Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

Cheered on by finance professors, Wall Street analysts, investors and hedge funds, companies have learned how to make metrics like Internal Rate of Return look great by one; outsourcing everything, two, getting assets off their balance sheet, and three only investing in things that pay off fast. Act Like a Startup. This never ends well.

Private Equity 325

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 325

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

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 3, 2018

by Shishir Dubey , founder and CEO of ChromeInfotech. Not only that but each of those activities must be conducted at a specific time and in a specific sequence to reach from the beginning of the app development phase to running a profitable mobile app based business. Then, you draft your business model and plan.

Mobile 113

Mobile Developer Social Media Later Stage 113

YoungUpstarts

JULY 30, 2015

No new business is worth starting in these times unless it can go global.” – Sir Richard Branson, founder, Virgin Group. Back in early 2003, a Dane named Janus Friis and a Swede named Niklas Zennström had an idea for a software application, and founded a business with the help of three Estonian software developers.

Dominican Republic 100

Dominican Republic Global San Francisco Arizona 100

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

So what’s wrong the product development model? 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.)

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

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

JANUARY 25, 2010

In this post we’re going to offer a new definition of why startups exist : a startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. A Business Model. Ok, but what is a business model ? A business model describes how your company creates, delivers and captures value.

Agile 335

Agile Startup Silicon Valley Business Model 335

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2018

They are talking about everyone who chooses to be self-employed – from a corner food vendor without a high school diploma to a high-tech founder with a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford.). (By the way, as you read the conclusions keep in mind the authors are not talking just about high-tech entrepreneurs. They found: Signaling.

Entrepreneur 336

Entrepreneur Business Model Capital Gains Aggregator 336

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. Is there a profitable business model? How many are there?

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

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 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

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. in one quarter. What Surprised Us?

Lean 279

Lean Business Model Agile Customer Development 279

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.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

The Next Web

AUGUST 26, 2012

Keep the team small, agile and up-to-date. Remember that raising money in itself is not the purpose; it’s about creating an organization that can fully focus on finding retention and a working business model that can later on scale. KPI’s are different for each start-up. The trick is to find yours as quickly as possible.

Bankruptcy 121

Bankruptcy Technical Review Intellectual Property Due Diligence 121

Software By Rob

AUGUST 24, 2011

Karl is a software engineer with more than 10 years of experience who specializes in agile web development and web services integrations. The business model was to offer consumers with RCA’s an alternative to meeting their monthly transaction requirements that could be scheduled for a small amount of money, $1. – Karl.

Software Review 65

Software Review Software Startup Finance 65

Steve Blank

MAY 10, 2010

I didn’t say anything as he continued, “I’m now director of product management, but I think I’m missing stuff I ought to know; finance, marketing, and operations management. After the rocketship ride of this successful startup, did he now want to be a founder of his own startup? Entrepreneurial finance? Agile Development?

Engineer 289

Engineer Business Model Programming Finance 289

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2010

A lot of entrepreneurs think that their startup is the next big thing when in reality they’re just building a small business. A first order filter is whether the founders are aiming for a scalable startup. The question was: what did the founders want to do? Lets take venture capital and grow this thing into a real business.”.

Hockey Stick 276

Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder 276

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. Delegate to Innovate.

Small Business 147

Small Business Early Stage Agile Social Media 147

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 8, 2018

by Charles Cridland, Co-Founder and Technical Director of YourParkingSpace. As CIO, I oversee day-to-day activity in the office, manage relationships with external agencies and keep an eye on the numbers, from campaign performance to finance. YourParkingSpace almost didn’t take off. The company began from my bedroom, back in 2006.

Cofounder 127

Cofounder Agile Business Model Operations 127

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

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2011

Scientists and engineers as founders and startup CEOs is one of the least celebrated contributions of Silicon Valley. The goal was commercial products, but as scientists and engineers the company’s founders realized that at times the cost of experimentation was failure. Scientists and Engineers as Founders.

