Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Customer Development We were starting Epiphany, my last company. I was out and about in Silicon Valley doing what I would now call Customer Discovery trying to understand how marketing departments in large corporations worked. It’s just a story about what happened to me. Are These Your Slides? He said, “Look again.”

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Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 232

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

New strategic direction in companies with loyal customers have different consequences then when you had no customers Acquiring new customers are a lot more expensive that converting existing ones. 5) The customer’s needs don’t match your long term direction. Fire might be a strong word.

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Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 201

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2010

Having a teaching partner makes life a lot easier and the class improves. A partner allows me the flexibility to miss a session or two (my job as a California Coastal Commissioner meets three days every month up and down the coast of California.) Teaching Team. ——– Coming Soon.

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Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 230

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

Forget the Hypertext idea and come on back to California. He and his wife Gwen would found the Computer Museum, first in the lobby of DEC headquarters, then in Boston (and now as the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.) He was my role model at Convergent, mentor at Ardent and partner at E.piphany.

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North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 126

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Each VC firm/partner has a different spin on what to weigh more.) These types seem dangerous, yet are often the ones needed on board to get the fund to invest in the first place, seeing that the younger partners naturally have less pull during the Monday round-ups. I find the same still going on with a few firms and partners.&#

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Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 223

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 9, 2012

TLDR: Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits , authors of The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development are back with a new book called The Lean Entrepreneur. It took the idea of Customer Development and made it accessible to a whole new audience. Illustrations by FAKEGRIMLOCK. You can pre-order it starting today.

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Entrepreneur Lean Southern California San Diego 167

Steve Blank

JUNE 6, 2016

Evangelos Simoudis’ is the founder and managing director of Synapse Partners. His investing career started 15 years ago at Apax Partners and continued with Trident Capital. Filed under: Customer Development. If you can’t hear the clip, click here.

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Silicon Valley Fractional CTO Entrepreneur Analytics 120

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 19, 2014

All of sudden what was an additional engineering and development effort now became a small, variable cost. As a bonus it meant the 1,400 aerial applicator companies could be a potential distribution channel partner. So we’ve learned to live with our customers. Build continuous customer discovery into your company DNA.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 17, 2009

Stanford had a Customer Development loop going on inside their own lab. The discoveries in tube and circuit research suggested new electronic intelligence and countermeasure techniques and systems; in turn the needs of the Applied Lab pushed tube and circuit development.

Silicon Valley 144

Silicon Valley RSS California Government 144

Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

While one could argue that a trade show is just another demand creation activity akin to advertising or PR, trade shows are the closest eyeball-to-eyeball contact you’re company is going to have with customers, competitors and partners. What didn’t? Go to trade shows like it matters.

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Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 129

Steve Blank

APRIL 15, 2016

Michael Mondavi , founder and coach of Folio Fine Wine Partners. In Silicon Valley for three decades, spent eight years as a partner at US Venture Partners. In 2004, he launched Folio Fine Wine Partners with his wife Isabel and their children, Rob, Jr. Before that, restaurateurs would never compare California with France.

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Silicon Valley California Entrepreneur Cofounder 139

Steve Blank

JANUARY 20, 2014

When Customer Development and the Lean Startup were just a sketch on the napkin, Dino Vendetti, a VC at Bay Partners, was one of the first venture capitalists I shared my ideas with. Over the years we brainstormed about how Lean entrepreneurship would affect regional development. Founders Pad.

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Silicon Valley Oregon Lean Venture Capital 314

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 3, 2019

The goal would be six-fold: Integrate adjuncts as partners with their entrepreneurship centers . I’ve been an adjunct for almost 18 years, and I still remember the onboarding process at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. Create repeatable and scalable processes for onboarding adjuncts.

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Cofounder Lean Reputation Programming 144

Steve Blank

APRIL 15, 2016

Michael Mondavi , founder and coach of Folio Fine Wine Partners. In Silicon Valley for three decades, spent eight years as a partner at US Venture Partners. In 2004, he launched Folio Fine Wine Partners with his wife Isabel and their children, Rob, Jr. Before that, restaurateurs would never compare California with France.

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Silicon Valley California Entrepreneur Cofounder 120

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 20, 2014

The Lean LaunchPad class teaches students how to build a Lean Startup using business model design, customer development and agile engineering. Teams have to get out of the building and talk to 10-15 customers a week.) However, going through the customer development process showed me the danger in that kind of thinking.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 4, 2012

It was a strange contrast for me having grown up in Northern California where failure seemed to be a badge of honor. 4:30 How did you come up with the idea of customer development? 33:15 Thank you to Detroit Venture Partners for supporting the show. Steve, thanks so much for joining us today! What brings you to LA?

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Community Silicon Valley Detroit Chicago 350

Steve Blank

MARCH 7, 2012

We trying to teach students a methodology that combines customer development, agile development, business models and pivots. Only in California! This team spoke face-to-face with 50+ end users, 3 manufacturers, 25 potential partners, 22 domain experts and surveyed an additional 115 customers.

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Lean Business Model Agile United States 258

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2015

My guests this past week on Bay Area Ventures on Wharton Business Radio on Sirius XM Channel 111 were: Pete Newell , managing partner of BMNT Partners. John Kuhn , who works at BMNT Partners. Pete is managing partner for BMNT Partners and serves on the Board of Directors for Solace Power and Savonix.

