Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Posted on June 11, 2009 by steveblank When my students ask me about whether they should be a founder or cofounder of a startup I ask them to take a walk around the block and ask themselves: Are you comfortable with: Chaos – startups are disorganized Uncertainty – startups never go per plan Are you: Resilient – at times you will fail – badly.

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Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 219

grasshopperherder.com

FEBRUARY 19, 2011

If you’re waiting for a technical co-founder to put up a landing page with signup form, you’re lazy. If you’re waiting for a marketing guy to talk to customers, you’ll never understand the target market. If you offer me 1% of the equity, I’ll do 1% of the work. Names redacted.)

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The Equity Kicker

SEPTEMBER 24, 2014

I wrote the post below for Crowdcube , one of the UK’s leading equity crowdfuding sites. Two developments have changed the face of startup investing in the UK in recent years. The first development is increased capital efficiency. I could give lots of examples but perhaps the best is the way we work with solo-founders.

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Early Stage Development Team Review Technical Review Software Review 119

The Next Web

JANUARY 27, 2013

One of the things I found most valuable from participating in the Founder Institute was a lesson about the Golden Circle by Simon Sinek. One of the biggest mistakes I made was flushing about $10,000 down the toilet on legal fees for a piece of paper that eventually didn’t suffice when two of our co-founders left the building.

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Netherlands Technical Review Software Review Cofounder 159

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

Listen to this episode if you want to hear about a founder who has a product and users and paying customers … and is trying to figure out how to take his company to the next level and grow faster. They have many, many man-years of development and customer development in them. I first did it for the founder.

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Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 30, 2014

But a new class of life science/healthcare co-working and collaboration space is another. A new life science/healthcare co-working and collaboration space. It looks like someone is actually pulling this together in a life science/healthcare co-working and collaboration space in Chicago called MATTER.

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San Diego North Carolina Chicago Lean 261

steveblank.com

JULY 8, 2011

Home Books for Startups Guide Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Tools Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Email Subscription Get Steve Blank via your RSS Feed RSS - Posts RSS - Comments Categories Air Force (12) Ardent (10) Audubon (1) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (39) Business Model versus Business Plan (..)

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Software Review Startup Silicon Valley Analytics 110

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 312

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

“If you can fix a problem for someone and do it better, quicker, and/or cheaper than your competitor, you’re off to a good start.” – Gabriel Kuperman, founder and CEO of CuePin. We created UpKeep to fill this void—a cloud-based solution that was affordable for any size business.” – Ryan Chan, founder of UpKeep.

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Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

grasshopperherder.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Piercing the Corporate Veil – Sweat Equity Consulting. « Thanks but No Thanks – Things to Avoid When Recruiting Co-founders Why is Cyber Squatter a Bad Word? But much like becoming a co-founder, getting paid sweat equity is essentially becoming an investor in the company. Jan 20 -->.

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The Startup Lawyer

MARCH 17, 2012

With the surge in demand for technical co-founders, many startups have no choice but to contract with dev shops to build their idea. A dev shop is never a substitute for a technical co-founder. Most of these early “partnerships” never work, regardless of how the startup compensates the dev shop.

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maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

Whats is the best way to find a co-founder for your startup? However, one of my co-founders doesn’t seem to be as motivated as the rest of us. As founders invest massive amounts of time into their start-up, how critical is it for them to come out of their “hermit caves” and network?

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2015

Matt Weingart, program development manager in the Strategic Development Office at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Takashi Tsutsumi and Masato Iino , founders of Learning Entrepreneur’s Lab in Japan. The focus of our first segment is how Silicon Valley and the U.S.

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Channel Japan Bosnia Silicon Valley 120

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

Find Questions, Topics and People Add Question Add Question Non-Technical Co-Founders Co-Founders Technical Co-founders Finding Co-Founders Startups & "How Important Are Ideas?" " Web Development Startups Solo Founders I am a creative guy with a startup idea.

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Developer Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder 42

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

There’s been a lot of hand-wringing about gender equity in the high-tech and entrepreneurship worlds lately. One last suggestion, which is a technique I learned from my IMVU co-founder Will Harvey. There’s been a lot of hand-wringing about gender equity in the high-tech and entrepreneurship worlds lately.

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San Francisco Lean Sweden Continuous Deployment 167

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

One of the things I do as a founder of a later stage startup is to meet with early stage entrepreneurs to help them get their companies going. In later posts I’m going to get into more detail on specific topics like hiring, raising money, what types of ideas have the potential to get big, finding your founders, and the like.

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Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

.” Hackernews list of “Tools of the Trade” for startups - includes over 150 SaaS tools used by startups, and over 150 comments with interesting insights from founders. Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. YCombinator Series AA Equity Financing Documents. Founder Equity Issues.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53

The Equity Kicker

FEBRUARY 25, 2014

He has startup experience having co-founded his previous company PureHolidayHomes. Turning to the business and how we’ve worked together, the first thing to say is that Matt’s customer development work was encouraging. Secondly, Matt was a sole founder when he joined us. He has deep knowledge of his sector.

