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?

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley Technical Review IPO Venture Capital 217

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

——— I’m not sure I believe every one of the report conclusions – it just covers very early stage web startups, and the methodology is still shaky – but this is a landmark study. Filed under: Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital. Download the full Startup Genome report here.

Technical Cofounder 333

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 333

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2011

These weren’t 22-year olds who wanted to build a social shopping web site. The gamble was that we could train Professors doing hard-core science, who had never been near a startup or Silicon Valley, to get out of the building and talk to customers and Pivot as easily as someone at a web startup. The Innovation Corps Startup Team.

Incubator 301

Incubator Government Silicon Valley Lean 301

Steve Blank

MAY 17, 2010

The plan describes the execution strategy for addressing these “knowns.&# In the early days of venture capital, investors and entrepreneurs were familiar with the format of business plans from large company and adopted it for startups. There are now examples of business model presentations on the web.

Business Plan 312

Business Plan Business Model Customer Development Deal Flow 312

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

Brendan McManus said: “Lessons Learned” – A New Type of Venture Capital Pitch [link] #startup #advice [.] Lessons Learned” – A New Type of Venture Capital Pitch « Steve Blank (tags: presentations presuation vc startup) [.] Lessons Learned” – A New Type of Venture Capital Pitch [.]

Venture Capital 209

Venture Capital Silicon Valley RSS Hockey Stick 209

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2011

Venture Capital ; met with the local hardware/software venture capital firm. Incubators : toured the TechArb , the engineering student accelerator, and the Michigan Venture Center in the University’s Tech Transfer Office. You Can’t Start a Fire Without A Spark – A Lack of Venture Capital.

Michigan 307

Michigan Silicon Valley Venture Capital Incubator 307

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

The previous post described the evolution of the Chinese Venture Capital system. China Venture Capital. If it’s driven by profit then the ecosystem needs both entrepreneurs as well as Venture Finance. China has the biggest Venture Capital industry outside the U.S. Entrepreneurship in Beijing.

Silicon Valley 267

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 267

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

The book has been shepherded and edited by a great Japanese VC at Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Venture Capital, Takashi Tsutsumi, with help from Masato Iino. The result: great success of my third startup, a load balancing technology for web servers back in the late 1990’s. ————-.

Japan 292

Japan Customer Development Developer Customer 292

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

As the venture capital business has come roaring back in the last 5 years, startups are awash in available capital. Ask Sony about Samsung, ask any retailer about Amazon, any car company about Tesla, and any newspaper company about the web. The stock market clearly values companies that can deliver disruptive innovation.

Private Equity 325

Private Equity Metrics China Business Model 325

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

If you take funding from a venture capital firm or angel investor and want to build a large, enduring company (rather than sell it to the highest bidder), this isn’t the decade to do it. The collapse of the IPO market and dysfunctional math in the venture capital community has stacked the odds against you. Here’s why.

Venture Capital 297

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 297

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2010

After Stanford, Ann joined Mike Maples’ Venture Capital firm Floodgate as a partner. They set up and keep the class web site updated. And if it’s a web-based product, they’ll have to build it.). Over the summer we had both been impressed with Alexander Osterwalder’s Business Model Template work.

Business Model 226

Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 226

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2010

Lets take venture capital and grow this thing into a real business.”. Typically the size of their opportunity and company doesn’t lend itself to attracting venture capital. The Web and Startups. Herein lies the confusion; not every business on the web can scale big. The Scalable Startup.

Hockey Stick 276

Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder 276

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2010

Consumer Internet investing seems to have split off from traditional Venture Capital, and is creating a new category of VC’s: Lean VC’s. Electron-based Venture Capital. When I first came to Silicon Valley the world of Venture Capital looked pretty simple. Here’s why.

Lean 258

Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 258

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

The previous post described the evolution of the Chinese Venture Capital system. China Venture Capital. If it’s driven by profit then the ecosystem needs both entrepreneurs as well as Venture Finance. China has the biggest Venture Capital industry outside the U.S. Entrepreneurship in Beijing.

Silicon Valley 159

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 159

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2010

Most of the advice founders get about Venture Capital slide decks are from the recipients of the presentations – the VC’s – letting you know how they want to see the final deck. And you won’t know any more by sitting in your office surfing the web and writing more slides. Filed under: Venture Capital.

Venture Capital 263

Venture Capital Algorithm Business Plan Business Model 263

Steve Blank

JULY 28, 2011

The combination of Venture Capital and technology entrepreneurship is one of the great business inventions of the last 50 years. See the NSF web page here. Filed under: Lean LaunchPad , Teaching , Venture Capital. It provides private funds for untested and unproven technology and entrepreneurs.

Engineer 278

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Intellectual Property 278

Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

Customer Development/Lean Startups In hindsight startups and the venture capital community left out the most important first step any startup ought to be doing – hypothesis testing in front of customers- from day one. I have an idea for how to connect user social web conversations to 2-way search and contextual advertising.

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review Lean 179

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

As part of a small web dev shop, it’s harder to explain to the business people why XYZ can or cannot function as they want when they don’t understand my area of expertise, but it is easy to explain to the client why our products will help them do their job better because of my domain experience.

Engineer 198

Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 198

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

The combination of Venture Capital and technology startups is only about 50 years old. Rather than invent a new form of corporate governance, venture investors adopted the traditional board meeting structure from large corporations. Silicon Valley, New York). Here’s how. Because We’ve Always Done It This Way.

