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

Government Artificial Inteligence Silicon Valley North Korea 308

Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2017

She was an academic on leave from Stanford now selling SAAS software to large companies, but was being inundated with marketing communications advice. “My For example, our goal could be: Create demand for our products and drive it into our sales channel. Often there are multiple people in a sales process worth influencing.

Marketing 310

Marketing Audience Technical Review PR 310

Steve Blank

JULY 11, 2017

They make hardware with a large part of their innovation in embedded software and services. While a significant part of the headcount of this tech company was in manufacturing, the director’s group was made up of experienced software engineers. I was visiting with an ex-student who’s now the CFO of a large public tech company.

Part-Time VPE 308

Part-Time VPE Liquidity Event Stock Engineer 308

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 25, 2014

Which is why I had OEM sales as part of marketing—we had to earn our keep.). Larry often philosophized that we couldn’t hire people with software experience because there were hardly any software companies, so we just had to get the smartest bastards we could, and they’d figure it out. Larry loved to be called “ruthless.”

Technical Review 333

Technical Review Venture Capital Software Review Database 333

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

This required a repeatable and scalable sales process, which required a professional sales staff and a product stable enough that customers wouldn’t return it. But in the 20th century, dominated by hardware and software, technology swings inside an existing market happened slowly — taking years, not months.

Founder 245

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 245

Steve Blank

JANUARY 10, 2023

She’s built a 65-person startup selling enterprise software to the financial services industry. I personally sold the first big deals and hired the VP of sales who’s building the sales team in our New York office. A CEO running a B-to-B startup in needs to live in the city where their business is – or else they’ll never scale.

New York 333

New York Miami Silicon Valley Sales 333

Steve Blank

JULY 24, 2012

The VC’s suggested I should spend a day at Onyx Software, an early pioneer in Sales Automation in Seattle. Their VP of Sales was about 6’ 3” and seemed to be almost as wide. I jokingly said, “If the software business doesn’t work out you guys got a pretty good football team here.” Steve, you did a great sales job on us.

Seattle 259

Seattle Cofounder Engineer Sales 259

Steve Blank

JULY 22, 2010

Startup CEO’s can’t delegate sales and expect it to happen. Here’s an example in a direct sales channel. A VC asked me to have lunch with the CEO of a startup building cloud-based enterprise software. Sales Process. Next, he took me through his sales process. We have a great sales pipeline.”

Forecast 270

Forecast Sales Customer Customer Development 270

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 10, 2009

software, songs, movies, web site content. _. If your product is software, copyright is also used to prevent someone from stealing your software and reselling it as machine and/or source code.) within one year of sale, offer for sale, public disclosure or public use. Offer for sale in the U.S.:Red

Intellectual Property 213

Intellectual Property IP Software Review Non-disclosure Agreement 213

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2021

In the Roku case study we’ve chosen three execution branches: (1) delivery platforms, (2) sales channels, and (3) chip platforms. For software products, they would be the operating systems with big market shares: iOS, Android, web, Mac, and PC. You can think of these hardware form factors as software delivery vehicles.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2013

I was a consultant and ethnographer, another teammate was a market researcher, and two others had the software engineering skills to build what the market needed. After a solid week of speaking with lawyers and attending webinars on real-time deposition software, we had mapped both the technology and the buying relationships.

Lean 315

Lean Customer Development Sales Cycle Business Model 315

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 1, 2017

In his Harvard Business Review article summing up his tenure, Immelt recalls that the two things that influenced him most were Marc Andreessen’s 2011 Wall Street Journal article “ Why Software Is Eating the World, ” and Eric Ries’s book The Lean Startup. Or they may even put the entire company up for sale.

Institutional Investors 233

Institutional Investors Dividend Stock Technical Review 233

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. Who influences a sale?

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Steve Blank

APRIL 1, 2020

Sales pipeline/forecast. I listened in on a board call with an enterprise software company this week, and when the CEO said, “Our VP of sales assured me our pipeline won’t be affected.” If you were raising money, validate whether your investors are still on board – with the same terms – or at all.

South Korea 333

South Korea Salary Business Model China 333

Steve Blank

APRIL 21, 2011

This week they were testing their hypotheses about the sales “Channel” – how a company delivers its value proposition (i.e. Physical channels include Direct Sales, Rep Firms, Systems Integrators, Value-added Resellers, Distributors, Dealers, Mass Merchandisers, and Original Equipment Manufacturers.

Channel 215

Channel Artificial Inteligence San Francisco Business Model 215

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 looked at their watches, gave our sales guy a quizzical look and left.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2014

Activities cover clinical trials, FDA approvals, Freedom to Operate (IP, Licenses) software development, drug or device design, etc. Customer Relationships is what we think of as traditional sales and marketing; assembling a SAB, getting the KOL’s, conferences, articles, etc.

Intellectual Property 281

Intellectual Property Lean IP Open Source 281

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2016

Microsoft entered the 21st century as the dominant software provider for anyone who interacted with a computing device. 16 years later it’s just another software company. If you think the job of a CEO is to increase sales, then Ballmer did a spectacular job. Ballmer went on to run Microsoft for the next 14 years.

Azure 120

Azure Business Model Cloud Artificial Inteligence 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2016

Microsoft entered the 21st century as the dominant software provider for anyone who interacted with a computing device. 16 years later it’s just another software company. If you think the job of a CEO is to increase sales, then Ballmer did a spectacular job. Ballmer went on to run Microsoft for the next 14 years.

