INDUSTRY INSIGHTS YOUR PEERS ARE READING
I know a change is going to come. If you’re an early employee at a startup, one day you will wake up to find that what you worked on 24/7 for the last year is no longer the most important thing – you’re no longer the most important employee, and process, meetings, paperwork and managers and bosses have shown up. Most painfully, you’ll learn that your role in the company has to change. I’ve seen these transitions as an investor, board member and CEO. MORE
Success no longer goes to the country that develops a new fighting technology first, but rather to the one that better integrates it and adapts its way of fighting… Our response will be to prioritize speed of delivery, continuous adaptation, and frequent modular upgrades. MORE
Five years ago we brought evidence-based entrepreneurship to Life Sciences – teaching the first Lean Lean Launchpad class at UCSF, then the NIH and Imperial College. But it’s been awhile since I was in a room made up entirely of Life Science entrepreneurs. MORE
Is your organization full of Hackathons, Shark Tanks, Incubators and other innovation programs, but none have changed the trajectory of your company/agency? Over the last few years Pete Newell and I have helped build innovation programs inside large companies, across the U.S. MORE
Annual note to self – most of the world exists outside the tech bubble. —– We have a summer home in New England in a semi-rural area, just ~10,000 people in town, with a potato farm across the street. Drive down the road and you can see the tall stalks of corn waving on other farms. Most people aren’t in tech or law or teaching in universities; they fall solidly in what is called working-class. MORE
The team at Innovation Leader had me over to share some observations on how to survive in a world of disruption in large organizations. It’s worth a listen – here. 5:30: The cultural differences between startups and big companies. 8:30: Not everyone is an innovator. 9:10: Being an ambidextrous organization is the key to survival for a big company. 9:42: Apple stopped changing the world; here’s why. 10:55: The most disruptive companies are driven by founders. MORE
I just read Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley. It was both eye-opening and cringe-worthy. The book explores the role of gender in the tech industry – at startups and venture capital firms – and the interaction between men and women in the two. MORE
I’ve been thinking why the ethical boundaries of todays founder/VC interactions feel so different then they did when I was an entrepreneur. I’ve written about the root causes in an HBR article here and an expanded version here. Worth a read. MORE
When you’re up to your neck in alligators, don’t forget the goal was to drain the swamp. I love teaching because I learn something new every class. This time it was, “Don’t let process distract you from finding the strategy.”. MORE
We just finished our Lean LaunchPad class at UC Berkeley’s engineering school where many of the teams embedded machine learning technology into their products. MORE
If you asked me why I gravitated to startups rather than work in a large company I would have answered at various times: “I want to be my own boss.” “I I love risk.” “I I want flexible work hours.” “I I want to work on tough problems that matter.” “I I have a vision and want to see it through.” “I MORE
I’ve been working with large companies and the U.S. government to help them innovate faster– not just kind of fast, but 10x the number of initiatives in 1/5 the time. A 50x speedup kind of fast. Here’s how. —– Lean Innovation Management. MORE
Last week I got a call from Patrick an ex-student I hadn’t heard from for 8 years. He was now the CEO of a company and wanted to talk about what he admitted was a “first world” problem. MORE
I was having coffee with the CEO of a new startup, listening to her puzzle through how to communicate to potential customers. She was an academic on leave from Stanford now selling SAAS software to large companies, but was being inundated with marketing communications advice. “My MORE
Alexander Osterwalder invented the Business Model Canvas , co-founded strategyzer.com and was the lead author of Business Model Generation which sold a million copies in 30 languages. Alexander and I often collaborate on new ideas for corporate innovation. MORE
Light a path for the better angels. Thank you, Chancellor McLellan, President Florizone, Dean Charlebois, Dr. Hewitt, and Dr. Kilfoil for the invitation to speak today and thank you for the honorary degree. I’m honored to speak at a university whose motto is: Pray and Work. MORE
I am always surprised when critics complain that the Lean Startup’s Build, Measure, Learn approach is nothing more than “throwing incomplete products out of the building to see if they work.”. Unfortunately the Build, Measure, Learn diagram is the cause of that confusion. MORE
