David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

Just as with any company, the most important issue is the team; see “ How to Negotiate a Partner Role at a Venture Capital or Private Equity Firm “ . See How Private Equity and Venture Capital Investors Are Eating Their Own Dogfood. . 3) Raise capital. 4) Originate investments.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

David Teten

MARCH 28, 2012

Best Practices in Venture Capital Portfolio Company Value Creation. Lowering that failure rate would be highly impactful on venture capitalist returns, if we could figure out how to do it. Koen, Gyorgy, and Adham are all Columbia Business School MBA 2012 students and former consultants with McKinsey and BCG.

Portfolio 144

Portfolio Private Equity Venture Capital Early Stage 144

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Yet two smart VC firms, Sigma and Matrix Partners, realized that somewhere in this mess there was value. Now with a new infusion of $8 million dollars of venture capital, SuperMac had been resurrected from the dead and was attempting to restart. And with all of that they had gone broke, out of business and into Chapter 11.

Silicon Valley 150

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 150

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. 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?

Customer Development 264

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 264

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. Bend needed its own venture firm.

Silicon Valley 314

Silicon Valley Oregon Lean Venture Capital 314

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

Customer Development ) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions. Customer Development) to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions.&# Reply One difference between VCs and Entrepreneurs « Lightspeed Venture Partners Blog , on April 20, 2009 at 7:06 am Said: [.]

Silicon Valley 302

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 302

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2010

What startup stage do they typically invest in? Do they “get&# Customer Development ? What Startup Stage Do they Invest In? Certain VC’s like the new class of Super-Angels and small VC funds specialize in the early stage of a startup where you are searching for a business model. Lean Startups ?

Founder 231

Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 231

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

The combination of Venture Capital and technology startups is only about 50 years old. Rather than invent a new form of corporate governance, venture investors adopted the traditional board meeting structure from large corporations. Early stage board meetings are often clones of large company board meetings.

Silicon Valley 292

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 292

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

He was my role model at Convergent, mentor at Ardent and partner at E.piphany. Reply steveblank , on October 5, 2009 at 2:08 pm Said: Chris, Ben was the founding VP of Engineering at Ardent. Future posts will have some Ben stories. steve Chris Ryland , on October 5, 2009 at 12:08 pm Said: Anyway, looking forward to this series.

North Carolina 126

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 126

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

The combination of Venture Capital and technology startups is only about 50 years old. Rather than invent a new form of corporate governance, venture investors adopted the traditional board meeting structure from large corporations. Early stage board meetings are often clones of large company board meetings.

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 263

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 30, 2014

However, one of the bottlenecks in actually doing Customer Discovery for medical devices/health care is testing how minimal viable products work in-context. Testing hypotheses with doctors, patients, payers, providers, purchasing departments, strategic partners is hard. It Takes a Village.

San Diego 262

San Diego North Carolina Chicago Lean 262

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. Write it down and keep it in a tradeshow handbook for those who will follow.

Silicon Valley 129

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 129

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2010

It’s the kind of thing you can repeat in an elevator, simple to understand , universally applicable , and, most importantly, doesn’t burden your tech team with a lot of custom development. Often times, that comes in the form of analytics, which is what a biz dev partner would want in order to check on the success of the deal.

Early Stage 120

Early Stage Developer Technical Review Widget 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

Innofund is designed to bridge early stage technology companies that have innovative technology and good market potential but are too early for commercial funding (banks or VCs.) Most Venture Capitalists in China viewed the Innofund the same way most U.S. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

Programming 280

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 280

Steve Blank

JUNE 5, 2009

You make several first order approximations about your business model, distribution channels, demand creation, and customer acceptance. You leave the comfort of your existing job, convince a few partners to join you and you jump off the bridge together. No building, no money, no customers, no market? Employ customer development.

Silicon Valley 219

Silicon Valley RSS Vertical California 219

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 13, 2011

Steve Blank is a retired serial entrepreneur, educator, thought leader and creator of the rigorous "Customer Development" methodology that helps startups optimize their chances for success while reducing risk. The combination of Venture Capital and technology startups is only about 50 years old. Silicon Valley, New York).

Silicon Valley 117

Silicon Valley Balance Sheet Metrics Early Stage 117

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.

