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. Silicon Valley Transplants.

Silicon Valley 317

Silicon Valley Oregon Lean Venture Capital 317

Steve Blank

MAY 30, 2016

Now with over 917 interviews of beneficiaries (users, program managers, stakeholders, etc.), Four decades ago my first job in Silicon Valley was with ESL, the first company to combine computers and signals intelligence. The founder of this 1964 Silicon Valley startup was Bill Perry. It’s a ton of work.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley San Diego Technical Review Incubator 120

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

Its easy to take Silicon Valley for granted. Ive written a little bit about the origins of Silicon Valley because I think its important for us to understand how we got here in order to make sure we preserve what is best about our community. And do your customer development.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113

Steve Blank

JUNE 4, 2012

As the morning fog burns off the California coast, I am working with Steve Blank, preparing for the Lean LaunchPad Faculty Development Program we are running this August at U.C. Alex is a successful serial entrepreneur –with the same drive and energy of many we have known here in Silicon Valley, but different.

Silicon Valley 311

Silicon Valley Lean Utah Customer Development 311

Steve Blank

JUNE 7, 2019

The eight teams spoke to over 820 beneficiaries, stakeholders, requirements writers, program managers, warfighters, legal, security, customers, etc. Followed by an 8-minute slide presentation follow their customer discovery journey over the 10-weeks. All the presentations are worth a watch. Team: Panacea. Team: Learn2Win.

Oakland 278

Oakland Lean SBIR Afghanistan 278

Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2016

A team from their Enterprise Innovation Office has joined us at NYU as observers at our 5-day Lean LaunchPad class, while another team is in Silicon Valley with the Hacking for Defense team learning how to turn their hard problems into partnerships with commercial companies that lead to deployed solutions. The Innovation Insurgency.

Lean 182

Lean Silicon Valley Government Acquisition 182

Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2016

A team from their Enterprise Innovation Office has joined us at NYU as observers at our 5-day Lean LaunchPad class, while another team is in Silicon Valley with the Hacking for Defense team learning how to turn their hard problems into partnerships with commercial companies that lead to deployed solutions. The Innovation Insurgency.

Lean 182

Lean Silicon Valley Government Acquisition 182

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 10, 2012

Two studies have shown that only about 10 percent of promoters actually refer profitable new customers. Some of the most creative technology coming out of Silicon Valley is designed to do exactly that. Find and engage customer advocates using a gamification platform that makes it interesting and enjoyable to advocate.

Customer 154

Customer Fractional CTO Canada Technical Review 154

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2013

My co-author and business Partner Bob Dorf spends much of his time traveling the world teaching countries and companies how to run the Lean LaunchPad program. The program is funded by the Colombian government and modeled after the NSF Innovation-Corps program created and built by my partner and co-author Steve Blank.

Colombia 325

Colombia Lean Silicon Valley Coder 325

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2011

I spent a few days in March in Ann Arbor Michigan as a guest of Professor Thomas Zurbuchen , Associate Dean for Entrepreneurial Programs, and Doug Neal , Director of Center for Entrepreneurship in the Engineering School at the University of Michigan. The Center for Entrepreneurship in the Engineering School is akin to Stanford’s STVP program.

Michigan 313

Michigan Silicon Valley Venture Capital Incubator 313

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2013

My co-author and business Partner Bob Dorf spends much of his time traveling the world teaching countries and companies how to run the Lean LaunchPad program. The program is funded by the Colombian government and modeled after the NSF Innovation-Corps program created and built by my partner and co-author Steve Blank.

Colombia 289

Colombia Lean Silicon Valley Coder 289

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2011

Scientists and engineers as founders and startup CEOs is one of the least celebrated contributions of Silicon Valley. ESL, the first company I worked for in Silicon Valley , was founded by a PhD in Math and six other scientists and engineers. Why It’s “Silicon” Valley. It might be its most important.

Engineer 311

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital 311

Steve Blank

JANUARY 26, 2016

Introducing Hacking for Defense – Connecting Silicon Valley Innovation Culture and Mindset to the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community. What do all these groups in the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community (DOD/IC) have in common? Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, CIA, NSA. North Korea.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley North Korea Agile Lean 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 1, 2016

Based on those results we believe that we can do the same with Diplomacy so working with the State Department’s innovation cell in Silicon Valley we will prototype the Hacking for Diplomacy course at Stanford this fall. (see the final Hacking for Defense class presentations here ). Result: Hell yes. The Educator/Sponsor Class.

Silicon Valley 130

Silicon Valley Southern California San Diego Lean 130

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 3, 2016

The program examines the DNA of entrepreneurs: what makes them tick, how they came up with their ideas; and explores the habits that make them successful, and the highs and lows that pushed them forward. Companies like MySpace and LinkedIn became some of our biggest customers. Filed under: Customer Development.

Cofounder 280

Cofounder Silicon Valley Entrepreneur EC2 280

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 3, 2016

The program examines the DNA of entrepreneurs: what makes them tick, how they came up with their ideas; and explores the habits that make them successful, and the highs and lows that pushed them forward. Companies like MySpace and LinkedIn became some of our biggest customers. Filed under: Customer Development.

Cofounder 280

Cofounder Silicon Valley Entrepreneur EC2 280

Steve Blank

AUGUST 1, 2016

Based on those results we believe that we can do the same with Diplomacy so working with the State Department’s innovation cell in Silicon Valley we will prototype the Hacking for Diplomacy course at Stanford this fall. (see the final Hacking for Defense class presentations here ). Result: Hell yes. The Educator/Sponsor Class.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Southern California San Diego Lean 120

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. The focus of our first segment is how Silicon Valley and the U.S. He connects the Lab with the defense user community. John Kuhn , who works at BMNT Partners.