Silicon Valley 290

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Business Model Balance Sheet 290

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2016

I didn’t know the first thing about how to start a company, but I kept reading Wired and learning about all the different venture capital firms and what people were getting funded for and that sort of thing. If you can’t hear the clip, click here. You don’t need money; you just need to carve out a little bit of time.

Detroit 120

Detroit Baltimore Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

To support sales, Marketing tries to “make up a better story,” and the web site and/or product presentation slides start changing (sometimes weekly or even daily). Reply Customer Development – Not Just for Web Startups » Biotech by the Bay , on May 1, 2010 at 11:34 am Said: [.] The board raises a collective eyebrow.

Customer Development 224

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 224

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

The combination of Venture Capital and technology startups is only about 50 years old. Rather than invent a new form of corporate governance, venture investors adopted the traditional board meeting structure from large corporations. Silicon Valley, New York). Here’s how. Because We’ve Always Done It This Way.

Silicon Valley 258

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 258

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2011

No one doubts that social networks and web and mobile applications are reinventing commerce. Filed under: Venture Capital. We are seeing this bubble unfold by the book. Obviously, some of these companies will have hundreds of millions of customers, unprecedented revenue growth and great profits.

Silicon Valley 327

Silicon Valley Stealth Valuation Mississippi 327

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

Ignore This Post The same caveat applies as in the first post; If you’re selling via the web, and trade shows seem hopelessly anachronistic, ignore this post. Why are you saying that “If you’re selling via the web and trade shows are something your grandfather told you about, ignore this post.&#. this may be a useful read.

Silicon Valley 128

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 128

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

New Century, New Channels For many of you reading this, boxes sitting on a retail shelf may seem hopelessly outdated, but the same marketing lessons hold for “award winning&# web sites or social media.

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Invention Risk - Click to Enlarge For companies building web-based products, product development may be difficult, but with enough time and iteration engineering will eventually converge on a solution and ship a functional product - i t’s engineering, not invention. The real risk in markets like Web 2.0

Vertical 144

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 144

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

It is web-based, fast and easy and soon to may be available on the iPhone. I am currently a young entreprenuer working on my first web-based start-up and I am using the Customer Development model Ash uses. Reply drewsing , on December 7, 2009 at 11:12 am Said: Wow.

Silicon Valley 225

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 225

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

Over time, open source software the rise of the next wave of web startups and the embrace of Agile Engineering meant that startups no longer needed millions of dollars to buy specialized computers and license expensive software – they could start a company on their credit cards. Filed under: Technology , Venture Capital.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Steve Blank

JUNE 17, 2011

Do the new wave of social/web/mobile/cloud companies going public have valuations which exceeds their fundamental value by a large margin? Filed under: Venture Capital. Bubbles attract Marks and Shills to new shiny toys, not existing ones…, Apple, Amazon, et al are not the current objects of desire of this bubble.

Investment Bankers 310

Investment Bankers Stock Valuation Venture Capital 310

Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

It surely lifted my spirits once again in my quest to seek funding from venture capitalists and to keep silencing my critics and proving them that i can achieve my milestones and goals in my very ambitious web application. BTW, I personally would _never_ “find&# a founder over the web. Thanks Steve!

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review California 120

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

and if a web-based product, a minimum feature set,) all delivered in 10 weeks. Suggested Projects: While your first instinct may be a web-based startup we suggest that you consider a subject in which you are a domain expert, such as your graduate research. Teams that select a web-based product will have to build the site for the class.

Wiki 311

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 311

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

link] a few seconds ago from web [.] Un très bon article qui revient sur les traits de caractères nécessaires pour rejoindre une startup, suivant son profil : fondateurs, tous premiers employés et employés qui arrivent lorsque la société est déjà bien lancée. [.] If I succeed, it will be the most rewarding thing I have ever done.

Cofounder 219

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 219

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 1, 2011

In Silicon Valley the equivalent is the journeyman coder or web designer who loves the technology, and takes coding and U/I jobs because it’s a passion. Scalable startups require risk capital to fund their search for a business model, and they attract investment from equally crazy financial investors – venture capitalists.

Government 335

Government Silicon Valley Startup Venture Capital 335

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 29, 2019

The cycle of creative destruction of the old being replaced by the new continues, fueled by angel and venture capital. Platform changes (web to mobile), faster technology (3G to 4G to 5G), commoditization of tech (Cloud). And therein lies the catch – investors have longer memories of failures than new entrepreneurs.

Bandwidth 281

Bandwidth Database Venture Capital Demand 281

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

We will accomplish this through demand-creation activities (advertising, PR, tradeshows, seminars, web sites, etc.), To do that we will create end-user demand and drive it into the sales channel, educate the channel and customers about why our products are superior, and help Engineering understand customer needs and desires.

Silicon Valley 259

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 259

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

Marketers believe creating a killer web presence, corporate presentation, are objectives. While the product is being engineered, Marketing begins to create web sites, corporate presentations and sales materials. All this leads up to a flurry of press events and interviews, all geared to the product/web site launch date.

Customer Development 215

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 215

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2019

In addition to Stanford I also teach at Columbia, and at these research universities – Stanford, Columbia, Berkeley, and others – they all now have an internal incubator, they have maker spaces, they have their own venture funds, they connect to the community, they connect to venture capital. It’s a big idea.

Incubator 331

Incubator Lean Programming Government 331