Stanford is an incubator with dorms. Download the full text file with links to the courses here. link]. Filed under: Hacking For Defense , Hacking for Diplomacy , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching. Hacking For Defense Hacking for Diplomacy Lean LaunchPad Teaching MORE
I just received a thank-you note from a student who attended a fireside chat I held at the ranch. Something I said seemed to inspire her: “I always thought you needed to be innovative, original to be an entrepreneur. Now I have a different perception. MORE
Stanford is an incubator with dorms. Download the full text file with links to the courses here. Filed under: Hacking For Defense , Hacking for Diplomacy , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching. Hacking For Defense Hacking for Diplomacy Lean LaunchPad Teaching MORE
Startups focus on speed since they are burning cash every day as they search for product/market fit. But over time code/hardware written/built to validate hypotheses and find early customers can become unwieldy, difficult to maintain and incapable of scaling. MORE
A shorter version of this post first appeared on the HBR blog. — I just watched a very smart company try to manage innovation by hiring a global consulting firm to offload engineering from “distractions.” MORE
I’m a big fan of McKinsey’s Three Horizons Model of innovation. (if if you’re not familiar with it there’s a brief description a few paragraphs down.) It’s one of the quickest ways to describe and prioritize innovation ideas in a large company or government agency. MORE
A version of this article first appeared in the Harvard Business Review. Reading the NY Times article “ Jeffrey Katzenberg Raises $1 Billion for Short-Form Video Venture, ” I realized it was time for a new startup heuristic: the amount of customer discovery and product-market fit you need to find is inversely proportional to the amount and availability of risk capital. MORE
Alexander Osterwalder invented the Business Model Canvas , co-founded strategyzer.com and was the lead author of Business Model Generation which sold a million copies in 30 languages. Alexander and I often collaborate on new ideas for corporate innovation. MORE
Often the opposite of disruption is the status quo. If you’re a startup trying to disrupt an existing business you need to read The Fixer by Bradley Tusk and Regulatory Hacking by Evan Burfield. These two books, one by a practitioner, the other by an investor, are must-reads. MORE
Getting ready for our next semester’s class, I asked my Teaching Assistant why I hadn’t seen the posters for our new class around campus. Hearing the litany of excuses that followed –“It was raining.” (The The posters go inside the building.) “We We still have time.” (We MORE
What happens to a company when a visionary CEO is gone? Most often innovation dies and the company coasts for years on momentum and its brand. Rarely does it regain its former glory. Here’s why. MORE
There’s no handbook on how to evaluate and process “suggestions” and “advice” from a boss or a mentor. But how you choose to act on these recommendations can speed up your learning and make or break your career. Here’s what to keep in mind: I had a team of students working on an arcane customer problem. While they were quickly coming up to speed, I suggested that they talk to someone who I knew was an expert in the area and could help them learn much faster. MORE
A version of this article appeared in the Harvard Business Review. Elon Musk, Alfred Sloan, and entrepreneurship in the automobile industry. The entrepreneur who founded and grew the largest startup in the world to $10 billion in revenue and got fired is someone you have probably never heard of. The guy who replaced him invented the idea of the modern corporation. MORE
We just finished our Lean LaunchPad class at UC Berkeley’s engineering school where many of the teams embedded machine learning technology into their products. MORE
Jennifer Edgin is the Chief Technology Officer of the Intelligence Division at the Headquarters of the Marine Corps. MORE
Jennifer Edgin is the Chief Technology Officer of the Intelligence Division at the Headquarters of the Marine Corps. MORE
I’ve spent this year working with corporations and government agencies that are adopting and adapting Lean Methodologies. The biggest surprise for me was getting schooled on how extremely difficult it is to be an innovator inside a company of executors. —– What Have We Lost? MORE
Over the last year we’ve been rolling out the Hacking for X classes in universities across the U.S. – Hacking for Defense , Hacking for Diplomacy , Hacking for Energy , Hacking for Impact (non-profits), etc. MORE
The Office of Naval Research (ONR) has been one of the largest supporters of innovation in the U.S. Now they are starting to use the Lean Innovation process (see here and here ) to turn ideas into solutions. The result will be defense innovation with speed and urgency. —-. MORE
Innovation theory and innovation in practice are radically different. Here are some simple tools to get your company’s innovation pipeline through the obstacles it will encounter. MORE
