Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 24, 2010

Over the last half a century, Silicon Valley has grown into the leading technology and innovation cluster for the United States and the world. Venture capital used to be a tight club clustered around formal firms located in Silicon Valley, Boston, and New York. Entrepreneurship as It’s Own Management Science.

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Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital Software Review 335

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2021

Although the class was run completely online, and even though they were suffering from Zoom fatigue, the 10 teams of 42 students collectively interviewed 1,142 beneficiaries, stakeholders, requirements writers, program managers, industry partners, etc. Team Fleetwise – Vehicle Fleet Management. All the presentations are worth a watch.

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Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2015

Eric Ries co-founded Catalyst Recruiting while attending Yale, and continued his entrepreneurial career as a Senior Software Engineer at There.com. That’s part of the magic of Silicon Valley.”. — On Getting Another Chance : “ I would have paid for the privilege to work in the legendary place called Silicon Valley. .

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Lean Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder Channel 120

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 6, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, November 6, 2008 Steveys Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile I thought Id share an interesting post from someone with a decidedly anti-agile point of view. Steveys Blog Rants: Good Agile, Bad Agile : "Google is an exceptionally disciplined company, from a software-engineering perspective.

Agile 76

Agile San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment 76

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 21, 2020

In commercial tech you call that an integrated product team, It’s acquisition with software engineering with UI/UX. It was whatever you can do to get away from the classic DOD stovepipe way of doing business to a much more agile software approach. This entire class session was a talk by General Shanahan and Q&A with the students.

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Artificial Inteligence Technology Agile Architecture 283

Steve Blank

MARCH 2, 2011

The Energy Storage division is acting like a startup, and Prescott Logan its General Manager, has lived up to the charter. He’s as good as any startup CEO in Silicon Valley. GE’s performance in implementing Customer Development gives lie to the tale that only web startups can be agile. You couldn’t be more wrong.

Silicon Valley 237

Silicon Valley Agile Customer Development Early Stage 237

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

One of the things he mentioned was that when it came to decision-making he still tended to think and act like an engineer. Since every situation is unique, there is no perfect solution to any engineering, customer or competitor problem, and you shouldn’t agonize over trying to find one. That’s why startups are agile.

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Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 307

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. Marketing demand creation programs (Search Engine Marketing, Public Relations, Advertising, Lead Generation, Trade Shows, etc.)

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Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 260

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

Every startup has some methodology for product development, launch and life-cycle management. Yet startup companies have traditionally used this model to manage and pace not only engineering but also non-engineering activities. In this post I’m going to describe the flaws of the product development model.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 244

Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

Two years out of the Air Force, serendipity (which would be my lifelong form of career planning) found me in Silicon Valley working for my first company: ESL. But part of his life that that doesn’t even merit a Wikipedia entry is that Bill Perry used Silicon Valley to help end the cold war.

Silicon Valley 194

Silicon Valley Stealth RSS California 194

Steve Blank

JUNE 12, 2020

The eight teams spoke to over 945 beneficiaries, stakeholders, requirements writers, program managers, warfighters, legal, security, customers, etc. 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.

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Oakland Asia Lean Video 313

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. Why It’s “Silicon” Valley. ———-.

Engineer 311

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital 311

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. So their management teams were insisting that they OEM (buy from someone else) these products.

Technology 143

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 143

Steve Blank

MAY 15, 2009

Signs of Success One of the things you do right in a startup, is you move from one cheap and cramped building to another as you grow, with desks, cubicles and engineers piled cheek to jowl. Engineers were packed in cubicles or desks right on top of each other? Now every engineer can have their own office.

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Silicon Valley RSS Lean Agile 230

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 18, 2010

Congratulations to all of you who actually managed to slog through it.). My blog also allowed me to indulge my interest in a few other subjects: The Secret History of Silicon Valley , thoughts on a career as an entrepreneur, observations about family and startups, etc. The Best Marketers Are Engineers……… 154.

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Silicon Valley Customer Development IP Developer 228

The Next Web

JANUARY 24, 2014

To put it into management speak, our digital infrastructure is world-class. We have three universities in the top 100 of the Shanghai ranking for engineering and technology. Think of Stanford and Sandhill road in Silicon Valley, Route 128 in Boston or IIT in Bangalore India. A top-notch infrastructure.

Netherlands 143

Netherlands Technical Review Stock Silicon Valley 143

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2023

This meant the class was team-based, Lean-driven (hypothesis testing/business model/customer development/agile engineering) and experiential – where the students, rather than being presented with all of the essential information, must discover that information rapidly for themselves. How to map stakeholders and systems’ dynamics?

Lean 295

Lean Chile Ukraine Spain 295

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 12, 2009

When I learned that Cray users would be giving papers at the Society of Petroleum Engineering conference in Denver the next day, I got on a plane to listen and learn. The magazines got passed around to all the engineers until they were dog-eared and worn. But I was breathing heavy and it felt like I was looking at supercomputer porn.

Silicon Valley 167

Silicon Valley RSS Software Review Technical Review 167

Steve Blank

JUNE 21, 2017

I was in Boston and was interviewed by The Growth Show about my current thinking about innovation in companies and government agencies.The interviewer was great and managed to get me to summarize several years of learning in one podcast. 7:11 Agile Engineering – Eric Ries. It’s worth a listen.

