Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2019

Indeed, Silicon Valley was born as a center for weapon systems development and its software and silicon helped end the Cold War. As there was no venture capital, these early startups were funded by early sales to weapon systems prime contractors and subcontractors.

Government 308

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Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 4, 2023

This point was highlighted well in the classic book, “ Disrupting Digital Business ,” by R “Ray” Wang, CEO and Principal Analyst of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research. Every business, especially startups, needs all guns blazing quickly on every opportunity or insight into the market.

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Silicon Valley Flash Social Media Software Review 265

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2013

I still have to tell some entrepreneurs that even with the best idea, they have to move to Silicon Valley to find the investors they need, or they need to move to the U.S. Also, investors from the super-hubs (Silicon Valley, New York, or Boston), won’t assume anyone outside their domain has the savvy and resources to make it happen.

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Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 2, 2017

I still have to tell some entrepreneurs that even with the best idea, they have to move to Silicon Valley to find the investors they need, or they need to move to the U.S. Also, investors from the super-hubs (Silicon Valley, New York, or Boston), won’t assume anyone outside their domain has the savvy and resources to make it happen.

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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. Not Google.

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Silicon Valley Venture Capital Startup Technical Review 390

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 8, 2011

Introduced before keynoting at Austin, Texas's Capital Factory Demo Day as "the most-connected person in Silicon Valley," Hoffman gave a really interesting talk about how he handles hiring at his company. Targeting and getting back to people: when you get a resume, you should treat it like it was a sales lead.

Silicon Valley 130

Silicon Valley Hiring Technical Review Due Diligence 130

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 26, 2020

Nand changed the culture of the JAIC, bringing in Silicon Valley tools for product development, product management and for the first time a culture that focused on UI/UX, MVPs and continuous integration and deployment. Selling JAIC Like Enterprise Sales. I organized my missions teams like an enterprise sales team.

Artificial Inteligence 388

Artificial Inteligence Fractional CTO Technology CTO 388

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?

Restful 222

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 222

Version One Ventures

AUGUST 7, 2018

The predominant narrative among Silicon Valley start-ups has been: don’t open a second office until you have reached 100+ employees. Among our Silicon Valley-based portfolio companies, not a single company past “A” does not have a distributed team.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 1, 2020

This point was highlighted well in the classic book, “ Disrupting Digital Business ,” by R “Ray” Wang, CEO and Principal Analyst of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research. Every business, especially startups, needs all guns blazing quickly on every opportunity or insight into the market.

Silicon Valley 312

Silicon Valley Flash Social Media Software Review 312

ReadWriteStart

DECEMBER 19, 2019

Silicon Valley gets significant attention for its role in producing tech startups that often go on to see massive, international success. So they broke down the “art of sales” and turned it into science. However, it’s far from the only startup hub in the world, and it’s not even the only startup hub in the United States.

Technical Review 179

Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Silicon Valley 179

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. Sales roles : The sales cycle is similar to the recruitment cycle of a source.

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Government Advisory Board Salary Sales Cycle 212

Austin Startup

JANUARY 20, 2021

The Ferrari Museum in Modena, Italy The defining characteristic of the Silicon Valley startup is speed. In the world of startups, the idea of speed is often mentioned alongside shipping products and executing company-wide sprints but rarely is it discussed explicitly within the function of Sales. 2021 instead of 2022.

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Sales Startup Sales Cycle Revenue 64

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 12, 2018

Robust startup economies are popping up in communities all over the country, proving that entrepreneurs can succeed outside of Silicon Valley. flexibility, camaraderie, close collaboration with company leadership, building something new), along with the benefits of your location – specifically for those outside of Silicon Valley (i.e.

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Hiring Technical Review Silicon Valley Due Diligence 100

Berkonomics

OCTOBER 5, 2023

Since this number is budgeted and pre-authorized, managers tend to focus upon other things such as sales, marketing and product development issues. Not long after, the company was sold in a “fire sale” amounting to slightly less than the debt on the books. The art of good management.

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Silicon Valley Burn Rate Angel Investor Down Round 118

Version One Ventures

JULY 14, 2014

The big debate among tech circles has always been if it’s possible to build a “Silicon Valley” company outside of the Valley. Is Silicon Valley a physical place or a state of mind ? Smaller start-ups in Silicon Valley, particularly those in un-sexy markets, have a tough time drawing in top engineers and designers.

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Silicon Valley Los Angeles San Francisco Seattle 154

online.wsj.com

JULY 11, 2012

Theres a power struggle underway in Silicon Valley. But Andreessens approach is also exposing a rift in Silicon Valley, where a group of young and relatively untested entrepreneurs have maintained control over their rapidly growing companies. million products as of June, and this year expects to do $140 million in sales.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

Last year I was on Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley meeting with one of the most prominent venture capital firms in the country. And this Silicon Valley bias isn’t limited to any single meeting – it has been a recurring theme in my time as a VC. Funding is different outside of Silicon Valley.

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Silicon Valley Southern California Los Angeles Semantic 313

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2020

You may have heard that venture capitalists in Silicon Valley no longer read business plans. Include marketing, sales, and customer rollout plans. As an advisor to new hardware entrepreneurs, I often hear the myth that a business plan is no longer required to find an investor, if your idea is good enough.

