INDUSTRY INSIGHTS YOUR PEERS ARE READING
This post is part of my series “ Startup Lessons &#. Elephants, Deer and Rabbits – Some thoughts on start-up segmentation. Nearly all of the mistakes I made at my first company I fixed by the time of my second company. MORE
This is part of my Startup Advice series. I often have career discussions with entrepreneurs – both young and more mature – whether they should join company “X&# or not. I usually pull the old trick of answering a question with a question. MORE
One of our internal mantras at TechStars is to “publish your data.” We encourage every team to do this starting very early in their life. To this day, I still get daily performance reports (I refer to them as TPS reports) from many of the companies that have gone through the program. Last week, David Cohen published all of the historical TechStars data. 39 companies have gone through the program to date (30 through Boulder and 9 through Boston). MORE
This is part of my series with Advice on Raising Venture Capital. I recently wrote a post on how to Deal with your Elephants in the Room during your VC meetings. Elephants being big issues that the VC will be thinking whether you bring it to his/her attention or not. MORE
The “Good” Student » 14 Responses Shane Rogers , on April 6, 2009 at 1:37 pm Said: The names of ‘secret’ customers is funny. Reply Bill , on April 7, 2009 at 12:09 pm Said: Interesting how much influence the military has had on our technology industry. MORE
This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. Many entrepreneurs who start technology companies are product people, technologists or savvy business people who worked previously for a larger company. Most start-up entrepreneurs have little or no sales experience. I know I didn’t. MORE
This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. If you haven’t spent time over there you should. MORE
Reply Jesse Farmer , on April 7, 2009 at 8:53 am Said: Customers don’t ask for your transcript. Martin , on April 7, 2009 at 9:40 am Said: There’s a wide spectrum between A student and dropout. Midas Oracle.NET , on August 30, 2009 at 11:53 pm Said: [.] MORE
This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. If you haven’t spent time over there you should. MORE
Getting B-52s through the Soviet Air Defense System Posted on March 29, 2009 by steveblank This is post II of how I came to write “ The Secret History of Silicon Valley “ 1974. Reply Calvin Chin , on April 3, 2009 at 4:21 pm Said: Great war stories, Steve. MORE
Sometimes financial decisions that are seemingly rational on their face can precipitate mass exodus of your best engineers. We Hired the CFO. Last week as a favor to a friend, I sat in on a board meeting of a fairly successful 3½ year-old startup. MORE
I'm beginning my final preparation for my presentation at eLearn 2009. As I did for my keynote at ASTD TechKnowledge in January, I'm using what I described in Twitter Conference Ideas. Particularly I'm using TweetLater to plan out my presentation and hopefully provide value to participants and people who are not attending but who might be interested in what I'm presenting. MORE
150 
In the first post in this three part series I described why I believe the VC market froze between September 2008 – April 2009. Unemployment continues to rise – Unemployment as of September 2009 is 9.7% MORE
This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. If you haven’t spent time over there you should. MORE
The 2009 CompStudy website has lots of little gems like this one. MORE
Business Etiquette Tips for dealing with VCs and Corporates at Conferences. This is part of my ongoing series with Startup Advice. With the LeWeb conference about to start in Paris I thought the timing of this post would be appropriate. MORE
This is part of my Startup Advice series. I had a picture in the office of my first company with the logo above and the capital letters JFDI. (In MORE
I wonder if 2009 is the year that some wireless startups breakthrough. What is different in 2009 versus 1996 is that we do have a user base, we have some awesome devices that are cheap, powerful, and easy to use, and we have all you can eat service plans with unlimited data. The post Is 2009 the year of mobile computing? MORE
This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. Many startup companies hire advisory boards. It’s very tempting. It’s mostly done by first-time entrepreneurs who want to persuade (bribe?) prominent industry luminaries to be closely associated with the company. MORE
