growth; 2) Major technology cycles tend to be around 25 years long with the bulk of the purchases occurring in the last five-to-ten years. The Shills are the middlemen in a bubble.

Investment Bankers 310

Investment Bankers Stock Valuation Venture Capital 310

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

Startups here are primarily in what they call the TMT (Technology, Media and Telecommunications) segment. Not only does Zhongguancun have Chinese startups, but global technology companies (Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Microsoft, IBM, Sun, Oracle, BEA, Alcatel Lucent, Google) all have offices here or elsewhere in Beijing.

Silicon Valley 159

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 159

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

When I looked at the diagram in that ski cabin I realized there was a fundamental question I couldn’t answer: if all startups follow that model, why is it that some companies are opening bottles of champagne at their IPO and others who almost followed the same rules are selling off their furniture? What was the difference here?

Product Development 143

Product Development Developer Silicon Valley Product 143

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

It was adopted by the consumer packaged goods industry in the 1950s and spread to the technology business in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Assuming no early liquidity (via an IPO or merger) for the company, more fund raising is required. It has become an integral part of startup culture.

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

Technology? M&A, IPO? Filed under: Customer Development , Technology , Vertical Markets « Faith-Based versus Fact-Based Decision Making Am I a Founder? Others you need to know when you execute the plan. Here is the list of basic startupactivities/functions our class discussion generated: Opportunity – How big?

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Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 122

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2014

I liked meeting people, hearing the company plans, learning about their technology, figuring out if it was for real—all that was fun. My first IPO wasn’t until 1995—the VC business takes patience. So I did something completely crazy and unplanned—which looks brilliant only in hindsight! How could I do that for a living?

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Venture Capital Silicon Valley Chicago Cofounder 333

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

It was still a year away from its IPO. After failing dismally at making disposable digital cameras in 2003 Pure Digital Technologies reinvented their company in 2007 to make the Flip line of camcorders. Technology changes, culture changes, customer needs change, more agile competitors emerge, etc. But first some background.)

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Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 164

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 22, 2011

You too can name a building after your IPO (and $30 million.) Walk by the Terman Engineering building to stand next to ground zero of technology entrepreneurship. While we celebrate Silicon Valley as a center of technology innovation, that’s only half of the story. Filed under: Family/Career , Technology , Venture Capital.

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Silicon Valley San Francisco San Jose Venture Capital 335

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2011

In 5 to 10 years most of them will be worth a fraction of their IPO price. While labeled the “dot.com” bubble, valuations went crazy across a wide range of technology sectors including telecommunications, enterprise software and biotech, not just the Internet. A few will be worth much, much more.

Internet 295

Internet Silicon Valley United States .Net 295

Steve Blank

JULY 6, 2010

He started a new venture firm when he realized that that the rules had changed for the venture business – VC’s could no longer expect the same kind of returns they got in the past through an IPO. In the dot-com bubble Israel had more technology companies listed on the NASDQ exchange than all of Europe.

Venture Capital 175

Venture Capital Agile Customer Development 175

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 26, 2009

Stanford and MIT were building on the technology breakthroughs of World War II and graduating a generation of engineers into a consumer and cold war economy that seemed limitless. These technology startups had no risk capital – just customers/purchase orders from government/military/intelligence agencies.

Silicon Valley 159

Silicon Valley Securities and Exchange Commission Venture Capital RSS 159

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 29, 2009

These IPOs meant that technology companies didn’t have to get acquired to raise money or get their founders and investors liquid. Davis (an ex- WWII OSS agent) then a VP at the Kern Land Company got involved with investing in technology companies through Fred Terman.

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Silicon Valley SBIC San Francisco RSS 125

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

We’re standing 15 air miles away from the epicenter of technology innovation. I’ve been asked to talk today about the future of Innovation – typically that involves giving you a list of hot technologies to pay attention to – technologies like machine learning. In fact, it’s not about any specific new technologies.

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Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 222

Steve Blank

AUGUST 19, 2013

For exits, acquisitions are the rule and IPOs the exception. Biologics can be made from human, animal, or microorganisms – or produced by recombinant DNA technology. The belief was that once a new target was found, finding a drug was a technology execution problem. And all the new tools would accelerate the process.

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Venture Capital Startup Lean Philadelphia 301