Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Filed under: SuperMac | Tagged: Early Stage Startup , Steve Blank « There’s a Pattern Here SuperMac War Story 2: Facts Exist Outside the Building, Opinions Reside Within – So Get the Hell Outside the Building » Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

It took me 8 startups and 21 years to get it right, (and one can argue success was due to the Internet bubble rather then any brilliance.) No internet, no blogs, no books on startups, no entrepreneurship departments in universities, etc. It took lots of trial and error, learning by experience and resilience through multiple failures.

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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.

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Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2009

Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. luck… and as one of Steve Blank’s posts today mentioned, you can’t test hypotheses from within your building. Now In Print!

Customer Development 125

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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. We were on the University of North Carolina campus to meet with Fred Brooks and Henry Fuchs. We were sitting in our cheap hotel room when the phone rang.

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 26, 2009

So no post today on entrepreneurship, Secret History of Silicon Valley, Customer Development, Lean Startups, etc. This post was mentioned on Twitter by Brendan McManus, [Startup Digest]. Startup Digest] said: Thanksgiving Day [link] [via @sgblank] [.] Just a reflection on my family and hopes for our children.

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

This tendency is a two edged sword: by iterating strategy a startup can dramatically improve the size and trajectory of the company, but at times this process can be the bane of venture investors (and why they have prematurely grey hair.)

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Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2009

Reducing Risk – Simulation versus Customer Development If you remember the first part of this discussion, startups face two types of risk; invention risk and/or customer/market risk. In either type of startup you want to put in place processes in place to reduce risk.

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

I was between my 7th and 8th and final startup; licking my wounds from Rocket Science, the company I had cratered as my first and last attempt as a startup CEO. I was consulting for the two venture capital firms who between them put $12 million into my last failed startup. (My It was a long way from Ellis Island.)

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Five Quarters of Profitability During the 1980’s and through the mid 1990’s startups going public had to do something that most companies today never heard of – they had to show a track record of increasing revenue and consistent profitability. They taught you about customers, markets and profits.

Silicon Valley 223

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Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

That is until I saw that in startup after startup customers come from places you don’t plan on. He’s Only in Field Service When I was at Zilog, the Z8000 peripheral chips included the new “ Serial Communications Controller &# ( SCC ).

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Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Startups and Sales If you read this post you can come away with the impression that every startup with a direct salesforce needs a consultative sales team. what Market Type is your startup? Hiring a VP of Sales in customer discovery typically sets a startup back.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. would look in each of the verticals. For example, How does sales differ from one market to another?

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. Over its lifetime a Lean Startup may spend less money than a traditional startup. Lets see why.

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Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

In other words, they are facing conditions of extreme uncertainty, just like startups. But, as any startup can tell you, this opens up a tremendous set of opportunities for the rest of us. Just like with startups, this is a hybrid question. So I generally feel right at home in these conversations. 12comments: Dougvs said.

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Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

Reply Dan , on June 4, 2009 at 7:55 pm Said: Great story — reminds me of one I witnessed, very analogous but about 15 years later: I was working on a digital music startup around ’98, ( [link] ) and pitched it to then CEO of mp3.com Reply Jim Wolcott , on April 28, 2010 at 7:30 pm Said: Steve! com Michael Robertson.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

If these sound like reasonable answers to you, and you are in a startup/small company, update your resume. Most startups put together a corporate mission statement because the CEO remembered seeing one at their last job, or the investors said they needed one. What I was actually hearing was a failure of management.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

Well yes, I understand that, but this is a startup, what else do you want to do? “I Stay out of startups. Just as an aside, over my career I must have interviewed scores of business school graduates (some from the very fine universities where I now teach) who would say, “I want to do strategy.” I just want to do strategy.”

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Steve Blank

MARCH 20, 2009

Facts are the rock on which you build your strategy and tactics In a startup second-hand facts are almost as useless as opinions. It reminded me of “earlier days&# , when I was just starting out in running business operations for startups. Now what was the strategy? What did I learn so far?

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Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

Perhaps if you have a union job based on seniority, but not in any startup I’ve ever seen. When are you and Peter Barrett planning to fire up another startup ? For entrepreneurs good things come to those who ask. What’s Marketing? I can do the former but am desparate to learn the latter.