Last month we Launched Los Angeles Tech and in the announcement we provide the Hot List for the first half of January 2009. Top for January 16, 2009 - January 31, 2009 Posts Are You Selling Online Yet? This hot list is based on various social signals of what people are writing about, reading, bookmarking, searching, etc. You can go to the Hot List post to see what was hot then. MORE
Reply Jonathan Payne , on May 20, 2009 at 8:43 pm Said: fascinating. Reply Candy B , on May 18, 2009 at 8:58 am Said: Your THEORY is well founded! Reply Amy , on May 18, 2009 at 9:15 am Said: I think it’s a little muddy with cause vs effect. MORE
This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. If you haven’t spent time over there you should. MORE
This is part of my ongoing series of posts and I need to file this one under both Raising Venture Capital and Startup Advice. I remember going to an Under the Radar conference in 2006 in the heat of the Web 2.0 craze. There were tons of young entrepreneurs showing their latest Web 2.0 wares. MORE
Reply chris , on May 13, 2009 at 6:38 am Said: That was magnificent. Reply TJIC from SmartFlix , on May 13, 2009 at 6:49 am Said: Gravity turned off – outstanding! Reply Steve Blank Suspends Gravity: Context And Authority , on May 13, 2009 at 9:23 am Said: [.] MORE
In the last post I beat you to death about ditching your business plan but failed to provide an alternative. MORE
Only Hire A+ People Who Punch Above Their Weight Class. This is part of my ongoing posts on Startup Advice. There are people who tell startups that they should hire the most senior people that they can find. I’m not one of those. MORE
I would argue that the shut-down of September 2009 was equally severe yet there are signs that this “VC Ice Age” has begun to thaw. Bu when you start to worry that the world is ending (as it seemed it was in late 2008 / early 2009) you tend to get worried about large burn rates. MORE
Filed under: Customer Development , Family/Career , Technology | Tagged: Steve Blank , Entrepreneurs , Tips for Startups « Lies Entrepreneurs Tell Themselves Elephants Can Dance – Reinventing HP » 67 Responses Michael Curry 2.0 , on June 18, 2009 at 6:08 am Said: Steve- Many thanks for your last two posts. thanks Reply Ben Yoskovitz , on June 18, 2009 at 7:13 am Said: Steve – Great post. on June 18, 2009 at 10:38 am Said: [.] MORE
"You need a business plan" is the mantra of MBA types. As they say , businesses don't plan to fail, they fail to plan! Who could argue with such a clever turn of phrase? Let's do some quotes: "Without a business plan, how will you know whether you can make a profit?" ( source ). "A MORE
Posted on June 11, 2009 by steveblank When my students ask me about whether they should be a founder or cofounder of a startup I ask them to take a walk around the block and ask themselves: Are you comfortable with: Chaos – startups are disorganized Uncertainty – startups never go per plan Are you: Resilient – at times you will fail – badly. Reply YA , on June 14, 2009 at 10:48 am Said: Interesting. on June 29, 2009 at 3:56 pm Said: [.] MORE
This is part of my ongoing series “Start-up Lessons”. Tonight I was reading a good blog post ( here ) from Sean Powers with Alistair Croll on preparing yourself for the TC50 “bump” – the rise in traffic that a company gets from presenting at TechCrunch 50. MORE
This is part of my ongoing series called “ Start-up Lessons.&#. I was reading Chris Dixon’s blog tonight. He writes with a great perspective and is well worth reading. MORE
If you’re thinking about raising VC and have not yet started the process, you’ve probably already missed the boat for 2009. This is part of my series on Raising Venture Capital. MORE
This is part of my Startup Advice series. Before I started my first company in 1999 I worked for Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). MORE
scott Reply Daily Links #54 | CloudKnow , on April 20, 2009 at 11:42 pm Said: [.] Reply Jamie Varon - techVenture , on April 23, 2009 at 3:05 pm Said: Great post! Reply Natalie Laurel , on May 7, 2009 at 10:56 pm Said: Alex Miroshnichenko of Virsto sent this link to me. MORE
This is part of my Startup Advice series of posts. I heard Bruce Dunlevie of Benchmark Capital say these words at a conference in London nearly 10 years ago. I jotted the words down (I normally pay little attention to anything said at conferences. MORE
This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. If you haven’t spent time over there you should. I started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute: Tenacity. MORE
Reply Bill Allred , on May 1, 2009 at 10:46 am Said: This is a really common pitfall. Reply Niall Smart , on May 2, 2009 at 12:20 am Said: Great story – your point about snazzy design vs. actual impact is still relevant in the context of spending money on outsourced web graphic design. MORE
