Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

Forget the Hypertext idea and come on back to California. Some of the other founders had sold minicomputers to scientists and engineers, but no one knew or understood the unique class of applications and customers of supercomputers. A few days later Gordon became a founder. The response from across the country?

North Carolina 126

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

No newly hired sales and marketing exec is going to tell a founder, “Hey my prior experience and assumptions may not actually be relevant to this new startup.” The Outsourcing of Founders Responsibility The Product Development model separates founders from deeply understanding their customers and market.

Customer Development 241

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

Moreover, since the first CEO was likely to have been one of the founders, the trauma of CEO removal begins. Reply Nivi , on September 11, 2009 at 11:17 pm Said: One of the subtle lessons here for founder CEOs: you light a fuse on your own job as soon as you hire the first VP of Sales. innovation.

Customer Development 228

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 228

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 27, 2011

Taariq Lewis, the founder of Voluble, is a 1M/1M premium entrepreneur. Said from Orange County, California, pitched MapWide.com , which is supposed to be a collection of sites like MapDentist.com, MapDoctors.com, etc. We did a cobranded social chat event on Tuesday that gave us an opportunity to actually test ride the Stanzr product.

Entrepreneur 116

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ReadWriteStart

JUNE 23, 2011

MyTab Next, Heddi Cundle from San Francisco, California, discussed MyTab , an online gift-registry of sorts to raise money for travel. In it, I have mapped out a similar project, but with a clear delineation of the segmentation and positioning as well as a go-to-market strategy. I advised Anupam to come up with a 2011 strategy.

Spain 115

Spain Entrepreneur India San Francisco 115

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

The same issues arose time and again: big company management styles versus entrepreneurs wanting to shoot from the hip, founders versus professional managers, engineering versus marketing, marketing versus sales, missed schedule issues, sales missing the plan, running out of money, raising new money.

Silicon Valley 126

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Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2011

Fourth, as a public official in the State of California , to offer a window on how public policy on California Coastal protection gets made. Marcos Polanco, founder of Clearshore and himself a serial entrepreneur, “never found time to read the blog, no matter how much I loved it.

Silicon Valley 201

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Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

If you’ve tried to slog your way through my book on Customer Development you know that I’m insistent that the founders need to be the ones getting outside the building (physically or virtually) to validate all the initial hypotheses of the business model and product. Hiring a VP of Sales in customer discovery typically sets a startup back.

Technology 139

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

So founders might be tempted to first shoot the arrow and then draw the target around it, by choosing the ‘soft’ metrics that puts them in the best light. So certainly the suggestions above for metrics are good ones, but I would claim that the right metrics can be deduced almost mathematically for every type of business.

Customer Development 223

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 223

Duct Tape Marketing

MAY 17, 2023

They are l ongtime sales leaders, practitioners, and professors of Entrepreneurship at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business. Also, they are investors, startup advisors, and co-founders of Agency18, a firm that helps mission-driven companies adopt their Unsold Mindset. John Janstch (27:40): Awesome.

Sales 92

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Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

On a more serious note, any tips on attracting founders? BTW, I personally would _never_ “find&# a founder over the web. It’s a two-fer: you’ll learn about selling AND get to find some founder candidates. Working for people who’s reality distortion field is larger than yours. Might want to go it.

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Austin Startup

MARCH 3, 2020

Tony Martens , Co-Founder at Plantible Foods , moved his company to San Diego from the Netherlands The Forrest Four-Cast: March 3, 2020 Plantible Foods wants to contribute to a more sustainable and responsible future while meeting the food needs of a hungry planet. All SXSW Pitch events take place at the Hilton Austin Downtown.

San Diego 62

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Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

Communism being a bad science experiment) ESL’s founder Bill Perry was moving the chess pieces. When Terman said no, Sylvania, a tube company which built proximity fuse tubes in WWII, won the contract and set up its Electronic Defense Lab (EDL) in Mountain View California in the middle of an orchard. There were no venture investors.

Silicon Valley 176

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Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Hopefully you and your co-founders are experts in one or two parts (agile development, SEO/SEM, etc.) But the rest; sales, marketing, bus dev is actually customer development that the founder needs to understand. Initially your job is to understand each of the parts of your business model before you hire someone to do it.

Sales 120

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Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

A company called Aapps, founded by Nolan Bushnell (founder of Atari), make a product called the MicroTV, Digivideo, and Digivideo Color in the 1990 – 1991 timeframe that displayed live video in a window on the Mac. Unfortunately our corporate DNA was wedded to the fat Mac margins. steve MIchael W. ,

Video 168

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Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

What makes an individual a great startup founder (versus an employee) has been something I had been thinking about since I retired. A Day in the Life of A Founder For those of you who’ve never started a company, let me assure you that it never happens like the pleasant articles you read in business magazines or in case studies.

Founder 302

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YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 10, 2011

Azione PR is a Los Angeles, California-based boutique public relations firm started by two enterprising and dynamic young women who despite their young ages already possess more than twenty years of experience in public relations and marketing in total. “This ensures that as they grow and change, so does our campaign for them.

PR 246

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Austin Startup

DECEMBER 20, 2020

the Connectors, Angels, Venture Capitalists, Founders, Professors, Hackers, Press… and the Legends. Find the Connectors , the Angels , the Venture Capitalists , the Founders , the Professors , the Hackers , and the Legends you need to meet and get some hints about the best ways to meet them. Here is your COVID-friendly cheat sheet.