Azure 120

Azure Business Model Cloud Artificial Inteligence 120

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

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

For a Series A round you want to prove you have built a repeatable and scalable sales/revenue model and understand all parts of the business model. The goal of the product at this stage is not a sale, but to test hypotheses about customer product/market fit. Series B is about proving your net revenue model (can you be profitable?).

Cofounder 429

Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 429

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

I had last been in Chapel Hill on a winter’s day in 1986, traveling with the VP of Sales of our new supercomputer startup, Ardent. My ex-boss was going to be the VP of Engineering and I would report to the CEO whose marketing acumen and sales instincts seemed at the time to be telepathic and sense of theater was legend.

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

Present at the Creation It was early 1991 and Apple’s software development team was hard at work on QuickTime , the first multimedia framework for a computer. So SuperMac engineering also developed video compression software, called Cinepak. The software was idiot proof. There was nothing for the consumer to do.

Video 164

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 164

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

Jeremy Johnson , founder of Andela , which embeds talented software engineers on the African continent into top engineering organizations worldwide. Michael Eidsaune , co-founder of Carely , a software platform that facilitates communication among families caring for sick or elderly relatives. Michael Eidsaune.

Cofounder 142

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 142

Steve Blank

JUNE 18, 2020

Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security added Huawei to its Entity List , effectively limiting the sale or transfer of American technology to the company, (though a series of licenses have been granted to waive the restrictions in some cases.). In 2019, the U.S. TSMC was forced to choose sides and picked the U.S. –

Taiwan 436

Taiwan China United States Arizona 436

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

Jeremy Johnson , founder of Andela , which embeds talented software engineers on the African continent into top engineering organizations worldwide. Michael Eidsaune , co-founder of Carely , a software platform that facilitates communication among families caring for sick or elderly relatives. Michael Eidsaune.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

He would go on to be a co-founder of two mechanical engineering software companies.) And they were responsible for helping our 3 rd party software group reach the right application providers to port their software to our computer. be a user of software (for the consumer use case).

Engineer 198

Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 198

Steve Blank

MARCH 16, 2016

If you’re building enterprise software, the list may be larger. After awhile, you ought to be able to go to the whiteboard and diagram the acquisition decision process much like a sales process. Do you wait 7 years until you’ve built enough revenue for a billion-dollar sale? Typically, a VC can force a sale, or even block one.

Liquidity Event 120

Liquidity Event Founder Liquidation Preference Venture Capital 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 27, 2020

You look the same whether you are playing poker or making a sales call, in a suit or without pants. It’s a productivity killer for sales. There are already startups offering emotion detection and analytics software that measure speech patterns and facial cues to infer feelings and attention levels. Exchange business cards?

Video 436

Video Bandwidth Conversion Lean 436

Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2015

Eric Ries co-founded Catalyst Recruiting while attending Yale, and continued his entrepreneurial career as a Senior Software Engineer at There.com. The focus of our first segment with Eric was, “What is the Lean Startup” and how did it start? He later co-founded and served as CTO of IMVU and then authored The Lean Startup.

Lean 120

Lean Technical Cofounder Silicon Valley Channel 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 11, 2013

Medical Device Distribution Channels in general are a sales team hired directly by the company. A sales team typically includes a sales person and clinical applications specialists. They assist with the sale and work with marketing to create demand. Some device industries are controlled by distributors (indirect sales.).

Distribution 224

Distribution Channel Lean Intellectual Property 224

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 2, 2013

They began the class believing they were selling an open data and software platform for people with Type 1 Diabetes into a multi-sided market comprised of patients, providers, device makers, app builders and researchers. Howard Look , CEO of Tidepool, was VP of Software and User Experience at TiVo.

Customer 323

Customer Churn Rate Customer Development Lean 323

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

And since the card was useless without any application software, what other software products did they use on it? I knew we were selling through a multi-level indirect sales channel. That’s a mouthful to say that our sales people didn’t sell our products directly to a customer. The result is usually hilarious.

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 185

Steve Blank

MARCH 3, 2015

The irony is that once you’ve gone through the lean cycle, you have all the information that goes in a business plan: customers, sales strategy, product features, and financial metrics. I often hear the concern that the Lean LaunchPad only works for software. It’s just that they are validated instead of made up.).

Business Plan 120

Business Plan Silicon Valley Saudi Arabia Lean 120

Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2014

For the last 75 years products (both durable goods and software) were built via Waterfall development. In the past both hardware and software were engineered using Waterfall development, a process that moves through new product development one-step-at-a-time. Software at times had an upgrade path, often it required a new purchase.).

Continuous Deployment 329

Continuous Deployment Customer Agile Cloud 329

Steve Blank

APRIL 4, 2011

This week, our first team up was PersonalLibraries (the team that had software to help researchers manage, share and reference the thousands of papers in their personal libraries.) Sales process: buyer/ user/ influencer etc.? We offered some examples of what a sales funnel looked like. The news from customers was not good.

Customer 234

Customer Business Model Nebraska Cloud 234

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2021

By comparison, last year’s global market for software-as-a-service, one of the hottest sectors for startup creation and investment, was estimated at $104 billion. Investors are also likely to express impatience with the long timelines of defense sales. Defense Department. The military awarded $445 billion in contracts in 2020.

Artificial Inteligence 326

Artificial Inteligence Marketing Startup Silicon Valley 326