Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

The initial hypothesis for Epiphany (from my much smarter partner Ben ) was that as departments in the enterprise (manufacturing, finance, customer support sales) became automated, the marketing department would eventually get its turn. Are These Your Slides? I quickly leafed through them and replied, “Sure they’re our original slides.

Silicon Valley 236

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Union Square Ventures The next morning I got to spend time with Brad Burnham , partner at Union Square Ventures talking about their investment strategy and insights about web-based businesses. Bill and his partner Fred Wilson have invested in ~30 or so companies with 27 still active.

Customer Development 224

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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. There appears to be a saturation point within this market space.

Silicon Valley 120

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

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. Oh, and we had no installed customer base. u have to be creative, too.

Silicon Valley 329

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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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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. Which at this stage of the company was marketing and financing. At the time I was a true believer that Rocket Science was going to change the gaming world.

Silicon Valley 122

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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. These two posts were amazing. Anyways, here’s one question I have.

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Reid Hoffman

MARCH 2, 2021

Khosrowshahi, who previously served as CEO of Expedia before taking the reins at Uber in 2017, sat down with Greylock general partner Reid Hoffman to discuss the past, present and future of the mobility and delivery business that now operates in 71 countries around the world and employs around 20,000 people globally. EPISODE TRANSCRIPT.

Iran 39

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 8, 2009

Law firm partners often have anger management issues, but the thing about anger is that it is not always wrong to be angry — if somebody is angry at you because you did something wrong, then that anger is valid.

Silicon Valley 279

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

Or at times an even more honest answer, “My senior partners say this is the only way to do it.” Why change something that has worked so well over the last three decades?” Or, “Look at our returns, its always worked for us.” That’s a better return than having 10 out of 10 companies succeed and each return 2x our money.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 17, 2009

The second was when a Southern Californian aircraft company decided to break into the missiles and space field by partnering with Stanford electronics expertise. The Navy informs Terman that, “money was not a problem but time was.” and the Soviet Union had nuclear weapons at this point.)

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Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2009

And one would become my mentor and partner in later companies.) I have been swinging for the fences for several years as a young entrepreneur at the executive leadership level for several start-ups and most recently starting my own. Two of my role models for my career were in this company. (And But this story is not about Convergent.

Entrepreneur 286

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Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

You leave the comfort of your existing job, convince a few partners to join you and you jump off the bridge together. You make several first order approximations about your business model, distribution channels, demand creation, and customer acceptance. At each startup I couldn’t wait to do this. Great, sign me up.

Silicon Valley 221

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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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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 29, 2009

The Group is worth noting for: Investing their own private money, Reid Dennis would found Institutional Venture Partners in 1974 First group specifically investing in the valley’s electronics industry SBIC Act of 1958 During the cold war the launch of Sputnik-1 by the Soviet Union in 1957 both traumatized and galvanized the United States.

Silicon Valley 126

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 26, 2009

Whitney Company by writing a personal check for $5M and hiring Benno Schmidt as the first partner (Schmidt turned Whitney’s description of “private adventure capital&# into the term “venture capital”). set up companies to do just that – find and formalize investments in new and emerging industries. In 1946 Jock Whitney started J.H.

Silicon Valley 166

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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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Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

Hewlett’s partner Dave Packard wanted to get into the computer business.) steve Elephants Can Dance – Reinventing HP » Dig for Leadership - Stories that try to make the world a better place. , AKPC_IDS += "376,"; (No Ratings Yet) Loading … Posted in Leadership | Tagged Amp, [.] carry on reading.

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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.

Silicon Valley 160

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Steve Blank

MARCH 22, 2009

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. And I could have sworn they all had the same badge.)

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steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Blogs (VC): Antonio Rodriguez [link] – A very technical VC at Matrix partners who can actually code. Blogs (web development): Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots – [link] Company blog of thoughtbot covering Ruby on Rails, HTML, CSS, Javascript, databases, and mobile development. startupcto

Software Review 110

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Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2009

We were about to be partners in building a new product family. The change in his demeanor – from trying to kill me – to laughing, as it dawned on him where I was going, could only be described as hysterical relief. “40%?” Yes, yes and yes.

Silicon Valley 137

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Steve Blank

JUNE 18, 2009

When I ran Rocket Science our corporate partners were in Japan (Sega), Germany (Bertelsmann) and Italy (Mondadori) and some travel was unavoidable. Thanks to my wife for being a great partner. As an executive it was easy to think I had to get on a plane for every deal. But I probably traveled 20% of what I did when I was single.

Entrepreneur 333

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2016

This is the cycle of synergies that lead to strong vertical franchises in media. So when we sold Maker Studios to Disney and I wanted to figure out where to invest next in online video I knew that I had to find a strong vertical in which to invest. ESPN in sports. Discovery in adventure and travel. CNN/Fox in news. The Food Network.

Vertical 150

Vertical Video South America Los Angeles 150

Occam's Razor

FEBRUARY 9, 2015

Both at improving your digital engagement and acquisition effectiveness, and at weaning your leadership away from the shiny hollow demo/psycho obsession. For each category, you need to partner with your creative teams on ad content, with your marketing team for ad targeting. Recommend changes. Traffic Sources Competitive Analysis.

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