Channel 120

Channel Japan Bosnia Silicon Valley 120

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 30, 2014

Accelerators take teams with fairly focused ideas and offer a formal 3-4 month program of tutoring/mentoring with seed funding in exchange for equity. In order to get the healthcare community to collaborate with each other to bring new ideas to market they will need some help to catalyze the “co” part of co-working.

San Diego 265

San Diego North Carolina Chicago Lean 265

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. The company has a large press event, and Marketing launches a series of programs to create end-user demand (trade shows, seminars, advertising, email, and so on).

Silicon Valley 269

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 269

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 14, 2009

What will be covered in the full-day program? Take a look: This full-day Master Class focuses on how to build a startup from the ground up to focus on customers, markets, and speed of iteration. I have contacts within the university and entrepreneurial communities and would be happy to help you set up something if interested.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Software Review 60

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015

The program examines the DNA of entrepreneurs: what makes them tick, how they came up with their ideas; and explore the habits that make them successful, and the highs, lows and pivots that pushed them forward. We’ve had a lot of success in bringing people into the community and welcoming them. . It’s not threatening.

Artificial Inteligence 120

Artificial Inteligence Entrepreneur Silicon Valley New York 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2016

The program examines the DNA of entrepreneurs: what makes them tick, how they came up with their ideas; and explores the habits that make them successful, and the highs and lows that pushed them forward. (And Small Business Administration ’s Associate Administrator and chief of its investment and innovation programs.

Small Business Administration 120

Small Business Administration SBIR United States Entrepreneur 120

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Just like in the world of startups, we can start to use micro-scale pilot programs, executed in lean fashion, to gather real facts for making ROI decisions about new project investment. Most publishers are still caught up in an outdated “vision vs. metrics&# argument, which is already obsolete here in Silicon Valley.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

Steve Blank

APRIL 7, 2016

The program examines the DNA of entrepreneurs: what makes them tick, how they came up with their ideas; and explores the habits that make them successful, and the highs and lows that pushed them forward. Entrepreneurship stretches from Main Street to Silicon Valley, from startups to big companies. Want to be a guest on the show?

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Morocco Arkansas 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2018

Is your organization full of Hackathons, Shark Tanks, Incubators and other innovation programs, but none have changed the trajectory of your company/agency? Over the last few years Pete Newell and I have helped build innovation programs inside large companies, across the U.S. Think of this as the innovator’s support group.)

Programming 325

Programming Incubator Leadership Silicon Valley 325

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2009

Convergent Technologies When I was in my 20’s I worked at Convergent Technologies , a company that was proud to be known as the “Marine Corps of Silicon Valley.” Filed under: Customer Development , Family/Career , Technology | Tagged: Steve Blank , Entrepreneurs , Tips for Startups « Am I a Founder?

Entrepreneur 291

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS 291

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 10, 2011

This week, the startup tribe from Harvard Business School is making their annual trek to Silicon Valley. It’s a common refrain around Silicon Valley to disparage the role of MBA’s in entrepreneurship. They’ll hear from a variety of experts and get to see many startups firsthand. I also frequently see the reverse.

Silicon Valley 167

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Investment Bankers 167

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2017

Hacking for Defense is a battle-tested problem-solving methodology that runs at Silicon Valley speed. Few consider opportunities to make the world safer with the Department of Defense, Intelligence Community or other government agencies. Each of their slide presentation follow their customer discovery journey.

Silicon Valley 197

Silicon Valley Southern California Lean San Diego 197

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2009

But when the targets lit up, the music and chatter would stop, and the communications would get very professional. Nine months into my year tour, and seven months into my reading program, I was learning something interesting every day. (We All You Can Read Without a Library Card It was 1978. We could do what!? From where??)

Silicon Valley 278

Silicon Valley RSS California Washington 278

Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2018

Six teams spoke to over 600 beneficiaries, stakeholders, requirements writers, program managers, warfighters, legal, security, customers, etc. Each of their slide presentations follow their customer discovery journey. Steve Weinstein a 30-year veteran of Silicon Valley technology companies and Hollywood media companies.

Southern California 185

Southern California San Diego Mississippi SBIR 185

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 19, 2008

I would recommend periodic surveys, along with some kind of forum or other community tool where the most passionate customers can congregate. Im Community Manager at VenCorps, co-host of commandN. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Hi Eric, Will Pate here.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 60

www.women2.org

MARCH 8, 2012

After quitting my job and starting Sorced , I spent a few months validating my business concept by creating the product mockups and doing customer development. They are building more functionality into the site, a great community resource! Community Service. Community Follow @women2. Community Events.

Cofounder 47

Cofounder Technical Review San Francisco Founder 47

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

So heres my simple question: What do folks in Washington need to know about the global community of entrepreneurs? Much of what makes the USA, and Silicon Valley in particular, such a great place to start a company is the result of good government policy. You can see the design of the program here.

DC 90

DC Washington San Francisco SBIR 90

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

Heres the short version: hire people from the online communities that develop free software. Its a wonderful filter for people who are intrinsically motivated by the art of programming. Another unexpected benefit comes when you hire people who are part of the same online coding community. Instead, engage with the project.

Software Review 68

Software Review Software Hiring San Francisco 68

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

A good mentor is someone who has been part of the startup community themselves – someone who has a realistic understanding of some of the basic dos and don’ts of starting up. Especially if you aren’t from around Silicon Valley. You don’t need many – one or two to begin. link] serrynaimo It’s exactly how it works!

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

Create a strong brand, solid social community, sell advertising. I’m learning how to program. Has anyone found a referral program system that works great to generate new customers? Your existing customers are you best source of referals – just ask. When it comes to early stage investing – it’s all gut.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44