Steve Blank
OCTOBER 10, 2011
I was invited to Finland as part of Stanford’s Engineering Technology Venture Program partnership with Aalto University. Toxic Business Press and Contradictory Government Incentives. Many founders mentioned this as a reason not to incorporate or grow their companies in Finland. Note to Finland – lighten up.
Steve Blank
OCTOBER 7, 2011
I spent the month of September lecturing, and interacting with (literally) thousands of entrepreneurs in two emerging startup markets, Finland and Russia. This is the first of two posts about Finland and entrepreneurship. It’s hard enough to pick which existing companies with known business models to aid. 9-to-5 Venture Capital.
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Gust
JULY 12, 2012
My wife, Ann, and I took a trip this past spring to visit Estonia, Finland, Ireland and Russia. Topics of conversation included how to identify fundable companies, trends in funding, business plans, and pitching to investors. Tallinn is the capital of Estonia, located just across the Bay of Finland from Helsinki.
Startup Lessons Learned
JANUARY 12, 2010
For the many entrepreneurs that send me cold emails asking for me to review a business plan or answer a strategic dilemma: Im much more likely to answer if youve already tried getting an answer on the mailing list. Youll probably get a better result, anyway. Youll probably get a better result, anyway.
Startup Lessons Learned
JANUARY 2, 2009
My startup business (web development) is being shunned by virtually every other potential investor I approached thus far. The only folks who invested in me were the ones who barely understood the business plan. They just havd faith in me. My 2008 revenues were over $100k on a 35k inventory. I am chugging along.
Startup Lessons Learned
NOVEMBER 8, 2008
Most likely, your business plan is loaded with opinions and guesses, sprinkled with a dash of vision and hope. For the rest of us, we need to get some facts to inform and qualify our hypotheses ("fancy word for guesses") about what kind of product customers will ultimately buy. Take a look and let me know what you think.
Startup Lessons Learned
SEPTEMBER 8, 2008
Some combination of the dot-com crash and a just terrible business plan prevented us from having to take our scalability problems to the next level. It cost us a few hundred thousand dollars to get our app up and running, but none of that was dollars spent on software licenses or professional services.
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