Austin 110

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Steve Blank

APRIL 27, 2009

My first business trip to the valley was to visit California Microwave. to get acquired to raise money or get their founders and investors liquid. My first job out of RPI was as an engineer on the EF-111, an electronic counter measures laden derivative of the original F-111 swing-wing fighter / bomber. Order Here.

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley Technical Review Europe Germany 185

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

Reply An Interview with Mark Fletcher, Founder of Bloglines and ONEList — TechDrawl , on July 10, 2009 at 3:56 pm Said: [.] Reply Process for the Enterprise » Blog Archive » Faith-based versus Fact-based , on June 21, 2009 at 3:55 pm Said: [.] As he points out, starting [.]

Silicon Valley 219

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 21, 2010

Rich Karlgaard , publisher of Forbes and co-founder of the Churchill Club refereed the event. The Churchill Club , Silicon Valley’s largest public affairs organization, invited Carl Schramm , president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation and I to talk about entrepreneurship.

Silicon Valley 143

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 23, 2009

Extra credit if you know the back-story of slide 1 and why it’s appropriate for founders and their team. The video below was my presentation to the group. sgblank Lean Startup Cirle 111909 This movie requires Adobe Flash for playback. The slides below go with the video. Just click through them as you watch the video.

Customer Development 217

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Steve Blank

APRIL 29, 2009

As a founder you need to prepare yourself to think creatively and independently, because more often than not, conditions on the ground will change so rapidly that the original well-thought-out business plan becomes irrelevant. Every potential startup founder should think about their level of comfort operating in chaos and uncertainty.

Silicon Valley 173

Silicon Valley Iraq RSS Vietnam 173

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Where as most start-up founders start with the conviction that they know success looks like and [.] Reply Best books for the lean product managers — Justin Gibbs , on April 28, 2009 at 2:44 pm Said: [.] familiar with Customer Development you should be. It’s very different than the traditional product development model.

Product Development 146

Product Development Developer Silicon Valley Product 146

ReadWriteStart

MAY 12, 2011

Today, he has over a thousand, and he has chosen to focus on the realtor vertical. Then Taariq Lewis from San Francisco, California, presented Stanzr, a lightweight online events platform specifically focused on moving qualified leads generated through webinars towards a close. He is seeing excellent results. Following a guerrilla p.r.

San Francisco 125

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

The founder of what became General Motors was William (Billy) Durant. Billy Durant - Founder General Motors More in the next posts. Ford family did a pretty good job of managing founder-to-manager transition in car business and are still playing a big role in their enterprise 100 years since. What happened to him? Who was he?

Silicon Valley 161

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Steve Blank

DECEMBER 3, 2009

My co-founder, head of business development and I were in Japan raising money. —– The next time one of my ideas was “borrowed,” it was a little less benign and more like the nightmare founders fear. I used it in all presentations and gave it at industry conferences. Are those my initials on the slide? More in the next post.

Silicon Valley 152

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Steve Blank

APRIL 22, 2009

Even with information from all three views, founders need to remember there will never be enough information to make a perfect decision. [.] Reply Building a Company with Customer Data – Why Metrics Are Not Enough « Steve Blank , on December 17, 2009 at 6:01 am Said: [.] Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply.

Silicon Valley 182

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Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

Cultural Revolution at Large Corporations – the Founders Return Of the companies that do reinvent themselves it’s interesting that often its the founder or an outsider that has the insight and makes the radical changes. At HP the founders were still at the company and still running the business.

Silicon Valley 169

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Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Reply founders, beware « Adisababa’s Weblog , on January 20, 2010 at 10:05 am Said: [.] great book on a related matter is 4 steps to the epiphany, by steve blank, founder of… E.piphany, once a big [.]

Silicon Valley 128

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

I would be very curious to hear the (hypothetical) suggestions you would have given to twitter’s founders, for example. Sometimes customers don’t realize they need a product until you give it to them. Reply steveblank , on August 21, 2009 at 10:20 pm Said: David, No advice is applicable in all cases.

Silicon Valley 188

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

Home Books for Startups Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Resources Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Categories Air Force (9) Ardent (9) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (29) California Coastal Commission (3) Conservation (2) Convergent Technologies (1) Customer Development (98) Customer Development Manifesto (..)

Customer Development 246

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 246

Austin Startup

MARCH 4, 2018

AirPop’s co-founder Chris Hosmer (pictured above) answered our questions for this interview. One of our headquarters is in San Francisco and the other is in Shanghai, each headed by one of our two founders. See the AirPop pitch live at 5 pm Sunday, March 11, at the Hilton Austin, Salon AB. What is the AirPop competitive advantage?

San Francisco 48

San Francisco Startup China India 48

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

If you are a founder of a startup ethics begin with you. When your employees see that it’s “an anything goes” culture you’ll find unethical behavior occurring that you will regret. And in a big company most of it is illegal and can have enormous consequences. Think through if you want to win at any cost. (I A final note.

Silicon Valley 124

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

Concept and Seed Stage In the Concept and Seed Stage, founders capture their passion and vision for the new company and turn them into a set of key ideas, which quickly becomes a business plan, sometimes on the back of the proverbial napkin. We’ll look at the model stage-by-stage.

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 263

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

The Customer Development process says preserve your cash by not hiring anyone in sales and marketing until the founders turn hypotheses into facts and you have found product/market fit.

Lean 250

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

It was amazing to see the two founders, Fred Durham and Maheesh Jain, build a $100 million company from coffee cups and T-shirts. But Cafepress’s most memorable moment was when the founders used a “Lessons Learned” VC pitch to raise their second round of funding and got an 8-digit term sheet that same afternoon.

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