Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

That’s why startups are agile. Startups that are agile have mastered one other trick – and that’s Tempo – the ability to make quick decisions consistently over extended periods of time. Reply Why Startups are Agile and Opportunistic -- Pivoting the Business Model , on April 14, 2010 at 6:32 am Said: [.]

Silicon Valley 300

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 300

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 19, 2020

Many have disappeared, and others have forgotten how to be agile and innovative. This can cause early investor dilution, lower ultimate returns or leave the startup stranded. Yet, in my view, every early-stage entrepreneur should be exploring this new funding alternative before approaching VCs.

Angel Investor 314

Angel Investor Venture Capital Silicon Valley Startup 314

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Agile – you may find the real opportunities for your company was somewhere else. Yet for every founder there are 10-20 other employees who take the near-equivalent risks in joining an early-stage company. If you’re not a founder (by choice, timing or temperament,) you may be an early employee or a later stage startup employee.

Cofounder 219

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 219

Up and Running

AUGUST 8, 2018

By reviewing major initiatives on a monthly basis, we can stay agile and make changes as needed. While this doesn’t change too often in our situation as an established company, new startups might shift their strategy frequently as they search for a business model that works. Do we need to shift priorities?

Software Review 65

Software Review Business Plan Product Forecast 65

Transformify

SEPTEMBER 12, 2017

Commenced in July 2017, The Youth Enterprise Development Fund provides start-up loans to help young entrepreneurs fund their businesses at a very early stage. Scrum, Agile, Product Management. Scrum, Agile, Problem Analysis, Business Catalyst, Business Analytics. Project/ Product Management.

Africa 75

Africa Benin Seychelles Nigeria 75

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

As customer and agile development reinvent the Startup, it’s time to ask why startup board governance has not kept up with the pace of innovation. Board meetings that guide startups haven’t changed since the early 1900’s. Yet boards of large companies exist to monitor efficient strategy and execution of a known business model.

Silicon Valley 290

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 290

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2018

And why funding from families and friends is a dominant source of financing for early-stage ventures (because friends and family know an entrepreneur’s ability better than any resume can convey). tend to gravitate toward entrepreneurship. Asymmetric Information is when one party has more or better information than the other.)

Entrepreneur 336

Entrepreneur Business Model Capital Gains Aggregator 336

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

As customer and agile development reinvent the Startup, it’s time to ask why startup board governance has not kept up with the pace of innovation. Board meetings that guide startups haven’t changed since the early 1900’s. Yet boards of large companies exist to monitor efficient strategy and execution of a known business model.

Silicon Valley 258

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 258

Steve Blank

JUNE 2, 2011

A revolution has taken hold as customer development and agile engineering reinvent the Startup process. Board meetings that guide startups haven’t changed since the early 1900’s. Startups now understand what they should be doing in their early formative days is search for a business model. for a business model.

Silicon Valley 281

Silicon Valley Business Model Early Stage Venture Capital 281

Steve Blank

MARCH 7, 2012

The class is intensely and deliberately experiential to develop the mindset, reflexes, agility and resilience an entrepreneur needs to search for certainty in a chaotic world. Startups are in fact only temporary organizations, organized to search –not execute–for a scalable and repeatable business model. And do it in 8 weeks.

Lean 256

Lean Business Model Agile United States 256

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 27, 2014

Many have disappeared, and others have forgotten how to be agile and innovative. This can cause early investor dilution, lower ultimate returns or leave the startup stranded. Yet, in my view, every early-stage entrepreneur should be exploring this new funding alternative before approaching VCs.

Angel Investor 260

Angel Investor Silicon Valley Startup Portfolio 260

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2012

I got to spend time inside his company while I was using their software to analyze early-stage ventures. Tossing their agile development process and at times their entire business model in the air, the company would go into fire-drill mode and engineering would start working on whatever his latest insight was.

Founder 316

Founder Cofounder Advisory Board Burn Rate 316

YoungUpstarts

MAY 22, 2018

Small businesses everywhere tend to look at their larger competitors with a mixture of casual envy, grudging respect, and a healthy dose of dismissiveness. To many small business owners, the big business model embodies everything that they don’t want their own company to become.

Small Business 147

Small Business Early Stage Agile Social Media 147

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. Let’s start with a simple question: why do early-stage startups want revenue? What matters is proving the viability of the company’s business model, what investors call “traction.&# Great post!

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Every time we iterate even a small part of our business model or product he gets upset. Companies Have Titles to Execute a Known Business Model. I offered that in an existing company job titles reflect the way tasks are organized to execute a known business model. a repeatable and scalable business model.

Startup 312

Startup Business Model Customer Development Bandwidth 312

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 5, 2009

One way to conceive of our goal in an early-stage venture is to incrementally “fill in the blanks&# for the business model that we think will one day power our startup. For example, say that your business model calls for a 4% conversion rate – as ours did initially at IMVU. Expo SF (May.

San Francisco 102

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment Startup 102

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 13, 2011

As customer and agile development reinvent the startup, it's time to ask why startup board governance has not kept up with the pace of innovation. Board meetings that guide startups haven't changed since the early 1900's. Yet boards of large companies exist to monitor efficient strategy and execution of a known business model.

Silicon Valley 117

Silicon Valley Balance Sheet Metrics Early Stage 117

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

Telecom O2 learning to move at the speed of the internet 500 Startups and their accelerated feedback loops on what works, and what doesn't work in early-stage investing. We stand on the shoulders of giants: customer development, the theory of disruptive innovation, the technology life-cycle adoption theory, and agile development.