We just finished our 3rd annual Hacking for Defense class at Stanford. Six teams presented their Lessons Learned presentations. Watching them I was left with wonder and awe about what they accomplished in 10 weeks. MORE
If you haven’t gotten a new car in a while you may not have noticed that the future of the dashboard looks like this: That’s it. A single screen replacing all the dashboard gauges, knobs and switches. But behind that screen is an increasing level of automation that hides a ton of complexity. MORE
Automobile manufacturers shipped 88 million cars in 2016. Tesla shipped 76,000. Yet Wall Street values Tesla higher than any other U.S. car manufacturer. What explains this more than 1,000 to 1 discrepancy in valuation? The future. MORE
Todd Dunn is the Director of Innovation and runs the Intermountain Healthcare Transformation Lab , which is working to foster innovation in the healthcare industry. He’s now run several Lean LaunchPad classes and has seen a ton of healthcare startups. Here’s his advice for startups in this space. MORE
What happens to a company when a visionary CEO is gone? Most often innovation dies and the company coasts for years on momentum and its brand. Rarely does it regain its former glory. Here’s why. MORE
It’s always fun to see what happens to my students after they leave class. Jeff Witten started CoinOut four years ago in my Columbia University 5-day Lean LaunchPad class. MORE
“ By knowing things that exist, you can know that which does not exist.”. Book of Five Rings. A startup is not just about the idea, it’s about testing and then implementing the idea. A founding team without these skills is likely dead on arrival. —-. MORE
Steve Blank
JANUARY 8, 2019
I’m a big fan of McKinsey’s Three Horizons Model of innovation. (if if you’re not familiar with it there’s a brief description a few paragraphs down.) It’s one of the quickest ways to describe and prioritize innovation ideas in a large company or government agency.
Steve Blank
DECEMBER 20, 2018
Five years ago we brought evidence-based entrepreneurship to Life Sciences – teaching the first Lean Lean Launchpad class at UCSF, then the NIH and Imperial College. But it’s been awhile since I was in a room made up entirely of Life Science entrepreneurs.
Steve Blank
OCTOBER 29, 2018
If you haven’t gotten a new car in a while you may not have noticed that the future of the dashboard looks like this: That’s it. A single screen replacing all the dashboard gauges, knobs and switches. But behind that screen is an increasing level of automation that hides a ton of complexity.
Steve Blank
OCTOBER 26, 2018
I’ve been thinking why the ethical boundaries of todays founder/VC interactions feel so different then they did when I was an entrepreneur. I’ve written about the root causes in an HBR article here and an expanded version here. Worth a read.
Steve Blank
OCTOBER 9, 2018
Often the opposite of disruption is the status quo. If you’re a startup trying to disrupt an existing business you need to read The Fixer by Bradley Tusk and Regulatory Hacking by Evan Burfield. These two books, one by a practitioner, the other by an investor, are must-reads.
Steve Blank
NOVEMBER 13, 2018
I know a change is going to come. If you’re an early employee at a startup, one day you will wake up to find that what you worked on 24/7 for the last year is no longer the most important thing – you’re no longer the most important employee, and process, meetings, paperwork and managers and bosses have shown up. Most painfully, you’ll learn that your role in the company has to change. I’ve seen these transitions as an investor, board member and CEO.
Steve Blank
SEPTEMBER 5, 2018
A version of this article first appeared in the Harvard Business Review. Reading the NY Times article “ Jeffrey Katzenberg Raises $1 Billion for Short-Form Video Venture, ” I realized it was time for a new startup heuristic: the amount of customer discovery and product-market fit you need to find is inversely proportional to the amount and availability of risk capital.
Steve Blank
APRIL 11, 2018
If you asked me why I gravitated to startups rather than work in a large company I would have answered at various times: “I want to be my own boss.” “I I love risk.” “I I want flexible work hours.” “I I want to work on tough problems that matter.” “I I have a vision and want to see it through.” “I
Steve Blank
JUNE 5, 2018
Is your organization full of Hackathons, Shark Tanks, Incubators and other innovation programs, but none have changed the trajectory of your company/agency? Over the last few years Pete Newell and I have helped build innovation programs inside large companies, across the U.S.
Steve Blank
APRIL 3, 2018
I just received a thank-you note from a student who attended a fireside chat I held at the ranch. Something I said seemed to inspire her: “I always thought you needed to be innovative, original to be an entrepreneur. Now I have a different perception.