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Stealth Cofounder Aggregator Europe 141

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015

And Silicon Valley’s pay-it-forward culture is a huge help to startup founders. Gary Marcus , one of the country’s best-known cognitive psychologists, is a professor of psychology and neural science at NYU and founder of Geometric Intelligence. The stuff founders are made of. If you can’t hear the clip, click here.

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www.aaronkharris.com

SEPTEMBER 12, 2011

I was told that finding a CTO/technical co-founder in NYC was about as easy as climbing Everest with one leg, no O2, and carrying a dead elephant. We were well aware that it would be a mix of cash and equity, and that there was no golden number for either. Have fun with it, play safe. Schedule a lesson with me!

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CTO Hire New York City .Net Cofounder 40

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

Unlike other incubator-led programs, this workshop is open to anyone who wants to learn, and it does not require companies take investment or give out equity. Im working on a future post where Ill share the details of how I used customer development to shape both the content and packaging of this event, so look for that soon.

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The Equity Kicker

OCTOBER 2, 2014

(Our other category of investment is ‘idea stage’, often with solo-founders.). We got to know David Gildeh, the CEO and one of three co-founders, around this time last year. At that time he was talking about infrastructure monitoring, doing customer development work but had yet to start the company.

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Spencer Fry

APRIL 17, 2017

What tends to give are what you really need to be focusing on most at the start of your business: customer development, customer outreach, marketing, copy, and design. As a bootstrapped startup, the only accountability you have is to yourself and to your co-founder if you have one. Having great accountability.

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www.instigatorblog.com

MARCH 2, 2010

The Board probably existed beforehand, but was made up only of the founders. This is typically done with a small piece of equity. We have been lucky enough to have formed strong relationships with family friends and past co-workers, to have a very informal Board of Advisors on hand. There’s no surprise there. Expectations.

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www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

Find Questions, Topics and People Add Question Add Question Team Configuration 500 Startups Guerilla Marketing Organizations Entrepreneurship Startup Founders & Entrepreneurs Startups Startup Incubators and Seed Programs Seedcamp Y Combinator TechStars Lean Startups What is the perfect startup team? Lakshman Prasad • Nov 16, 2010.

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Technical Review Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 51

The Equity Kicker

JULY 29, 2013

Enough customers who will pay enough to make this a large market. Have a product picker as a co-founder. It could be a technical founder, business founder, a product manager, or a designer, but someone on the founding team better have great product picking skills. A clear way to monetize.

Product 108

Product Cofounder Lean Distribution 108

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers - SoCal CTO , November 1, 2010 I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. And I tried to evaluate the idea and figure out: What did the founder really need here? Was it a Startup Founder Developer Gap ?

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Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

The Equity Kicker

JUNE 17, 2014

Henrik Werdelin, co-founder of Barkbox a subscription ecommerce service for dog owners wrote a great post on Medium detailing The 6 counterintuitive ways Barkbox grew to a 100m business. Yet doing it well is still hard.

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Revenue Customer Social Media Cofounder 102

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

He blogs to 10,000 web entrepreneurs at Software by Rob and co-hosts the podcast Startups for the Rest of Us. Before I get into the details for founders, let me talk about options-hungry employees. equity debate. Product Friday: Monetizing Content is a Product Problem - This is going to be BIG. Dying at 70? Who doesn't?

Startup 191

Startup CTO Hire Cofounder Venture Capital 191

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 5, 2010

Also included is the incredible Venture Hacks Bible, which is worth the price of admission on its own, and The Entrepreneurs Guide to Customer Development (which I previously reviewed here). The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? And theres so much more.

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Steve Blank

DECEMBER 3, 2009

Worries from the garage One of the worries I hear from entrepreneurs (not just my students) is that Customer Development means getting out of the building and sharing what you are working on. My co-founder, head of business development and I were in Japan raising money. Once it almost mattered.

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Silicon Valley RSS Startup California 149

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 9, 2012

Don’t listen to customers, develop your products in secret and make every decision yourself. The idea came out of an experience this spring when I applied for a spot in Y Combinator,” says Erli Bird founder Mike Siegler. Erli Bird has a Kickstarter feel, with a window where the early adopters can meet the company founders.

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Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 30, 2008

Offer equity instead of cash. Make sure for planned revenues you have "leading indicators" to know if you will hit it. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th.

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Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 121

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Both Sides of the Table , July 22, 2010 An updated Digital Trends presentation - Jeff Hilimire , June 2, 2010 I do what I hate - Jessica Mah , January 7, 2010 Startup Equity Allocation - charliecrystle.com , January 11, 2010 When good investment decisions end up backing more women CEOs: Conversation with Cameron Lester at Azure Capital.

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Silicon Valley Startup Term Sheet Venture Capital 378