On October 2nd 2009 I will be participating in an event called The Feast Kitchen where startups will get to present their ideas for social good. These are companies (some non-profit some for profit) trying to make the world a better place. MORE
Somehow I allowed myself to get talked into doing the Pecha Kucha at the 2009 Business of Software conference in San Francisco (seriously though, I want to thank Jeff Atwood for convincing me to go through with it). MORE
Reply Richard Jordan , on November 5, 2009 at 3:36 pm Said: Steve, best article yet. Reply links for 2009-11-05 « Blarney Fellow , on November 5, 2009 at 4:16 pm Said: [.] Reply Knowtu » links for 2009-11-05 , on November 5, 2009 at 5:11 pm Said: [.] MORE
I’ve mentioned this survey several times before, but this time I bring news of the 2009 survey opening to participants. I think the 2009 data will be very interesting as it will reflect the effects of the overall economy as well as provide global comparisons. MORE
Martin , on November 9, 2009 at 6:41 am Said: Hmm… Not to get too meta here… But if the point of this post is to teach us how to distinguish motion from action (even partly), I didn’t get much help. Esteban , on November 12, 2009 at 10:37 am Said: Distinguishing them is quite easy, at least if you take the relentless part to heart. Reply Brad the Wordpress Consultant , on November 9, 2009 at 11:21 am Said: Awesome article. MORE
2009 Related Topics SoCal CTO
OCTOBER 26, 2009
I'm beginning my final preparation for my presentation at eLearn 2009. As I did for my keynote at ASTD TechKnowledge in January, I'm using what I described in Twitter Conference Ideas. Particularly I'm using TweetLater to plan out my presentation and hopefully provide value to participants and people who are not attending but who might be interested in what I'm presenting.
Altgate
APRIL 26, 2009
I’ve mentioned this survey several times before, but this time I bring news of the 2009 survey opening to participants. I think the 2009 data will be very interesting as it will reflect the effects of the overall economy as well as provide global comparisons.
SoCal CTO
FEBRUARY 4, 2009
Last month we Launched Los Angeles Tech and in the announcement we provide the Hot List for the first half of January 2009. Top for January 16, 2009 - January 31, 2009 Posts Are You Selling Online Yet? This hot list is based on various social signals of what people are writing about, reading, bookmarking, searching, etc. You can go to the Hot List post to see what was hot then.
Steve Blank
MARCH 28, 2009
Getting B-52s through the Soviet Air Defense System Posted on March 29, 2009 by steveblank This is post II of how I came to write “ The Secret History of Silicon Valley “ 1974. Reply Calvin Chin , on April 3, 2009 at 4:21 pm Said: Great war stories, Steve.
Steve Blank
DECEMBER 21, 2009
Sometimes financial decisions that are seemingly rational on their face can precipitate mass exodus of your best engineers. We Hired the CFO. Last week as a favor to a friend, I sat in on a board meeting of a fairly successful 3½ year-old startup.
Steve Blank
APRIL 6, 2009
The “Good” Student » 14 Responses Shane Rogers , on April 6, 2009 at 1:37 pm Said: The names of ‘secret’ customers is funny. Reply Bill , on April 7, 2009 at 12:09 pm Said: Interesting how much influence the military has had on our technology industry.
Feld Thoughts
MARCH 15, 2010
One of our internal mantras at TechStars is to “publish your data.” We encourage every team to do this starting very early in their life. To this day, I still get daily performance reports (I refer to them as TPS reports) from many of the companies that have gone through the program. Last week, David Cohen published all of the historical TechStars data. 39 companies have gone through the program to date (30 through Boulder and 9 through Boston).
Both Sides of the Table
NOVEMBER 4, 2009
This is part of my Startup Advice series. I often have career discussions with entrepreneurs – both young and more mature – whether they should join company “X&# or not. I usually pull the old trick of answering a question with a question.
Both Sides of the Table
NOVEMBER 19, 2009
This is part of my Startup Advice series. I had a picture in the office of my first company with the logo above and the capital letters JFDI. (In
Steve Blank
APRIL 7, 2009
Reply Jesse Farmer , on April 7, 2009 at 8:53 am Said: Customers don’t ask for your transcript. Martin , on April 7, 2009 at 9:40 am Said: There’s a wide spectrum between A student and dropout. Midas Oracle.NET , on August 30, 2009 at 11:53 pm Said: [.]