Lean 167

Lean Entrepreneur Agile San Francisco 167

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 31, 2016

Some days, the business will be going at breakneck speed, while others will feel like you’re moving in fits and starts. Stay agile so you can respond intelligently to your company’s needs. Be mindful of these shifting dynamics, and think through the solutions you’re relying on during different periods.

Los Angeles 100

Los Angeles Stealth San Francisco Cofounder 100

Version One Ventures

MARCH 8, 2016

Of course, the clearer you are about your vision, business model, and key drivers, the easier it will be to prioritize. In the very early stages, you should be shipping product as fast as possible, potentially even daily. The bottom line is that speed and agility are the biggest advantages you have at the beginning.

API 60

API Early Stage Agile Business Model 60

Altgate

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

The presentation was on outsourcing generally, not just software engineering and the audience was very early stage companies (some yet to be founded). Now, for very early stage companies, you may be thinking, “I don’t have any cash, so outsourcing isn’t an option.&# To that I say baloney. Advertising.

Software Review 65

Software Review Offshore Startup Boston 65

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

If you’ve tried to slog your way through my book on Customer Development you know that I’m insistent that the founders need to be the ones getting outside the building (physically or virtually) to validate all the initial hypotheses of the business model and product.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2017

One of the quickest ways to sort innovation ideas is to use the McKinsey Three Horizons Model. Horizon 1 ideas provide continuous innovation to a company’s existing business model and core capabilities. Horizon 2 ideas extend a company’s existing business model and core capabilities to new customers, markets or targets.

Incubator 312

Incubator Curation Engineer Government 312

Board Effect

AUGUST 30, 2019

As board directors strive to learn more about cyberattacks and cybersecurity, they’re gaining a better understanding of how technology can help them create newer, better business models. The CEO and the CFO can be instrumental in helping to bridge the gap between the CEO and the board in the early stages of the relationship.

Agile 45

Agile Government Technology Software 45

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Unfortunately in early stage startups the drive for financing hijacks the corporate DNA and becomes the raison d’etre of the company. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. What are Early Stage VC’s Really Asking? Can it scale?”

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 26, 2012

Bullpen is one of a growing number of early-stage funds - or, perhaps more accurately, "earlier-stage," since even his is no longer the first out of the gate. Risk to the company's business model in the early stages is reduced by adopting this app store "template" that customers worldwide have already embraced.

IPO 115

IPO Stock San Francisco Lean 115

Agile VC

JULY 19, 2012

billion fund (CRV XI), though the firm’s roots were modest (Rick Burnes started CRV back in 1970 with a $4M first fund) and until then CRV had mostly stuck to its knitting of early-stage investing with small-mid sized funds. Like many leading firms CRV used this opportunity to raise a huge $1.2

Cofounder 193

Cofounder Limited Partner Early Stage LP 193

SVPG

MARCH 18, 2012

Second, in an early stage startup, the product manager role is most appropriately played by the CEO or one of the founders (see [link] ). Deep Knowledge of the Business The second critical contribution is a deep understanding of your business.

Management 82

Management Product Early Stage Agile 82

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. is no right or wrong in the early days of startup. A few successful ones do all these things. Thank you, Steve.

Customer Development 242

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 242

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

The original Hewlett Packard which made test and measurement products was spun-out and renamed Agilent. Agilent is a $5.8 For the first 25 years HP’s business model was static. Technology changes, culture changes, customer needs change, more agile competitors emerge, etc. However, no markets last forever.

Silicon Valley 164

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 164

Ben's Blog

MAY 15, 2020

Finally, we’ll zoom out and assess the big picture: how various categories of company may be impacted long-term, how this crisis compares to 2008 (and what that means for early-stage founders), and the industries and business models that are now prime for growth. Andrew : Right.

Founder 36

Founder Conversion Technical Review Cash Position 36

Up and Running

DECEMBER 6, 2012

Lean Planning is a set of tools for discovering a business model that works, building an action plan to test your assumptions, creating financial models and a plan for a viable business, and tracking your performance so you can adjust your plan on the fly, quickly and easily. Do startups have a manual?

Lean 147

Lean Silicon Valley Forecast Technical Review 147

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, March 13, 2009 Dont launch Heres a common question I get from startups, especially in the early stages: when should we launch? This is the usual reason given for a marketing launch, but for most early stage startups, its a failure. You have to know your business model.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2010

Yet at their early stages, they are not small versions of larger established companies. The good news is this team found a business model, product/market fit and a repeatable sales model. The Scalable Startup stage called for opportunistic and agile leadership. Scalable Startups at Adolescence.

Agile 120

Agile Development Team Review Leadership Merger 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Teams can prove their competence and validate their ideas by showing investors evidence that there’s a repeatable and scalable business model. A Lean Startup methodology offers entrepreneurs a framework to focus on what’s important: Business Model Discovery. We focus on evidence and trajectory across the business model.

Oakland 326

Oakland Incubator Lean Metrics 326

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

We were focused on revenue, but we didnt understand that revenue is not important for its own sake in an early stage company. No business model, either. All my products and ideas focus on early cash and a business model that works from the first day. Heck, Id already seen Friendster flame out.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

The one-page pitch format is also more suitable for SaaS businesses that are constantly testing new ideas. Your pitch is going to cover your strategy (what you’re going to do), your tactics (how you’re going to do it), your business model (how you will make money), and your schedule (who is doing what and when).

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74