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Channel Bosnia Japan Silicon Valley 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

You make several first order approximations about your business model, distribution channels, demand creation, and customer acceptance. You leave the comfort of your existing job, convince a few partners to join you and you jump off the bridge together. No building, no money, no customers, no market? Employ customer development.

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Silicon Valley RSS Vertical California 219

Steve Blank

JULY 9, 2009

So I got out out of the building to meet and understand our customers and distribution partners. I remember after a month or two of talking to 14-22 year old male gamers (our potential target market,) I realized that for the first time in my career I had no emotional connection to my customers or channel partners.

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Silicon Valley RSS California Video 142

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2015

One OSRD project – the Manhattan Project – the development of the atomic bomb – was so secret and important that it was spun off as a separate program. Army – build teams that deliver solutions to complex problems, with access to the entire network of suppliers and partners that Newell and Felter developed throughout their careers.

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Silicon Valley Afghanistan Iraq Stealth 120

Steve Blank

MAY 3, 2011

This week they were testing their hypotheses about Partners. Partners are the external companies whose product or service combines with your Value Proposition to create a complete customer solution or “whole product&# to satisfy customers. They worked on understanding their partners. The Nine Teams Present.

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South Dakota Business Model Lean United States 223

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

Partners Booths While your booth may be small, some of your potential or existing partners may have much larger ones, in much more visible locations. For a small company this is like throwing your tradeshow money on the floor. Look for locations near entrances, food concessions, rest rooms, seminar rooms, or close to major exhibitors.

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Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 185

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

Oh, and we had no installed customer base. I had hired the VP of marketing from a potential software partner who was responsible to get all this 3 rd party software on our computer. I’ve been on the side of your potential partners, and I know that often too much ‘persistence’ is offputting.

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Silicon Valley Software Review RSS Technical Review 327

Steve Blank

MARCH 22, 2009

And you’d like me to do my talk on Customer Development and startups?” “No, we’re the other CIA.” Their VC firm, In-Q-Tel , has been in business for 10 years, and like most VC firms they have an annual event where they show off their new portfolio companies to their limited partners and other VC partners.

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Silicon Valley Thailand RSS Venture Capital 253

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

Hewlett’s partner Dave Packard wanted to get into the computer business.) We Changed Our Mind In 1966, 10 years after Hewlett’s memo, Hewlett Packard’s revenue and headcount had grown ten fold; $200 million and 11,000 employees – all from test and measurement equipment.

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Silicon Valley RSS California Venture Capital 169

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

If you were a “with it” VC you needed to have a “Content&# or “Multimedia&# company in your portfolio to impress your limited partners – educational software companies, game companies, or anything that could be described as content and/or Multimedia. Not all VCs are equal.

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Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

The positive effect of the tidal wave of press was as a door opener for us to raise money from corporate partners. Our VP of Business Development had no problems getting meetings and fund raising was easy. Not being able to hear negative customer input is an extremely bad idea.

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Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

Meanwhile my partner was in heaven working with his newly hired group of game designers directing and producing our first games. No, not really, but my partner owns the studio and tells me it’s spectacular and everyone will love it. Go spend some time outside the building talking to potential distribution partners.

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Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 212

Steve Blank

JUNE 29, 2009

I packed up my life in Michigan and spent five days driving to California to start work. No one will say work less and go home and spend time with your partner and/or family. You’re Hired, You’re Fired. My first job in Silicon Valley: I was hired as a lab technician at ESL to support the training department.

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Agile Silicon Valley RSS California 251

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2009

And one would become my mentor and partner in later companies.) Filed under: Customer Development , Family/Career , Technology | Tagged: Steve Blank , Entrepreneurs , Tips for Startups « Am I a Founder? Two of my role models for my career were in this company. (And But this story is not about Convergent.

Entrepreneur 282

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS 282

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

The Ultimate Combination of Startup Business Development Methods - ArcticStartup , November 16, 2010 I've been a huge fan of Steven Blank's Customer Development methodology for a long time. Meet the New Enterprise Customer, He’s a Lot Like the Old Enterprise Customer - Ben's Blog , November 15, 2010 Meet the new boss.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 28, 2020

No university has said, “We should design the institution to have a bigger impact using academic work and join up with outside entities and organizations and partners to do that.” Not only the theorists but constituents for customer development, or with Main Street businesses and local constituents.

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Lean Community San Jose Africa 407

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2017

Each of their slide presentation follow their customer discovery journey. All the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, but all of their journeys were unique. Filed under: Customer Development , Hacking For Defense , Lean LaunchPad.

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley Southern California San Diego Lean 185

Steve Blank

MARCH 26, 2012

I explained that the goal of the Innovation Corps was to bridge what the NSF calls the “ditch of death” – the gap between when NSF research funding runs out and when a team is credible enough (with enough customer and market knowledge) to raise private capital or license/partner with existing companies. Lessons Learned.

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America Rhode Island Southern California Illinois 242

Steve Blank

AUGUST 10, 2009

They would also set the standard for the 20% carry for general partners. They would be one the first venture firms to organize their firm as a partnership rather than an SBIC or public company. Tommy Davis would go on to found the Mayfield Fund in 1969.

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Silicon Valley RSS SBIC California 158

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 21, 2011

Because then you’d miss out on: Whether it’s better experience to build a complete, tiny startup or to do more in-depth customer development for a meatier problem. We been managing the field by plan more than 75 enterprise customers and channel partners. What’s your question then?

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Widget Cofounder Technical Review Software Review 204