SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Some really great stuff in 2010 that aims to help startups around product, technology, business models, etc. First Principles. Steve Blank , January 25, 2010 10 Tips for Adding Game Mechanics to a Non-Gaming Service - ReadWriteStart , September 21, 2010 Startups & VCs: Learn How to Design, Market, & Eat Your Own. -

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

In 2007, I graduated United States Air Force Academy as a computer engineer and entered the Air Force’s acquisition corps , excited and confident about my ability to bring technology to bear for our airmen. Graduation day with classmate Joseph Helton (right), killed in action in Iraq in 2009. I know our cadets will make us proud.

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development.

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Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 227

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

We’re standing 15 air miles away from the epicenter of technology innovation. I’ve been asked to talk today about the future of Innovation – typically that involves giving you a list of hot technologies to pay attention to – technologies like machine learning. In fact, it’s not about any specific new technologies.

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Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

Win, lose or draw, these students have a life changing experience where they can network and get smarter as they see what good startup thinking looks like. Martin , on May 7, 2009 at 9:36 am Said: The caveat would be for undergrads at a school like Stanford or Berkeley. I hate business plan competitions. You’ll learn a lot.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 17, 2009

Source: Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation (in constant 2009 $’s) We’ll Do Great in the Next War Early in 1950, just months before the outbreak of the Korean War the Office of Naval Research asked Fred Terman to build an Applied electronics program for electronic warfare. military to rearm and mobilize.

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Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

The SCC had been designed into the Mac and became the hardware which drove all the serial communications as well as the AppleTalk network which allowed Macs to share printers and files. Your Customers are Not Who You Think For years I thought this “million unit chip sale by accident&# was a “one-off&# funny story.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 27, 2009

—————- The next piece of the Secret History of Silicon Valley puzzle came together when Tom Byers , Tina Selig and Mark Leslie invited me to teach entrepreneurship in the Stanford Technology Ventures Program ( STVP ) in Stanford’s School of Engineering. . My office is in the Terman Engineering Building.

Silicon Valley 199

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Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 22, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, June 22, 2009 Pivot, dont jump to a new vision In a lean startup , instead of being organized around traditional functional departments, we use a cross-functional problem team and solution team. Each has its own iterative process: customer development and agile development respectively.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

The application of agile development methodologies which dramatically reduce waste and unlock creativity in product development. See Customer Development Engineering for my first stab at articulating the theory involved) Ferocious customer-centric rapid iteration, as exemplified by the Customer Development process.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 1, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 1, 2009 The Steve Jobs method Image via CrunchBase Its been a long time since I did a post that was primarily a link to another blog with commentary, but I came across something today that I really want to share. August 1, 2009 7:39 AM Ravi Mohan said. August 1, 2009 8:11 AM Michael said.

San Francisco 166

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Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, July 29, 2009 Embrace technical debt Financial debt plays an important and positive role in our economy under normal conditions. For example, I’ve talked often about our belief that an instant messaging add-on product would allow IMVU to take advantage of a network effects strategy.

Technical Review 168

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SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Kathy Sierra at Business of Software 2009 - Business of Software Blog , May 4, 2010 "In the old days, getting customers was easy. Draw Your Ideas - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , May 16, 2010 I saw Jack Dorsey give this talk at The 99% Conference last month. They’re deep into Customer Development ,” he said.

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Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, February 22, 2009 Please teach kids programming, Mr. President Of course, what I really mean is: let them teach themselves. That data is completely consonant with the people I know who are successful technologists today, and similar patterns are documented in each recent wave of technology innovation.

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steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

This video should be the gold standard in explaining contract terms.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

What those sites have in common (despite their very different audiences) is that something is causing their customers to become addicted to their product, and so no matter how they acquire a new customer, they tend to keep them. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

August was a slow month in terms of traffic and I was away for a lot of the month, but there were some really great posts at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. Dec 26, 2009). As most, if not all, of the games on social networks use the freemium business model (i.e. m the f%*kin’ boss.”.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

But the early customers all compared it to MySpace. This was 2004, and we had never even heard of MySpace, let alone had any understanding of social networking. It required hearing customers say it over and over again for us to take a serious look, and eventually to realize that social networking was core to our business.

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Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 27, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, May 27, 2009 Austin: the Lean Startup tour continues Next week I head to Austin, TX for my first visit ever. The Lean Startup is a practical approach for creating and managing a new breed of company that excels in low-cost experimentation, rapid iteration, and true customer insight.

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 29, 2015

He left EA in 2009 to start Vaporware Labs, a product incubator that mostly failed, but also created products including Commonred, which was acquired by Income.com in 2012. … We tried apps, we tried different technologies, we tried different formats, and nothing really worked. ” … This is four years ago. .