Engineer 305

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital 305

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

What matters is proving the viability of the company’s business model, what investors call “traction.&# It should be even more important to the founders themselves, because it demonstrates that their business hypothesis is grounded in reality. They are busy too, but they are not creating value for the company.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

ConversionXL

APRIL 3, 2019

Go beyond standard sources of voice of customer data ; better options are: Interview founders (the original “customers”); Thank-you page surveys; Usertesting.com; Mine sales calls; Mine support tickets; Mine Facebook comments ; Mine online reviews. Founder interviews can find the story, the value proposition , and the big idea.

Artificial Inteligence 114

Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Metrics SEO 114

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

.” Hackernews list of “Tools of the Trade” for startups - includes over 150 SaaS tools used by startups, and over 150 comments with interesting insights from founders. Agile project management tool that enables real time collaboration. Agile project management. agile product management. Agile eLearning.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 29, 2020

Wikipedia.com defines a “startup company (startup or startup) is an entrepreneurial venture which is typically a newly emerged, fast-growing business that aims to meet a marketplace need by developing a viable business model around an innovative product, service, process, or a platform.”. Implement the “lean startup” philosophy.

Bootstrapping 85

Bootstrapping Global Startup Hungary 85

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

Most of the startups they invested in either died by running out of money before they found a scalable business model or ended up in the “land of the living dead” by never growing (failing to Pivot.). New, agile and adroit venture firms with new business models have emerged to deal with the reality that 1) web 2.0

Venture Capital 297

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 297

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 9, 2015

Stories/myths – stories are about how founders/employees get over obstacles, win new orders… Heroes – what gets rewarded and celebrated, how do you become a hero in the organization? It needs to be a careful, calculated process coordinated with HR and Finance. Rituals – what and how does a company celebrate?

Startup 120

Startup Silicon Valley Incubator Matching 120

Altgate

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

But did you know that founder Markus Frind has just 3 employees for his $10MM+ revenue business? Believe it or not, banking is a core part of some businesses (think PayPal or Zopa), but for most of us, it’s a basic support service to be outsourced. I’d love to get involved in Founders Institute. Advertising.

Software Review 65

Software Review Offshore Startup Boston 65

BeyondVC

FEBRUARY 12, 2014

We have over 20 years of experience backing bold founders with big visions. BOLDstart helps founders at the seed stage accelerate their growth from idea/ alpha phase to product market fit and successful Series A round. focus on the mobile, agile, and smart enterprise". That is pretty self explanatory.

Seed Stage 110

Seed Stage Agile Viral API 110

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 28, 2009

Compounding is not a process that most people find intuitive, and thats as true in engineering as it is in finance, so it requires a lot of encouragement in the early days to stay the course. Labels: agile , product development , Test-driven development 11comments: William Pietri said. Its a version of the law of compounding interest.

San Francisco 79

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 79

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. 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. Here's how.

Silicon Valley 117

Silicon Valley Balance Sheet Metrics Early Stage 117

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 7, 2009

Initially, IMVU sought to quickly build a product that would prove out the soundness of their ideas and test the validity of their business model. No departments The Five Whys for Startups (for Harvard Business R. Their initial users were super early adopters who were willing to trade quality for access to new features.

Continuous Deployment 131

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Software Review Lean 131

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 21, 2010

Many startups don’t innovate at all in the product dimension, but use other kinds of innovation: repurposing an existing technology for a new use, devising a new business model that unlocks value that was previously hidden, or even simply bringing a product or service to a new location or set of customers previously underserved.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco Startup Lean Continuous Deployment 168

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 29, 2017

As an e-commerce entrepreneur, this quote resonates with me greatly and it is has guided many aspects of my business operations, especially the user experience design of my website. Getting things done well takes considerable testing and hinges on agile changes; striving for perfection is the opposite mentality. – Sara Blakely.

Entrepreneur 48

Entrepreneur LLC Cofounder Montana 48

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

Innovation – Business Model? Waterfall, Agile, Lean? Seed and Follow-on Financing – How do your finance it? Filed under: Customer Development , Technology , Vertical Markets « Faith-Based versus Fact-Based Decision Making Am I a Founder? Others you need to know when you execute the plan.

Vertical 122

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 122

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers - SoCal CTO , November 1, 2010 I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. And I tried to evaluate the idea and figure out: What did the founder really need here? Was it a Startup Founder Developer Gap ? Finance, IT, Legal).

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175