Steve Blank
APRIL 30, 2009
Reply Bill Allred , on May 1, 2009 at 10:46 am Said: This is a really common pitfall. Reply Niall Smart , on May 2, 2009 at 12:20 am Said: Great story – your point about snazzy design vs. actual impact is still relevant in the context of spending money on outsourced web graphic design.
Both Sides of the Table
SEPTEMBER 16, 2009
This post is part of my series “ Startup Lessons &#. Elephants, Deer and Rabbits – Some thoughts on start-up segmentation. Nearly all of the mistakes I made at my first company I fixed by the time of my second company.
Software By Rob
NOVEMBER 12, 2009
Somehow I allowed myself to get talked into doing the Pecha Kucha at the 2009 Business of Software conference in San Francisco (seriously though, I want to thank Jeff Atwood for convincing me to go through with it).
BeyondVC
JANUARY 12, 2009
I wonder if 2009 is the year that some wireless startups breakthrough. What is different in 2009 versus 1996 is that we do have a user base, we have some awesome devices that are cheap, powerful, and easy to use, and we have all you can eat service plans with unlimited data. The post Is 2009 the year of mobile computing?
Both Sides of the Table
DECEMBER 14, 2009
This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. If you haven’t spent time over there you should.
Eric Friedman
SEPTEMBER 22, 2009
On October 2nd 2009 I will be participating in an event called The Feast Kitchen where startups will get to present their ideas for social good. These are companies (some non-profit some for profit) trying to make the world a better place.
Steve Blank
MAY 18, 2009
Reply Jonathan Payne , on May 20, 2009 at 8:43 pm Said: fascinating. Reply Candy B , on May 18, 2009 at 8:58 am Said: Your THEORY is well founded! Reply Amy , on May 18, 2009 at 9:15 am Said: I think it’s a little muddy with cause vs effect.
Both Sides of the Table
NOVEMBER 3, 2009
This is part of my ongoing series of posts and I need to file this one under both Raising Venture Capital and Startup Advice. I remember going to an Under the Radar conference in 2006 in the heat of the Web 2.0 craze. There were tons of young entrepreneurs showing their latest Web 2.0 wares.
Both Sides of the Table
NOVEMBER 5, 2009
This is part of my Startup Advice series of posts. I heard Bruce Dunlevie of Benchmark Capital say these words at a conference in London nearly 10 years ago. I jotted the words down (I normally pay little attention to anything said at conferences.
Steve Blank
JUNE 18, 2009
Filed under: Customer Development , Family/Career , Technology | Tagged: Steve Blank , Entrepreneurs , Tips for Startups « Lies Entrepreneurs Tell Themselves Elephants Can Dance – Reinventing HP » 67 Responses Michael Curry 2.0 , on June 18, 2009 at 6:08 am Said: Steve- Many thanks for your last two posts. thanks Reply Ben Yoskovitz , on June 18, 2009 at 7:13 am Said: Steve – Great post. on June 18, 2009 at 10:38 am Said: [.]
Altgate
NOVEMBER 30, 2009
The 2009 CompStudy website has lots of little gems like this one.
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
DECEMBER 21, 2009
In the last post I beat you to death about ditching your business plan but failed to provide an alternative.
Both Sides of the Table
SEPTEMBER 7, 2009
This is part of my ongoing series called “ Start-up Lessons.&#. I was reading Chris Dixon’s blog tonight. He writes with a great perspective and is well worth reading.
Both Sides of the Table
DECEMBER 7, 2009
Business Etiquette Tips for dealing with VCs and Corporates at Conferences. This is part of my ongoing series with Startup Advice. With the LeWeb conference about to start in Paris I thought the timing of this post would be appropriate.
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
DECEMBER 14, 2009
"You need a business plan" is the mantra of MBA types. As they say , businesses don't plan to fail, they fail to plan! Who could argue with such a clever turn of phrase? Let's do some quotes: "Without a business plan, how will you know whether you can make a profit?" ( source ). "A
Both Sides of the Table
OCTOBER 22, 2009
Only Hire A+ People Who Punch Above Their Weight Class. This is part of my ongoing posts on Startup Advice. There are people who tell startups that they should hire the most senior people that they can find. I’m not one of those.
