Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

I’ve seen the Valley grow from Sunnyvale to Santa Clara to today where it stretches from San Jose to South of Market in San Francisco. I’ve watched the Valley go from Microwave Valley – to Defense Valley – to Silicon Valley to Internet Valley. So how did this happen? Where is it going?

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Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 230

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2011

In July I got a call from Errol Arkilic , a program manager at the National Science Foundation (NSF), the $6.8-billion We’ve been reading your blog about your Lean Launchpad class.” We want to make a bet that your Lean Launchpad class can apply the scientific method to market-opportunity identification. Your Country Needs You.

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 19, 2019

Andy Rachleff co-founded the venture capital firm Benchmark Capital in 1995. Wealthfront , which began as an automated investment management service and has since expanded into banking (it currently offers one of the highest interest rates on FDIC-insured cash accounts), now manages almost $15 billion in assets.

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Silicon Valley Lean Venture Capital Pre-Money Valuation 159

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 17, 2015

Read part one on the Evolution of Corporate R&D , part two on Innovation Outposts in Silicon Valley , and part three The 6 Decisions to Make Before Setting up an Innovation Outpost. Silicon Valley, Boston). These priorities have been identified by earlier planning work at the senior management level.

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Up and Running

MAY 28, 2015

We recently had Tim Berry, Palo Alto Software founder and business planning expert, present our Bplans audience with his latest advice on lean business planning. Start your lean business plan today: Download our Free Lean Plan Template one-page-pitch-download.pdf. I’m going to start with what’s a lean business plan.

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Lean Business Plan Video Software Review 60

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Now with a new infusion of $8 million dollars of venture capital, SuperMac had been resurrected from the dead and was attempting to restart. The first step was to recruit a new management team. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Why they were looking to me to run marketing wasn’t clear.

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Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 151

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Technical Marketing Years later in my career I would realize I had simply reinvented what the early pioneers in Silicon Valley knew and did – hiring engineers who were domain experts who could talk as peers to customers and communicate effectively with their own company’s engineers. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print!

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Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 207

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for their portfolio companies. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. What Do VC’s Do?

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Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 225

Steve Blank

JUNE 29, 2009

My first job in Silicon Valley: I was hired as a lab technician at ESL to support the training department. It makes you appreciate that the Silicon Valley technology-centric culture-bubble has little to do with the majority of Americans.) You’re Hired, You’re Fired. Driving across the U.S. I was stunned.

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Agile Silicon Valley RSS California 255

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Your presentation doesn’t have a single word about Lean Startups or Customer Development. We also talk about cash flow management rather than fund-raising though – watch and justifying expenses by cash coming in that matches or exceeds. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Now In Print!

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

I was consulting for the two venture capital firms who between them put $12 million into my last failed startup. (My Wasn’t something fundamentally wrong with the way everyone organizes and manages startups? Yet when I talked to my venture capital friends, they said, “Well, that’s just how startups work.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

Every startup has some methodology for product development, launch and life-cycle management. Yet startup companies have traditionally used this model to manage and pace not only engineering but also non-engineering activities. In this post I’m going to describe the flaws of the product development model. It’s a big idea.)

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

Steve Blank

MAY 30, 2016

Now with over 917 interviews of beneficiaries (users, program managers, stakeholders, etc.), Four decades ago my first job in Silicon Valley was with ESL, the first company to combine computers and signals intelligence. The founder of this 1964 Silicon Valley startup was Bill Perry. See all the H4D posts here.

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Silicon Valley San Diego Technical Review Incubator 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 11, 2019

Ann will be speaking at this year’s Lean Startup Conference in October about all of this and more. I've been in venture now twice. I was in Boston, working for the first time in venture capital as an analyst for this guy who was incredible and an amazing mentor. How do you develop power within a venture capital firm?

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

However the Customer Development Model and the Lean Startup work equally well for startups on the web. Union Square Ventures The next morning I got to spend time with Brad Burnham , partner at Union Square Ventures talking about their investment strategy and insights about web-based businesses.

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Customer Development Web Developer Customer 224

Steve Blank

JANUARY 20, 2014

When Customer Development and the Lean Startup were just a sketch on the napkin, Dino Vendetti, a VC at Bay Partners, was one of the first venture capitalists I shared my ideas with. Over the years we brainstormed about how Lean entrepreneurship would affect regional development. Silicon Valley Transplants.

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Eric Friedman

AUGUST 18, 2021

I lovingly call him the curmudgeon of fintech – in this episode we go deep into how he is building a venture capital firm and practice, not just running a fund and how he views the world of fintech investing. Today, we are lucky to welcome Dan Kimerling of Deciens Capital. Venture Capital is not a complicated business.

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Silicon Valley Venture Capital Cofounder Africa 88

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

Too often, CEOs and small business managers suffer from analysis paralysis. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. It looks as though you and I have the same taste in layout, no? I’ve written about this subject many times and could not agree more. This happens for any number of reasons. Now In Print!

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

Also, if you’re an entrepreneur, make sure you hire and manage people so that they’re focusing on end goals and not motion or, once again, you’re screwed. What I thought would be a simple port is actually a major project I don’t have time to manage. They all have to be redrawn and reformatted.

