Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , Technology | Tagged: Customer Development , Early Stage Startup , Entrepreneurs , Startups , Steve Blank « SuperMac War Story 6: Building The Killer Team – Mission, Intent and Values Story Behind “The Secret History” Part IV: Library Hours at an Undisclosed Location » 17 Responses Michael F.

Silicon Valley 302

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Steve Blank

JUNE 3, 2009

Simulation to Reduce Invention Risk If you’re in a vertical where “invention risk” is dominant, then you want to do everything you can to manage and reduce those risks. When I wrote the Four Steps to the Epiphany , the Customer Development text, I hadn’t yet thought about what vertical markets it might be appropriate for.)

Vertical 130

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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.) The response from across the country? We’re building a supercomputer.”

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

I think Customer Development (iterative model) helps by putting a strong thought in the mind (at a very early stage) that you could be wrong unless the customer agrees; this helps the mind to be more receptive.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

This could be useful information for those that want to get involved with a early stage start-up and want to evaluate it but not necessarily for funding. These questions I know will be on top of the list that VC’s will ask.&# What are all the important questions that a VC will or should ask?

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

We’ve managed startups like this forever; there is no other way to manage them.”

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Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

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Technology 139

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

One can even make the case that getting Market Type right is the most valuable thing a marketer can do to add value and affect success in an early stage venture. This a hard concept and even harder to implement.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

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Silicon Valley 219

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

And even more importantly, was there any way to reduce risk in early stage ventures? This product development diagram had become part of the DNA of Silicon Valley. So much so that after I started teaching I’d ask, “Can anybody recognize this model of startups? Is there any way to predict success or failure?

Product Development 146

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Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

Go to trade shows like it matters.

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Austin Startup

DECEMBER 20, 2020

Austin has been one the fastest growing cities in the country for the past 20 years that I’ve been here, but it feels like COVID-19 and California wildfires broke the floodgates already under pressure from high taxes and expensive real estate in landlocked coastal cities.

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Eighty some pages later I realized that a) I had some great war stories as a good marketeer and failed CEO, b) I’d have to pay my wife and kids to read them, c) the three of them were probably the entire total available market, and d) when I looked at what I had done and what other entrepreneurs had done at their startups, that there was a pattern.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

That’s why early stage companies aren’t run by accountants with spreadsheets. weeks ago, positioning it as a tool designed to help small businesses effectively manage their social media efforts. Reply steveblank , on August 21, 2009 at 10:20 pm Said: David, No advice is applicable in all cases.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2009

Every potential startup founder should think about their level of comfort operating in chaos and uncertainty. It may not be for you.

Silicon Valley 173

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Yet the processes that early-stage companies were using were identical to that of large corporations. So what is it that makes some startups successful and leaves others selling off their furniture? Simply this: startups are not small versions of large companies. It is the path that is hidden in plain sight.

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Unfortunately in early stage startups the drive for financing hijacks the corporate DNA and becomes the raison d’etre of the company. What are Early Stage VC’s Really Asking? Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , SuperMac | Tagged: Steve Blank , Entrepreneurs , Early Stage Startup « Killing Innovation with Corner Cases and Consensus The Secret History of Silicon Valley Part VI: Every World War II Movie was Wrong » 7 Responses David , on April 23, 2009 at 8:58 am Said: Excellent!

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

The Customer Development model delineates all the customer-related activities in the early stage of a company into their own processes and groups them into four easy-to-understand steps: Customer Discovery , Customer Validation , Customer Creation , and Company Building. Its strength is its rigor and flexibility.

Customer Development 246

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Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

Did this help them to understand your company/product Part 2 of the memo, to be posted tomorrow: using a trade show to generate leads. Plus tips on overall trade show strategy.

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Steve Blank

MAY 26, 2009

Verticals Are Different I began to realize that entrepreneurs (and their professors) act like every vertical market and industry has the same set of rules. So the first heuristic is: do not assume the startup rules are the same for all vertical markets. Just for discussion, the markets I chose were: Web 2.0,

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Steve Blank

JULY 9, 2009

Don’t confuse your passion for your tools with why your customers will buy your product.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development | Tagged: Customer Development , Early Stage Startup , Entrepreneurs , Tips for Startups « The End of Innocence The Customer Development Manifesto: Reasons for the Revolution (part 1) » 21 Responses Kulveer Taggar , on August 27, 2009 at 11:18 am Said: Great post.

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

I see a lot of early-stage entrepreneurs waste too much time chasing money rather than figuring this out first. I think your definition of hitting a “repeatable and scalable sales model&# also answers the question for a lot of people about “when&# to take VC money.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

Reply Dan Hodgins , on November 13, 2009 at 1:12 am Said: Hi Steve, Just listened to your “Retooling Early Stage Development&# for about the 10th time tonight as I was cleaning my room. This is my new favorite post on your blog. 9 companies in 6 years… did any of those other ones catch on?

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Steve Blank

JULY 20, 2009

Crammed into Silicon Valley along with millions of people around the San Francisco Bay it’s hard to fathom that 15 air miles away was a stretch of California coast that was still rural. At the end of two days I realized, This was the first full weekend I had taken off since I had moved to California 3 years ago. How did I miss that?

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Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

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Steve Blank

MAY 7, 2009

Filed under: Marketing , Technology , Venture Capital | Tagged: Steve Blank , Venture Capital , Entrepreneurs , Early Stage Startup , Tips for Startups « Customer Analytics – From Those Who Should Know SuperMac War Story 10: The Video Spigot » 14 Responses Michael F.

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Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

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Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , Family/Career , Technology | Tagged: Steve Blank , Entrepreneurs , Startups , Early Stage Startup , Tips for Startups « The Curse of a New Building Going to Trade Shows Like it Matters – Part 1 » 33 Responses William , on May 18, 2009 at 5:44 am Said: Heh.

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Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , Rocket Science Games | Tagged: Steve Blank , Entrepreneurs , Early Stage Startup « Rocket Science 4: The Press is Our Best Product Burnout » 7 Responses Steve , on July 16, 2009 at 9:10 am Said: Steve, This is an excellent post. Make sure they are.

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Reid Hoffman

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

For example, if you’re an early-stage SaaS provider that is shifting from a horizontal solution to a vertical focus, your mission, culture, and competencies can stay the same and the pivot transition will probably go smoothly. It’s easier (but still hard) when you’re running a small, early-stage organization.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2009

You don’t get grades for having resiliency, curiosity, agility, resourcefulness, pattern recognition and tenacity. You just get successful.

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 22, 2009

Getting Out of the Building Wasn’t Entertainment – Discovery and Validation Now that I was the master of the “facts” about customer needs in these specialized vertical markets , and with my team of vertical marketers , I thought I had achieved absolution and redemption. But there was one fatal flaw.

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Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

In an early stage startup, instead of sales being up front, the point departments are likely to be product development and customer development. If sales as an organization failed to deliver revenue to plan then all we had were worthless shares. No one was confused after that. Who’s on the Sharp End?

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 8, 2009

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