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Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

Startups here are primarily in what they call the TMT (Technology, Media and Telecommunications) segment. Not only does Zhongguancun have Chinese startups, but global technology companies (Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Microsoft, IBM, Sun, Oracle, BEA, Alcatel Lucent, Google) all have offices here or elsewhere in Beijing.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, August 24, 2009 Marching through quicksand I have been spending a lot of time lately talking to people in various media companies: editors and agents, executives, journalists, producers and directors. But thanks to new distribution technologies like the Kindle, we will soon.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, September 8, 2009 What would you want to tell Washington DC about startups? September 8, 2009 6:12 PM Geoff Hsaid. September 8, 2009 6:25 PM dbsaid. September 9, 2009 12:36 AM Richard Tibbetts said. Agree with all your points. Current rules are good enough now.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 5, 2008

Spray files across cheap disks on your network. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Towards a new entrepreneurship ► 2009 (88) ► December (4) Continuous deployment for mission-critical applica. MogileFS - "Distributed (meta) file system.

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www.women2.org

MARCH 8, 2012

After quitting my job and starting Sorced , I spent a few months validating my business concept by creating the product mockups and doing customer development. Lead Gen: I utilized my friends, professional contacts, and Harvard networks by sending out emails to list serves, reaching out to people, and getting referrals.

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

For companies in the early-adopter phase, you can play "the earlyvangelist game" whenever a customer turns out to be too mainstream for your product. Pick a similar product that they do use, and ask them "who was the first person you know who started using [social networking, mobile phones, plasma TV, instant messaging.]? So why you?

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 133

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

An existing market is one where competitors have a profitable business selling to customers who can name the market and can tell you about the features that matter to them. Do you know the archetype of their customers? Me –“That’s a great hypothesis, do customers tell you that they’d buy your version if it was cheaper or on the web?

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Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

And in some markets its decisive, because of well-known network effects (as happened with Microsoft, eBay, and many others). But if your product category doesnt have strong network effects, word of mouth alone is not usually enough to fend off a competitor who also has a quality product. So what model will prevail on the iPhone?

Distribution 74

Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

Startups here are primarily in what they call the TMT (Technology, Media and Telecommunications) segment. Not only does Zhongguancun have Chinese startups, but global technology companies (Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Microsoft, IBM, Sun, Oracle, BEA, Alcatel Lucent, Google) all have offices here or elsewhere in Beijing.

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 26, 2009

Stanford and MIT were building on the technology breakthroughs of World War II and graduating a generation of engineers into a consumer and cold war economy that seemed limitless. These technology startups had no risk capital – just customers/purchase orders from government/military/intelligence agencies.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 20, 2008

I also have to include this caveat: we werent purely a software company - we built telecom network devices, hw and sw. Also, our stuff was pretty much useless to our customers if it wasnt full featured AND reliable. krasicki April 3, 2009 7:19 AM control valves said. May 28, 2009 8:54 PM Anonymoussaid. Software Eng.

Software Review 164

Software Review Engineer Management Technical Review 164

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2009

As I ran, if I looked at the base behind the fence I was staring at the most advanced technology of the 20th century. All You Can Read Without a Library Card It was 1978. As the sun came up, I’d step out of the chilled buildings and go for an early morning run outside the perimeter fence to beat the desert heat.

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Steve Blank

JULY 9, 2009

I remember after a month or two of talking to 14-22 year old male gamers (our potential target market,) I realized that for the first time in my career I had no emotional connection to my customers or channel partners. In previous companies I could talk about technology details and how the product features could solve a customers problem.

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Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

Its common to find a hacker at the heart of almost any successful technology company. A really good technology executive can notice problems like the ones Im talking about today and address them proactively. Thats the ultimate task for the companys technology leadership. Hire a CTO or VP Engineering. Does this sound familiar?

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Steve Blank

MARCH 22, 2009

And you’d like me to do my talk on Customer Development and startups?” “No, we’re the other CIA.” Martin , on March 23, 2009 at 5:10 pm Said: A beautiful example of consilience. Reply Christine , on July 23, 2009 at 11:51 am Said: and how, Mr. Martin. Patrick , on March 23, 2009 at 5:19 pm Said: Great story.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 10, 2009

———————– In the 1950′s Stanford University’s Electronics Research Laboratory (ERL) continued to develop innovative microwave tubes for the U.S. Again Stanford technology would solve these challenges. See the Secret History bibliography for sources and supplemental reading.

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Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

I’ve previously documented that early-on in IMVU’s life, we made the mistake of building an IM add-on product instead of a standalone network. We would bring customers in for a usability test, and ask them to use the IM add-on functionality. A whole product is one that works for mainstream customers.

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