Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2013

Over the last three years our Lean LaunchPad / NSF Innovation Corps classes have been teaching hundreds of entrepreneurial teams a year how to build their startups by getting out of the building and testing their hypotheses behind their business model. The next customer segment we tried was startup founders.

Lean 315

Lean Customer Development Sales Cycle Business Model 315

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 24, 2010

The founders were simply wrong about their assumptions about customer needs. While companies execute business models, startups search for a business model. (Or Or more accurately, startups are a temporary organization designed to search for a scalable and repeatable business model.).

Silicon Valley 335

Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital Software Review 335

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 13, 2018

I worked with engineering to try to find product/market fit ( big endian or little endian ?) and get the chip designed into companies building engineering workstations – powerful personal computers, all while trying to refine how to find the right markets, customers, and sales process. Declare them cultural co-founders.

Part-Time VPE 333

Part-Time VPE Employee Cofounder Hiring 333

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2021

While all the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ), Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, each of their journeys was unique. Tom Bedecarré , the founder and CEO of AKQA, the leading digital advertising agency. He runs H4X Labs. Jeff served in the U.S.

Lean 385

Lean Security Asia SBIR 385

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2016

Execution and Organization of Core Businesses. It wasn’t that Microsoft didn’t have smart engineers working on search, media, mobile and cloud. The problem was that Ballmer organized the company around execution of its current strengths – Windows and Office businesses. Yet a very smart CEO missed all of these.

Azure 120

Azure Business Model Cloud Artificial Inteligence 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2016

Execution and Organization of Core Businesses. It wasn’t that Microsoft didn’t have smart engineers working on search, media, mobile and cloud. The problem was that Ballmer organized the company around execution of its current strengths – Windows and Office businesses. Yet a very smart CEO missed all of these.

Azure 120

Azure Business Model Cloud Artificial Inteligence 120

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2021

Neither cases nor business plans replicate the actual startup experience. Cases and plans are useful for teaching managers of process, not founders. Founders of startups (and new ventures inside existing companies) are searching for product/market fit and a repeatable and scalable business model. experiential.

Lean 433

Lean Agile Business Model Business Plan 433

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 15, 2010

In previous posts I’ve talked about what the combination of Business Model Design, Customer Development and Agile Methodologies mean to startups and intrapreneurs in large companies; it’s the beginning of entrepreneurship as a science with its own rules and methodologies. Teaching In the Big Apple.

Customer Development 270

Customer Development Business Model Developer Design 270

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2012

What I saw reminded me of some of the best and worst things I did as a founder. 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. A Pivot a Week.

Founder 316

Founder Cofounder Advisory Board Burn Rate 316

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2023

Now at Imperial College Business School and Co-Founder of the Wicked Acceleration Labs , Cristobal and I wondered if we could combine the tenets of Lean (get out of the building, build MVPs, run experiments, move with speed and urgency) with the expanded toolset developed by researchers who work on Wicked problems and Systems’ Thinking.

Lean 294

Lean Chile Ukraine Spain 294

Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2019

Modern entrepreneurship began at the turn of this century with the observation that startups aren’t smaller versions of large companies – large companies at their core execute known business models, while startups search for scalable business models. This new framework can act as the front-end of Customer Development.

Lean 333

Lean Marketing Agile Customer Development 333

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2011

Scientists and engineers as founders and startup CEOs is one of the least celebrated contributions of Silicon Valley. ESL, the first company I worked for in Silicon Valley , was founded by a PhD in Math and six other scientists and engineers. It might be its most important. ———-. Cold War Spin Outs.

Engineer 305

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital 305

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

All the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ) Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, but all of their journeys were unique. Tom Bedecarré the founder and CEO of AKQA, the leading digital advertising agency. He runs H4X Labs. Jeff served in the U.S.

Oakland 301

Oakland Asia Lean Video 301

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

The first hint lies in its name; this is a product development model, not a marketing model, not a sales hiring model, not a customer acquisition model, not even a financing model (and we’ll also find that in most cases it’s even a poor model to use to develop a product.) Product Development Diagram 1.

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2015

The first, the notion of the “ ambidextrous organization ” from O’Reilly and Tushman , posits that companies that want to do continuous innovation need to execute their core business model while innovating in parallel. Horizon 1 activities support existing business models. Horizon 1 is the company’s core business.

Lean 120

Lean Management Business Model Incubator 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2010

In my last post I described my approach to one of the three classes I teach at Stanford in the engineering school: Fundamentals of Technology Entrepreneurship. The key things I want students to take from the class are: Understand that a startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a profitable business model.

Business Model 226

Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 226

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2020

The classes are built on the Lean Startup methodology: Customer Discovery, Agile Engineering and the Business/Mission Model Canvas. Talking to customers seems like a simple idea, but most founders find it’s one of the hardest things they have to do. Your Business Model and the World Have Changed.

Customer 413

Customer Business Model Restful Video 413

Steve Blank

JANUARY 28, 2020

They operated this way because their existing business models didn’t allow them to initially profit from those opportunities – so they ignored them – and continued to chase higher profitability in more-demanding segments. Therefore, for founders, entrepreneurship wasn’t a job, but a calling.