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Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

Would you sell an ebook version on this site for all the rest of us trying to incorporate your model in our startups? most (interesting) startups you’re either doing something completely new or you’re resegmenting an existing market. Very much in addition to the text. Hope it gets here quick and in one piece!

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Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

And in the tradition of great startups, on the way out Perry took 6 of his best managers with him. In five years, ESL went from a plucky startup to the market leader in Sigint and telemetry intercepts. In 1964, Bill Perry, the head of the lab, frustrated with GTE’s management, quit (GTE, a phone company had bought Sylvania in 1959.)

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Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Best, Miguel Cavalcanti, from Brazil Reply Colin Rae , on September 22, 2010 at 2:20 pm Said: Steve, in many of your posts I’ve noticed you say certain things can not be delegated/outsourced (e.g Reply Miguel Cavalcanti , on May 18, 2009 at 8:12 pm Said: Hello Steve, great pst, tks for sharing your knowledge.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 27, 2009

Reply Augusta Prince , on April 16, 2010 at 3:08 pm Said: My late friend Gordon P. And now am leading a startup of my own ( [link] ) where we’re students of you and Eric Ries’ lean startup principles. invention of electronic warfare, part I and [.] Thanks for connecting the historical dots!

Silicon Valley 185

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 17, 2009

Stanford Industrial Park was the first technology office park set up to house local and out of state microwave and electronics startups. Startups were sprouting all over Microwave Valley delivering microwave tubes and complete military systems, slowiy replacing the orchards and fruit trees.

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Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. These two posts were amazing. Now In Print!

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 23, 2009

sgblank Lean Startup Cirle 111909 This movie requires Adobe Flash for playback. They were kind enough to sponsor a meet-up in San Francisco. The video below was my presentation to the group. The slides below go with the video. Just click through them as you watch the video.

Customer Development 217

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

Resegmentation means these startups are trying to lure some of the current or potential customers away from incumbents by either offering a lower cost product, or by offering features that appealed to a specific niche or subset of the existing users. An Existing Market All four were trying to resegment an “Existing Market.”

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Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

There is no certainty about a startup on day-one. At each startup I couldn’t wait to do this. Fact-based Execution However, successfully executing a startup requires the company to become Fact-based as soon as it can. Faith-based Entrepreneurship At first, entrepreneurship is a Faith-based initiative. Great, sign me up.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Thirty years later we now realize that its one the causes of early startup failure. This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. It has become an integral part of startup culture.

Silicon Valley 263

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 21, 2010

Filed under: Customer Development « Requiem For A Roommate 2 Responses steve , on October 21, 2010 at 7:05 am Said: what did Carl say at 1:12 ? Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. the video skipped or something? Now In Print!

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Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2009

I’ve paraphrased his speech into the language of a startup. Startups are inherently chaos. Every potential startup founder should think about their level of comfort operating in chaos and uncertainty. Both reminded me why National Service would be a very good idea.) It’s eerily similar. It may not be for you.

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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. In the next few posts that follow, I’ll describe how thinking of a solution to this model’s failures led to the Customer Development Model – that offers a new way to approach startup sales and marketing activities.

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Steve Blank

MAY 1, 2009

If you’ve never seen Eric’s Lean Startup presentation, take a few minutes to at least watch his part. Thanks to Dave McClure and Leonard Speiser for the opportunity to speak. The Customer Development talk can be seen here. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 The slides are here.

Customer Development 142

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Steve Blank

DECEMBER 3, 2009

Posted on December 3, 2009 by steveblank In my 21 years of startups I’ve had my ideas “stolen” twice. Filed under: Rocket Science Games « Customer Development is Not a Focus Group Someone Stole My Startup Idea – Part 2: They Raised Money With My Slides?! Once it almost mattered. This is about the time it didn’t.

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

This product development diagram had become part of the DNA of Silicon Valley. This product development diagram had become part of the DNA of Silicon Valley.

Product Development 146

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Eighty some pages later I realized that a) I had some great war stories as a good marketeer and failed CEO, b) I’d have to pay my wife and kids to read them, c) the three of them were probably the entire total available market, and d) when I looked at what I had done and what other entrepreneurs had done at their startups, that there was a pattern.

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