Business Plan 423

Business Plan Product Intellectual Property Elevator Pitch 423

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010

It’s a paradox, but early sales success in a startup can kill its chances of becoming a large successful company. The cause is often sales and marketing execs who’ve become too comfortable with an initial sales model and panic at the first sign of a Pivot. And this time sales revolted. He was paid 1% of gross sales.

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Silicon Valley Technical Review Spain Engineer 239

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 5, 2020

Most years, the holiday season means long lines at malls, loads of crowds, and tons of in-person sales. Stagger promos and marketing efforts carefully so you have a flow of ongoing sales instead of a few huge peaks. To make it easier for you to ship items out well in time for the holidays, incentivize early buying with sales.

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Silicon Valley Stock Technical Review China 246

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 14, 2023

But, for the rest of us, don’t believe the Silicon Valley myth that all you have to do is sketch your million-dollar idea on the back of a napkin, and investors will line up to give you money.

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Silicon Valley Exit Strategy Startup Business Plan 257

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.

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Silicon Valley Lean Puerto Rico Japan 168

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 16, 2015

I still have to tell some entrepreneurs that even with the best idea, they have to move to Silicon Valley to find the investors they need, or they need to move to the U.S. Also, investors from the super-hubs (Silicon Valley, New York, or Boston), won’t assume anyone outside their domain has the savvy and resources to make it happen.

Las Vegas 120

Las Vegas Silicon Valley Phoenix Montana 120

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 26, 2020

In an instant, remote work went from a small Silicon Valley trend to a ubiquitous element of daily life. I think big tech hubs like silicon valley will still be highly relevant for securing capital, and for bleeding-edge ideas. It’s easy to vet Silicon Valley hires. Now, it’s the new normal.

Silicon Valley 198

Silicon Valley Distribution Engineer Technical Review 198

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

The key contributors to an out-of-control burn rate is 1) hiring a sales force too early, 2) turning on the demand creation activities too early, 3) developing something other than the minimum feature set for first customer ship. These are great, but they are not repeatable by a sales organization.

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2015

I was flabbergasted – almost stunned — to discover that in Silicon Valley all kinds of people looked at that resume and said, ‘Hey you’ve learned a lot of important lessons on someone else’s dime.’ That’s part of the magic of Silicon Valley.”. If you can’t hear the clip, click here.

Lean 120

Lean Technical Cofounder Silicon Valley Channel 120

YoungUpstarts

MAY 2, 2018

Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is a comedy series which follows the lives of a computer programmer and his geeky friends as they try to take advantage of the high tech gold rush.

Entrepreneur 176

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley New York City Incubator 176

Steve Blank

JUNE 6, 2016

Innovation outposts in Silicon Valley allow big companies to sense and respond to rapid changes in technology. Srivastava leads Verizon’s innovation outpost (their Silicon Valley R&D center) in Palo Alto focusing on building products and services powered by big data and analytics. He was the CEO of two startups.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Fractional CTO Analytics 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

SuperMac sold our graphic boards for the Macintosh through multiple distribution channels: direct sales to major accounts, national chains, independent rep firms, etc. But the computer retail channel was a large part of our sales. He had teamed up with a former product manager at P&G to deliver seminars on just this subject.

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Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

Recently I wrote a post arguing to make the definition of a Startup more inclusive than that to which Silicon Valley, fueled by Venture Capital return profiles, would sometimes like to attach to the word. ” Put simply, if you care about building a successful tech community outside Silicon Valley you should read this book.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

PM’s are underrated in Silicon Valley these days. Your first sales people should be consultative sellers who can fuel evangelical sales. Don’t hire “relationship management” sales people too early. For the wrong reasons. PMs are a vital part of a tech startup.

Cofounder 388

Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 388

YoungUpstarts

MAY 29, 2011

This week Blackbox , founded by entrepreneurs Bjoern Lasse Herrmann and Max Marmer, released its first Startup Genome Report — a 67-page in depth analysis on what makes Silicon Valley startups successful based on profiling over 650 startups. Solo founders take 3.6x less likely to pivot. Business-heavy founding teams are 6.2x

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Silicon Valley Cofounder Technical Cofounder Startup 230

philipsmith.typepad.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Silicon Valley Frontlines. This same 'later stage can't pay you anything up front' ruse gets done for sales and marketing types, too. Life in the Valley. Sales & Marketing. In-the-Trenches Consulting to Startup and Emerging-Growth Companies. « Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs! Less Fortunate.

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Silicon Valley Equity Technical Review Recapitalization 40

Up and Running

APRIL 25, 2014

The cast of “Silicon Valley” Image credit: HBO. Silicon Valley is a crazy place. I’ve opted not to return to the Valley for various reasons, but still have plenty of friends who work there and return regularly for business meetings. But should most Silicon Valley companies skip the planning process?

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Silicon Valley Business Plan Entrepreneur Cap Table 104

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?

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Founder CTO Hire Silicon Valley Leadership 309

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 4, 2020

For example, do you fly out to a big indus­try conference to close some sales, or do you stay home to attend your daughter’s high school graduation? Programming a piece of software, for example, is different from taking a sales meeting with the CEO of a credit union. Are you self-funded? Are you planning for growth?

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