Steve Blank
NOVEMBER 27, 2018
The team at Innovation Leader had me over to share some observations on how to survive in a world of disruption in large organizations. It’s worth a listen – here. 5:30: The cultural differences between startups and big companies. 8:30: Not everyone is an innovator. 9:10: Being an ambidextrous organization is the key to survival for a big company. 9:42: Apple stopped changing the world; here’s why. 10:55: The most disruptive companies are driven by founders.
Steve Blank
MARCH 19, 2018
I just read Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley. It was both eye-opening and cringe-worthy. The book explores the role of gender in the tech industry – at startups and venture capital firms – and the interaction between men and women in the two.
Steve Blank
JULY 9, 2018
There’s no handbook on how to evaluate and process “suggestions” and “advice” from a boss or a mentor. But how you choose to act on these recommendations can speed up your learning and make or break your career. Here’s what to keep in mind: I had a team of students working on an arcane customer problem. While they were quickly coming up to speed, I suggested that they talk to someone who I knew was an expert in the area and could help them learn much faster.
Steve Blank
MARCH 8, 2017
Getting ready for our next semester’s class, I asked my Teaching Assistant why I hadn’t seen the posters for our new class around campus. Hearing the litany of excuses that followed –“It was raining.” (The The posters go inside the building.) “We We still have time.” (We
Steve Blank
OCTOBER 24, 2016
What happens to a company when a visionary CEO is gone? Most often innovation dies and the company coasts for years on momentum and its brand. Rarely does it regain its former glory. Here’s why.
Steve Blank
OCTOBER 24, 2016
What happens to a company when a visionary CEO is gone? Most often innovation dies and the company coasts for years on momentum and its brand. Rarely does it regain its former glory. Here’s why.
Steve Blank
OCTOBER 13, 2016
Alexander Osterwalder invented the Business Model Canvas , co-founded strategyzer.com and was the lead author of Business Model Generation which sold a million copies in 30 languages. Alexander and I often collaborate on new ideas for corporate innovation.
Steve Blank
OCTOBER 13, 2016
Alexander Osterwalder invented the Business Model Canvas , co-founded strategyzer.com and was the lead author of Business Model Generation which sold a million copies in 30 languages. Alexander and I often collaborate on new ideas for corporate innovation.
Steve Blank
OCTOBER 6, 2016
Stanford is an incubator with dorms. Download the full text file with links to the courses here. Filed under: Hacking For Defense , Hacking for Diplomacy , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching. Hacking For Defense Hacking for Diplomacy Lean LaunchPad Teaching
Steve Blank
OCTOBER 6, 2016
Stanford is an incubator with dorms. Download the full text file with links to the courses here. link]. Filed under: Hacking For Defense , Hacking for Diplomacy , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching. Hacking For Defense Hacking for Diplomacy Lean LaunchPad Teaching
Steve Blank
SEPTEMBER 14, 2017
A shorter version of this post first appeared on the HBR blog. — I just watched a very smart company try to manage innovation by hiring a global consulting firm to offload engineering from “distractions.”
Steve Blank
FEBRUARY 28, 2017
When you’re up to your neck in alligators, don’t forget the goal was to drain the swamp. I love teaching because I learn something new every class. This time it was, “Don’t let process distract you from finding the strategy.”.
Steve Blank
NOVEMBER 18, 2016
We just finished our Lean LaunchPad class at UC Berkeley’s engineering school where many of the teams embedded machine learning technology into their products.
Steve Blank
NOVEMBER 18, 2016
We just finished our Lean LaunchPad class at UC Berkeley’s engineering school where many of the teams embedded machine learning technology into their products.
Steve Blank
JUNE 14, 2017
Automobile manufacturers shipped 88 million cars in 2016. Tesla shipped 76,000. Yet Wall Street values Tesla higher than any other U.S. car manufacturer. What explains this more than 1,000 to 1 discrepancy in valuation? The future.
Steve Blank
APRIL 23, 2018
A version of this article appeared in the Harvard Business Review. Elon Musk, Alfred Sloan, and entrepreneurship in the automobile industry. The entrepreneur who founded and grew the largest startup in the world to $10 billion in revenue and got fired is someone you have probably never heard of. The guy who replaced him invented the idea of the modern corporation.