Silicon Valley 252

Silicon Valley Lean Government Boston 252

Venture Chronicles

AUGUST 2, 2013

The early architecture conditions created what engineers called “technical debt” and that effectively became weaponized to stall significant investment in fixing the old in order to build the future. engineers paired would jump from frontend to backend erratically at each sprint iteration.

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Product CTO Hire Architecture Startup 62

Up and Running

OCTOBER 4, 2017

That’s why it’s smarter to embrace the agile approach and constantly test your idea on the market to learn about the needs and desires of your target. Running a startup in New York or Silicon Valley is very expensive, so no wonder that recently, there has been an explosion of new locations starting to see growth in tech startups.

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Startup Estonia Poland Silicon Valley 115

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. TA’s make managing 60 students working on cases and team projects manageable. Finally our TA’s managed the mentors we had supporting the students.

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Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 235

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

When I asked our trade show manager she looked at me like I was the house idiot and said, “Steve, don’t you know that my job is to set up our trade show booth?” But my favorite was when the public relations manager said, “we’re here to write press releases and answer the phone in case the press calls.” This is a big idea.

Silicon Valley 269

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 269

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

Its easy to take Silicon Valley for granted. Ive written a little bit about the origins of Silicon Valley because I think its important for us to understand how we got here in order to make sure we preserve what is best about our community. You can learn more about that by reading The engineering managers lament.)

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

To turn your company’s stock into cash, you engaged a top-notch investment bank (Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs) and/or their Silicon Valley compatriots (Hambrecht & Quist, Montgomery Securities, Robertson Stephens). In the 20th century tech companies and their investors made money through an Initial Public Offering (IPO).

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Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 274

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 11, 2013

As Eric puts it in the webcast, “I’ve met now the CEOs of some of the biggest companies in the world, and I still spend time with the CEOs of high-growth Silicon Valley companies from the garage on up, and what all those people have in common is that they are seeking out sources of sustainable growth….

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Lean Silicon Valley Agile Cofounder 167

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

agile engineering. Visitors Guide to Silicon Valley. I got tired watching dignitaries fly into Silicon Valley, visit Google, Facebook, Apple, and Stanford and then say they understand startups and entrepreneurship. So for the rest of us I put together this Visitors Guide to Silicon Valley.

Open Source 335

Open Source Silicon Valley Lean Customer Development 335

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

signup, upgrade, trial pricing Zuora – online subscription management FeeFighters – find the cheapest credit card processors HealPay – Collections made easy Customer Support Tender – support, knowledgebase tool for your site GetSatisfaction - conversations between companies / customers.

Software Review 110

Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 29, 2008

Finding great engineers is hard; figuring out whos good is even harder. Balancing competing objectives is a recurring theme on this blog - its the central challenge of all management decisions. The six key attributes spell ABCDEF: Agility. If done right, a programming interview serves two purposes simultaneously. Communication.

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San Francisco Lean Agile Java 146

Steve Blank

JANUARY 26, 2016

Introducing Hacking for Defense – Connecting Silicon Valley Innovation Culture and Mindset to the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community. Hacking for Defense is a new course at Stanford’s Engineering School in the Spring of 2016. They don’t need an office in Silicon Valley to figure out what’s out there.

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Silicon Valley North Korea Agile Lean 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2013

Todd Branchflower was one of my Lean LaunchPad students entrepreneurial enough to convince the Air Force send him to Stanford to get his graduate engineering degree. Fast-forward three years and Todd is now Captain Todd Branchflower , teaching electrical engineering at the Air Force Academy. He promised that one day he would fix that.

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Silicon Valley Colorado Lean Connecticut 263

Steve Blank

JUNE 2, 2011

A revolution has taken hold as customer development and agile engineering reinvent the Startup process. Silicon Valley, New York). In the past they had no way to monitor and manage these investments. The result – an instant technology cluster – with equity at a fraction of Silicon Valley prices.

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Silicon Valley Business Model Early Stage Venture Capital 289

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, September 11, 2009 The cardinal sin of community management Once you have a product launched, you will the face the joys – and the despair – of a community that grows up around it. Nothing worked, until we finally had one of our community managers start talking to real customers on the phone.

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Community Management Lean Software Review 158

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. Silicon Valley, New York). There are no standards for what each side (board versus management) does. There are none so blind as those who will not see. Jonathan Swift.

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Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 297

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

Its why, at my previous job, we were able to get a new engineer completely productive on their first day. Most engineers would ship code to production on their first day. Let me show you what this looked like after a few years of practicing five whys in the operations and engineering teams at IMVU.

Software Review 167

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 2, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, August 2, 2008 Paul Graham on fundraising I have found no better primer on the current realities of starting a new technology company in a startup hub like Silicon Valley than Paul Grahams essays. Amazing lean startup resources Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? Expo SF (May.

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San Francisco Software Review Technical Review Continuous Deployment 125

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, December 7, 2008 The hackers lament One of the thrilling parts of working and writing in Silicon Valley is the incredible variety of people Ive had the chance to meet. The last thing you need is a manager telling you how to do your job. Hire a CTO or VP Engineering. Just change it.

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Software Review Technical Review Part-Time VPE San Francisco 94