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.

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Where to Play

MARCH 14, 2018

As we looked closer at the market, many verticals were underserved by the existing solutions that were expensive and complicated to use. As a small team, we knew that we couldn’t possibly tackle all of these verticals at once, and therefore, had to focus our efforts on one. At times, it seemed like the possibilities were endless.

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Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

Everyone should be articulate and agile in describing and demoing the products.) And that most of the post on trade shows was describing how to prepare and manage a physical presence in a trade show booth. For bigger booths a good rule of thumb is to have two to four staffers for every 100 square feet of exhibit space.

Silicon Valley 136

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Steve Blank

JUNE 29, 2009

I was met by a very apologetic manager who said, “We’ve been trying to get a hold of you for the last week. The manager of the training department who hired you wasn’t authorized to do so – and he’s been fired. You’re Hired, You’re Fired. I am sorry there really isn’t a job for you.&#

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Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

In 1964, Bill Perry, the head of the lab, frustrated with GTE’s management, quit (GTE, a phone company had bought Sylvania in 1959.) And in the tradition of great startups, on the way out Perry took 6 of his best managers with him. I can say that the management and staff at ESL was the absolute best.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

He had teamed up with a former product manager at P&G to deliver seminars on just this subject. It was a management problem. We had been outsourcing an important part of our demand creation strategy – packaging – to an outside agency without having the expertise to judge or manage the results.

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. This post describes a solution – the Customer Development Model. all while saying “we’ll make it up later.”

Customer Development 253

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Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

The original Hewlett Packard which made test and measurement products was spun-out and renamed Agilent. Agilent is a $5.8 Technology changes, culture changes, customer needs change, more agile competitors emerge, etc. General managers of divisons are compensated on division P&L not long term innovation.

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Steve Blank

MAY 15, 2009

We hired an interior designer and a great facilities person to manage the process. If the management team is thinking they’ve made it, the new building is just symptomatic of a company heading for a crash. Stay hungry, stay lean. I don’t want to be hungry and lean (nor do I want to be full and fat).

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2009

Managing these situations is hard for any company, but potentially lethal for a startup. The theory is that there is some truth in both camps, and the right way to manage the disagreement is to sprinkle a little bit of both into our plans. To the people being managed that way, it feels like the boss is being capricious or arbitrary.

San Francisco 133

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe 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 Experience is the Product | Better product management and products , on September 23, 2010 at 12:17 pm Said: [.]

Customer Development 220

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Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

I teach teams various Agile techniques, and occasionally get told some particular trick is cheating. One might omit, for example, “less important&# tests where one hadn’t performed as well, without crossing an ethical boundary. Reply William Pietri , on April 2, 2009 at 3:56 pm Said: Well put.

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

They will realize that you have built a startup that’s agile, resilient and customer-centric. Your presentation doesn’t have a single word about Lean Startups or Customer Development. Good to see someone with authority advocating an approach to building startups that we at Agile Entrepreneurs focus on, week after week.

Customer Development 267

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Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2009

By the late 1930′s when HP started, a small group (measured in hundreds) of engineers who made radio tubes were building the valleys’ ecosystem for electronics manufacturing, product engineering and technology management. The HP and Agilent credit union is called “Addison Avenue&#. Who would have known? to do that.

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Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

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. It’s our hood alignment station,” the plant manager said proudly. the manager followed us still yelling.

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crowdSPRING Blog

DECEMBER 13, 2018

Curved lines are visibly flexible and can communicate agility and reactivity. Horizontal vs vertical vs diagonal lines. Unlike vertical or diagonal lines, they look as though gravity has already acted upon them and there is nowhere for them to fall. Vertical lines run perpendicular to the horizon. Management.

Marketing 162

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Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 4, 2009

For example, Friendster was famously vertically partitioned at one time in its growth curve. I normally recommend you just store this directory on your master database, but you could use a standalone vertical shard (or even a key-based partition!) This type of vertical partitioning sharding scheme wont work in most cases.

San Francisco 151

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Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2009

You don’t get grades for having resiliency, curiosity, agility, resourcefulness, pattern recognition and tenacity. When recruiting was hard the functional managers started looking at 2.8-9s. There’s a big difference between being an employee at a great technology company and having the guts to start one. You just get successful.

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YoungUpstarts

JUNE 5, 2014

Masterful execution makes up one of the triangle’s two vertical sides. (I A strong soft edge makes a company resilient and agile — even in the face of the occasional C-suite disagreement. Story can create legends that an entire workplace culture can build upon, grow with, and lean on. First, what is the “soft edge”?

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Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

Their own internal culture would tie them up in knots, and agile startups could run rings around them. Build a company culture where everyone supports the “sharp end of the stick.” Stay agile, stay focused. Very useful way to think about “Management By Objectives.&# Don’t let this happen to your company.

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

Last week one of our mentors abruptly resigned from coaching one of the Lean LaunchPad student teams after claiming the students were ignoring his practical advice and years of expertise in the field. A healthy disrespect for the status quo coupled with passion, persistence and agility trumps everything else. A match made in heaven?

Vertical 334

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

Last week one of our mentors abruptly resigned from coaching one of the Lean LaunchPad student teams after claiming the students were ignoring his practical advice and years of expertise in the field. A healthy disrespect for the status quo coupled with passion, persistence and agility trumps everything else. A match made in heaven?

Customer Development 225

Customer Development Vertical Agile Lean 225

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 12, 2009

Ardent 3: Supercomputer Porn « Steve Blank (tags: customer-development product-management startup) [.] Therefore, you must leverage your strengths by exploiting their weaknesses due to size, brand, culture, or established historical norms which make them much less agile than a flexible yet less-capitalized opponent.

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blog.expensify.com

APRIL 24, 2012

And.NET’s languages (C#, IronPython, managed C++, etc.) The VAST majority of what you’re dealing with (HTTP, MIME, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, relational databases, page template, authentication, session management, caching, etc.) Do you manage to hire any programmers in the first place. are also reasonable and flexible.

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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

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Steve Blank

APRIL 15, 2009

The reality is that independent electric vehicle startups will win over time (closer to the customer, more agile, etc.) I think the Volt open source platform could be managed through a Web 2.0-like was somewhat incomprehensible at first to the Energy and EPA team. But they’re smart, let’s see what happens.) over a national platform.

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