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The Secret History of Silicon Valley Part VI: Every World War II.

Steve Blank

—————- The next piece of the Secret History of Silicon Valley puzzle came together when Tom Byers , Tina Selig and Mark Leslie invited me to teach entrepreneurship in the Stanford Technology Ventures Program ( STVP ) in Stanford’s School of Engineering. What Does WWII Have to Do with Silicon Valley?

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Am I a Founder? The Adventure of a Lifetime. « Steve Blank

Steve Blank

Posted on June 11, 2009 by steveblank When my students ask me about whether they should be a founder or cofounder of a startup I ask them to take a walk around the block and ask themselves: Are you comfortable with: Chaos – startups are disorganized Uncertainty – startups never go per plan Are you: Resilient – at times you will fail – badly.

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Founders and dysfunctional families « Steve Blank

Steve Blank

We agreed that all her founding CEOs seemed to have the same set of personality traits – tenacious, passionate, relentless, resilient, agile, and comfortable operating in chaos. What makes an individual a great startup founder (versus an employee) has been something I had been thinking about since I retired.

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Lean Startups aren't Cheap Startups

Steve Blank

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. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Order Here.

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The Customer Development Manifesto: Reasons for the Revolution.

Steve Blank

Finally, I’ll write about how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. The Focus on Execution Versus Agility The product development diagram has a linear flow from left to right.

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“Lessons Learned” – A New Type of Venture Capital Pitch

Steve Blank

It was amazing to see the two founders, Fred Durham and Maheesh Jain, build a $100 million company from coffee cups and T-shirts. But Cafepress’s most memorable moment was when the founders used a “Lessons Learned” VC pitch to raise their second round of funding and got an 8-digit term sheet that same afternoon. Order Here.

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Raising Money Using Customer Development

Steve Blank

The first step in Customer Development was Customer Discovery ; extracting hypotheses from the business plan and getting the founders out of the building to test the hypotheses in front of customers. They will realize that you have built a startup that’s agile, resilient and customer-centric. Just as a refresher. Order Here.