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ESADE Business School Commencement Speech

Steve Blank

In spite of this, private equity funds have used the rallying cry of efficiency to hijack corporate strategy and loot the profits that historically would have been reinvested into research and development and new products. Smart companies are always looking to make their current products better – and there are many ways to do this.

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Why Companies are Not Startups

Steve Blank

These groups are adapting or adopting the practices of startups and accelerators – disruption and innovation rather than direct competition, customer development versus more product features, agility and speed versus lowest cost. A business model guides an organization to create and deliver products/service and make money from it.

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Intel Disrupted: Why large companies find it difficult to innovate, and what they can do about it

Steve Blank

As a consequence, corporations used metrics like return on net assets (RONA), return on capital deployed, and internal rate of return (IRR) to measure efficiency. Second, the leaders of these companies tended to be those who excelled at finance, supply chain or production. They knew how to execute the current business model.

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How to Impress Angel Investors and Make It into “Startup Heaven”

Up and Running

For example, one of the angels I pitched to cared deeply about our competitive landscape, whereas another wasn’t too concerned about the competitive landscape, he was more interested in our financial assumptions and my team’s ability to implement in an agile fashion. I must believe that they believe in their own product.