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Silicon Valley Software Review RSS Technical Review 329

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 26, 2009

This is the first of two posts about the rise of “risk capital” and how it came to be associated with what became Silicon Valley. ———————– Building Blocks of Entrepreneurship By the mid 1950’s the groundwork for a culture and environment of entrepreneurship were taking shape on the east and west coasts of the United States.

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 26, 2009

So no post today on entrepreneurship, Secret History of Silicon Valley, Customer Development, Lean Startups, etc. I hope we managed to teach our children compassion and charity for others. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Just a reflection on my family and hopes for our children.

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Silicon Valley Turkey United States RSS 140

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. So their management teams were insisting that they OEM (buy from someone else) these products. Help them?!!

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Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 140

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 18, 2010

Congratulations to all of you who actually managed to slog through it.). My blog also allowed me to indulge my interest in a few other subjects: The Secret History of Silicon Valley , thoughts on a career as an entrepreneur, observations about family and startups, etc. Hollywood Meets Silicon Valley……… 214.

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Silicon Valley Customer Development IP Developer 212

Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

Two years out of the Air Force, serendipity (which would be my lifelong form of career planning) found me in Silicon Valley working for my first company: ESL. But part of his life that that doesn’t even merit a Wikipedia entry is that Bill Perry used Silicon Valley to help end the cold war.

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

The culture and work ethic of Convergent had earned it the title “the Marine Corps of Silicon Valley”. I would learn a ton from Gordon for over a decade, not only about practical heuristics for managing complex engineering projects (i.e. Reply Karma in the Lean Startup Era , on January 28, 2010 at 5:26 pm Said: [.]

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North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 126

Steve Blank

JULY 20, 2009

Hitting “burnout” changed the trajectory of both ends of my career in Silicon Valley. Zilog Zilog was my first Silicon Valley company where you could utter the customer’s name in public. Just as I was getting settled into Zilog, the manager of the training department got fired. (I The bill had come due.

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Silicon Valley Chad RSS San Francisco 184

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

Our “Hollywood meets Silicon Valley” story played great in Silicon Valley, they ate it up in Hollywood, and the business press tripped over themselves to talk to us. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Which at this stage of the company was marketing and financing. Now In Print!

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Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

Let’s Fire Our Customers « Steve Blank (tags: product-management startup business) [.] 3) Managing the relationship is more consumptive than the rewards. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Reply links for 2009-09-24 « Blarney Fellow , on September 24, 2009 at 6:06 pm Said: [.] Now In Print!

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Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 203

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

Only in Silicon Valley could we have got funded with this idea, and not surprisingly, it was our technology that had the VC’s confused. However the VC’s are managing a portfolio while you, the entrepreneur are managing one company – yours. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

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Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 213

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2010

Our guest this week on #TWiVC was Dana Settle , partner at Greycroft Partners , a venture capital firm with offices in New York and Los Angeles. Another topic we debated early in the program was “lean startup” vs. “ fat startup ” where we both took the obvious hedge and said “it depends.” 60k unique visitors in March 2010.

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Partner New York City Cofounder Syndicate 240

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2011

Scientists and engineers as founders and startup CEOs is one of the least celebrated contributions of Silicon Valley. ESL, the first company I worked for in Silicon Valley , was founded by a PhD in Math and six other scientists and engineers. Why It’s “Silicon” Valley. It might be its most important.

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Engineer Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital 310

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 19, 2019

We’ve spent a lot of time this past year running Lean Startup tests on our annual flagship conference to really nail down what you’re most interested in. Our goal—again, based on feedback—is to continue broadening the reach of Lean Startup and embracing the numerous ways people are using it.

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Lean Programming San Francisco Silicon Valley 68

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 8, 2009

Sale Guys, Account Reps, Project Manager – they all need to be able to deal with this without even blinking. for knowing his audience and managing to it effectively. Reply My take on Customer Development and the Lean Startup | Recess Mobile Blog , on January 9, 2010 at 5:39 am Said: [.] Getting out of the building.

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Silicon Valley RSS Customer Development California 279

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 12, 2009

Ardent 3: Supercomputer Porn « Steve Blank (tags: customer-development product-management startup) [.] Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Reply links for 2009-10-13 « Blarney Fellow , on October 13, 2009 at 6:10 pm Said: [.] To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print! Blog at WordPress.com.

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crowdSPRING Blog

NOVEMBER 30, 2012

How does a cat manage to always land on their feet when falling from any height? Amazon’s Jeff Bezos: The ultimate disrupter | Fortune Management – [link]. The problem with a Lean Startup: the Minimum Viable Product | Paul Kortman – [link]. In Silicon Valley, Technology Talent Gap Threatens G.O.P.

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Social Media Small Business Central African Republic Design 100

Steve Blank

MAY 15, 2009

We hired an interior designer and a great facilities person to manage the process. However, I’ve seen this story repeated time and again, and not just in Silicon Valley. If the management team is thinking they’ve made it, the new building is just symptomatic of a company heading for a crash.

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Silicon Valley RSS Lean Agile 215

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 29, 2009

This is the second of three posts about the rise of “risk capital” and how it came to be associated with what became Silicon Valley. ———————– The First Valley IPO’s Silicon Valley first caught the eyes of east coast investors in the late 1950’s when the valleys first three IPO’s happened: Varian in 1956, Hewlett Packard in 1957, and Ampex in 1958.

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Silicon Valley SBIC San Francisco RSS 126