Steve Blank
JUNE 11, 2009
Posted on June 11, 2009 by steveblank When my students ask me about whether they should be a founder or cofounder of a startup I ask them to take a walk around the block and ask themselves: Are you comfortable with: Chaos – startups are disorganized Uncertainty – startups never go per plan Are you: Resilient – at times you will fail – badly. Reply YA , on June 14, 2009 at 10:48 am Said: Interesting. on June 29, 2009 at 3:56 pm Said: [.]
Both Sides of the Table
NOVEMBER 16, 2009
This is part of my Startup Advice series. Before I started my first company in 1999 I worked for Andersen Consulting (now Accenture).
Steve Blank
NOVEMBER 5, 2009
Reply Richard Jordan , on November 5, 2009 at 3:36 pm Said: Steve, best article yet. Reply links for 2009-11-05 « Blarney Fellow , on November 5, 2009 at 4:16 pm Said: [.] Reply Knowtu » links for 2009-11-05 , on November 5, 2009 at 5:11 pm Said: [.]
Both Sides of the Table
NOVEMBER 7, 2009
If you’re thinking about raising VC and have not yet started the process, you’ve probably already missed the boat for 2009. This is part of my series on Raising Venture Capital.
Steve Blank
APRIL 20, 2009
scott Reply Daily Links #54 | CloudKnow , on April 20, 2009 at 11:42 pm Said: [.] Reply Jamie Varon - techVenture , on April 23, 2009 at 3:05 pm Said: Great post! Reply Natalie Laurel , on May 7, 2009 at 10:56 pm Said: Alex Miroshnichenko of Virsto sent this link to me.
Both Sides of the Table
NOVEMBER 12, 2009
This is part of my series with Advice on Raising Venture Capital. I recently wrote a post on how to Deal with your Elephants in the Room during your VC meetings. Elephants being big issues that the VC will be thinking whether you bring it to his/her attention or not.
Both Sides of the Table
OCTOBER 4, 2009
This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. Many entrepreneurs who start technology companies are product people, technologists or savvy business people who worked previously for a larger company. Most start-up entrepreneurs have little or no sales experience. I know I didn’t.
Both Sides of the Table
DECEMBER 16, 2009
This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. If you haven’t spent time over there you should. I started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute: Tenacity.
Steve Blank
MAY 13, 2009
Reply chris , on May 13, 2009 at 6:38 am Said: That was magnificent. Reply TJIC from SmartFlix , on May 13, 2009 at 6:49 am Said: Gravity turned off – outstanding! Reply Steve Blank Suspends Gravity: Context And Authority , on May 13, 2009 at 9:23 am Said: [.]
Both Sides of the Table
OCTOBER 1, 2009
In the first post in this three part series I described why I believe the VC market froze between September 2008 – April 2009. Unemployment continues to rise – Unemployment as of September 2009 is 9.7%
Both Sides of the Table
DECEMBER 18, 2009
This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. If you haven’t spent time over there you should.
Both Sides of the Table
OCTOBER 11, 2009
This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. Many startup companies hire advisory boards. It’s very tempting. It’s mostly done by first-time entrepreneurs who want to persuade (bribe?) prominent industry luminaries to be closely associated with the company.
Both Sides of the Table
DECEMBER 19, 2009
This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. If you haven’t spent time over there you should.
Steve Blank
NOVEMBER 9, 2009
Martin , on November 9, 2009 at 6:41 am Said: Hmm… Not to get too meta here… But if the point of this post is to teach us how to distinguish motion from action (even partly), I didn’t get much help. Esteban , on November 12, 2009 at 10:37 am Said: Distinguishing them is quite easy, at least if you take the relentless part to heart. Reply Brad the Wordpress Consultant , on November 9, 2009 at 11:21 am Said: Awesome article.
Both Sides of the Table
SEPTEMBER 13, 2009
This is part of my ongoing series “Start-up Lessons”. Tonight I was reading a good blog post ( here ) from Sean Powers with Alistair Croll on preparing yourself for the TC50 “bump” – the rise in traffic that a company gets from presenting at TechCrunch 50.
Both Sides of the Table
DECEMBER 17, 2009
This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. If you haven’t spent time over there you should.
Both Sides of the Table
SEPTEMBER 29, 2009
I would argue that the shut-down of September 2009 was equally severe yet there are signs that this “VC Ice Age” has begun to thaw. Bu when you start to worry that the world is ending (as it seemed it was in late 2008 / early 2009) you tend to get worried about large burn rates.
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