Lean 428

Lean Business Model Government Agile 428

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

But by taking advantage of open source, agile software, and iterative development, lean startups can operate with much less waste. So far, I have found "lean startup" works better with the entrepreneurs Ive talked to than "agile startup" or even "extreme startup.") Of course, many startups are capital efficient and generally frugal.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

Steve Blank

MARCH 5, 2012

One of the confusing things to entrepreneurs, investors and educators is the relationship between customer development and business model design and business planning and execution. When does a new venture focus on customer development and business models ? Here’s an attempt to put this all in context.

Search 320

Search Business Model Customer Development Agile 320

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

It dawned on me that the plans were a symptom of a larger problem: we were executing business plans when we should first be searching for business models. So what would a search process for a business model look like? And in 2003 the Haas Business School at U.C. We were putting the plan before the planning.

Lean 317

Lean Georgia Michigan Business Model 317

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 22, 2008 The three drivers of growth for your business model. The AARRR model (hence pirates, get it?) He also has a discussion of how your choice of business model determines which of these metric areas you want to focus on. Choose one.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 11, 2010

A place to start would be by recognizing the fundamental difference between an existing company and a startup: existing companies execute business models, while startups search for a business model. (Or Therefore the very foundations of teaching entrepreneurship should start with how to search for a business model.

Agile 250

Agile Business Model Customer Development Lean 250

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 4, 2021

Modern entrepreneurship began at the turn of the 21 st century with the observation that startups aren’t smaller versions of large companies – large companies at their core execute known business models, while startups search for scalable business models. This circular loop can cause them to churn, pivot, and fail.

Customer 420

Customer Marketing Lean Vertical 420

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

So what does CTO mean, besides just "technical founder who really cant manage anyone?" So I initially gravitated to the CTO title, and not VP of Engineering. If youre trying to design an architecture to maximize agility, how can that work if some people are working in TDD and others not? I mean, have you seen other people?

CTO 168

CTO Fractional CTO CTO Hire Technical Review 168

Steve Blank

MAY 10, 2011

What really matters are the business model canvas diagrams in the body and appendix of each presentation. By comparing the changes the teams made week-to-week-week in their business model canvas diagrams, you’ll see the dynamics of entrepreneurship, as they iterate and Pivot over time. Team Autonomow. Team Blink Traffic.

Lean 279

Lean Business Model Agile Customer Development 279

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. Reinventing the board meeting may offer venture-backed startups a more efficient, productive way to direct and measure their search for a profitable business model. Jonathan Swift.

Silicon Valley 290

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 290

Steve Blank

JUNE 7, 2019

Our keynote speaker was Palmer Luckey , founder of Oculus and the designer of the Oculus Rift. He’s now the CEO/founder of the AI-focussed defense contractor Anduril Industries. Tom Bedecarré was the founder and CEO of AKQA, the leading digital advertising agency. If you can’t see the video of Palmer Luckey click here.

Oakland 266

Oakland Lean SBIR Afghanistan 266

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

VC’s engineered financial transactions, working with entrepreneurs to brand, hype and take public un profitable companies with grand promises of the future. VC’s went back to basics, to focus on building companies while their founders worked on building customers. Thus began the 5-year dot-com bubble.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 14, 2017

by Jon Leighton, Director of digital agency iResources and founder of neatly.io. Indeed some of the biggest names out there started off as a completely different business; including Twitter, Nintendo and most recently, Slack. But pivoting applies to all businesses and the theory behind it is exactly the same.

Technical Review 157

Technical Review Architecture Revenue Channel 157

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. Reinventing the board meeting may offer venture-backed startups a more efficient, productive way to direct and measure their search for a profitable business model. Jonathan Swift.

Silicon Valley 258

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 258

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Github - Free public repositories, collaborator management, issue tracking, wikis, downloads, code review, graphs Pivotal Tracker – Agile project management tool that enables real time collaboration. WebSequenceDiagrams - sketch sequence diagrams. Bontq – hosted bug tracking and project management needs.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 29, 2009

The human tendency to moralize about debt affects engineers, too. I hope to show why lean and agile techniques actually reduce the negative impacts of technical debt and increase our ability to take advantage of its positive effects. Side-effects that reduce agility are the most damaging symptoms of technical debt.

Technical Review 168

Technical Review Software Review San Francisco Lean 168

Steve Blank

JUNE 2, 2011

A revolution has taken hold as customer development and agile engineering reinvent the Startup process. Reinventing the board meeting may allow venture-backed startups a more efficient, productive way to direct and measure their search for a profitable business model. Founders operate in a chaotic regime.

Silicon Valley 281

Silicon Valley Business Model Early Stage Venture Capital 281

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2019

My contribution has been, “Why don’t we design classes more closely modeled to what innovators and entrepreneurs actually do.” Today the capstone class is most often experiential, team-based, hands on, focused around the search for a repeatable and scalable business model. Can you become a founder by watching videos?

Incubator 331

Incubator Lean Programming Government 331

Steve Blank

MAY 10, 2010

Last week I was having coffee with an ex engineering student of mine now on his second startup (and for a change it wasn’t a Web 2.0 You fit the perfect profile; you have an engineering background, work experience in two startups and you’ll be limited in your career growth without one.” MBA or Engineering Management ?

Engineer 289

Engineer Business Model Programming Finance 289

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Their engineering teams didn’t have the expertise using off-the-shelf microprocessors (back then “real” computer companies designed their own instruction sets and operating systems.) Their engineers hated us. Engineers as Salesmen I thought (and still do) that this sales guy walked on water.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138