Steve Blank
FEBRUARY 21, 2018
It’s always fun to see what happens to my students after they leave class. Jeff Witten started CoinOut four years ago in my Columbia University 5-day Lean LaunchPad class.
Steve Blank
SEPTEMBER 19, 2017
Innovation theory and innovation in practice are radically different. Here are some simple tools to get your company’s innovation pipeline through the obstacles it will encounter.
Steve Blank
NOVEMBER 10, 2016
Jennifer Edgin is the Chief Technology Officer of the Intelligence Division at the Headquarters of the Marine Corps.
Steve Blank
NOVEMBER 10, 2016
Jennifer Edgin is the Chief Technology Officer of the Intelligence Division at the Headquarters of the Marine Corps.
Steve Blank
MAY 19, 2015
Startups focus on speed since they are burning cash every day as they search for product/market fit. But over time code/hardware written/built to validate hypotheses and find early customers can become unwieldy, difficult to maintain and incapable of scaling.
Steve Blank
APRIL 5, 2017
I was having coffee with the CEO of a new startup, listening to her puzzle through how to communicate to potential customers. She was an academic on leave from Stanford now selling SAAS software to large companies, but was being inundated with marketing communications advice. “My
Steve Blank
JUNE 26, 2015
I’ve been working with large companies and the U.S. government to help them innovate faster– not just kind of fast, but 10x the number of initiatives in 1/5 the time. A 50x speedup kind of fast. Here’s how. —– Lean Innovation Management.
Steve Blank
MAY 6, 2015
I am always surprised when critics complain that the Lean Startup’s Build, Measure, Learn approach is nothing more than “throwing incomplete products out of the building to see if they work.”. Unfortunately the Build, Measure, Learn diagram is the cause of that confusion.
Steve Blank
JUNE 8, 2018
We just finished our 3rd annual Hacking for Defense class at Stanford. Six teams presented their Lessons Learned presentations. Watching them I was left with wonder and awe about what they accomplished in 10 weeks.
Steve Blank
FEBRUARY 17, 2018
Over the last year we’ve been rolling out the Hacking for X classes in universities across the U.S. – Hacking for Defense , Hacking for Diplomacy , Hacking for Energy , Hacking for Impact (non-profits), etc.
Steve Blank
OCTOBER 10, 2017
The Office of Naval Research (ONR) has been one of the largest supporters of innovation in the U.S. Now they are starting to use the Lean Innovation process (see here and here ) to turn ideas into solutions. The result will be defense innovation with speed and urgency. —-.
Steve Blank
JULY 9, 2015
Todd Dunn is the Director of Innovation and runs the Intermountain Healthcare Transformation Lab , which is working to foster innovation in the healthcare industry. He’s now run several Lean LaunchPad classes and has seen a ton of healthcare startups. Here’s his advice for startups in this space.
Steve Blank
JUNE 1, 2017
Light a path for the better angels. Thank you, Chancellor McLellan, President Florizone, Dean Charlebois, Dr. Hewitt, and Dr. Kilfoil for the invitation to speak today and thank you for the honorary degree. I’m honored to speak at a university whose motto is: Pray and Work.
Steve Blank
AUGUST 25, 2015
I’ve spent this year working with corporations and government agencies that are adopting and adapting Lean Methodologies. The biggest surprise for me was getting schooled on how extremely difficult it is to be an innovator inside a company of executors. —– What Have We Lost?
Steve Blank
AUGUST 12, 2017
Annual note to self – most of the world exists outside the tech bubble. —– We have a summer home in New England in a semi-rural area, just ~10,000 people in town, with a potato farm across the street. Drive down the road and you can see the tall stalks of corn waving on other farms. Most people aren’t in tech or law or teaching in universities; they fall solidly in what is called working-class.
Steve Blank
SEPTEMBER 3, 2014
“ By knowing things that exist, you can know that which does not exist.”. Book of Five Rings. A startup is not just about the idea, it’s about testing and then implementing the idea. A founding team without these skills is likely dead on arrival. —-.
Steve Blank
FEBRUARY 12, 2015
Last week I got a call from Patrick an ex-student I hadn’t heard from for 8 years. He was now the CEO of a company and wanted to talk about what he admitted was a “first world” problem.
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