Silicon Valley 142

Silicon Valley RSS California Video 142

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.

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 185

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

Hewlett’s partner Dave Packard wanted to get into the computer business.) And venture capital and entrepreneurship has made life even tougher for the modern corporation. That year HP introduced its first computer, the HP 2116A , as an instrument controller for HP’s test and measurement products.

Silicon Valley 169

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 169

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

Innofund is designed to bridge early stage technology companies that have innovative technology and good market potential but are too early for commercial funding (banks or VCs.) Most Venture Capitalists in China viewed the Innofund the same way most U.S. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

Programming 172

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 172

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

I’ve seen a range of options for supporting entrepreneurs, which I can rank from least to most involvement in companies by investors: financier VCs, e.g., Correlation Ventures. portfolio operator VCs, e.g., Andreessen Horowitz, ff Venture Capital, First Round Capital, Google Ventures. mentor VCs, e.g., most VCs.

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

To an entrepreneur, being asked to join a venture firm with an Entrepreneur-in-Residence title means you have been tapped on the shoulder by the VC gods. The CDROM content business in the early 1990’s was one of the many of the long line of venture capital fads. Lots of ideas sound exciting because people are clueless.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

www.instigatorblog.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Early stage funding often bets subsatntial equity because the founders have liitle choices and thus the worth of the investor is really quite high. Early stage funding often bets subsatntial equity because the founders have liitle choices and thus the worth of the investor is really quite high.

Equity 41

Equity Employee Startup Vesting 41

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Also, make a bullet list of the marketing activities that will drive customers to your door. List key partners and resources you will need, and then list your core team as well as their roles. Also, make a bullet list of the marketing activities that will drive customers to your door. venture capital.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

www.instigatorblog.com

MARCH 2, 2010

Venture capital firms like to see CEOs with strong support (beyond the Board of Directors) and that’s what the Advisory Board is there to do. In some ways it’s more important (although it doesn’t have any control over the business), and that’s the Board of Advisors.

Advisory Board 40

Advisory Board Startup Cofounder Equity 40

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2013

Does our product or service solve a customer problem (product-market fit)? How do we attract, keep and grow customers? Who are the partners? If you’re a lifestyle entrepreneur or a small business, odds are the return you can provide is not what traditional angel or venture investors are looking for. Venture Capital'

Venture Capital 334

Venture Capital IRR Liquidity Event Business Model 334

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

Which at this stage of the company was marketing and financing. The positive effect of the tidal wave of press was as a door opener for us to raise money from corporate partners. Our VP of Business Development had no problems getting meetings and fund raising was easy.

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

Meanwhile my partner was in heaven working with his newly hired group of game designers directing and producing our first games. No, not really, but my partner owns the studio and tells me it’s spectacular and everyone will love it. Go spend some time outside the building talking to potential distribution partners.

Silicon Valley 212

Silicon Valley RSS Video San Diego 212

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2013

Does our product or service solve a customer problem (product-market fit)? How do we attract, keep and grow customers? Who are the partners? If you’re a lifestyle entrepreneur or a small business, odds are the return you can provide is not what traditional angel or venture investors are looking for. Venture Capital'

Venture Capital 226

Venture Capital IRR Liquidity Event Business Model 226

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. Then, what’s missing — clearly an engineer — and why do I want a partner? Prior to Sorced, Elizabeth worked in business development at SecondMarket.

Cofounder 47

Cofounder Technical Review San Francisco Founder 47

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

The timing is perfect, there is more than a little overlap with Vivek Wadhwa’s guest post on venture capital earlier today. 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. No phone system. No legal muck.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

Steve Blank

JANUARY 24, 2014

Dino Vendetti a VC at Bay Partners, moved up to Bend, Oregon on a mission to engineer Bend into a regional technology cluster. Over the years Dino and I brainstormed about how Lean entrepreneurship would affect regional development. Part 2: Early-stage Regional Venture Funds. Local Early-Stage Risk Capital.

Engineer 309

Engineer Silicon Valley Oregon San Francisco 309

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. Customer development isn’t just for [.] understands and groks Customer Development.

Silicon Valley 275

Silicon Valley RSS Customer Development California 275

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Venture Capital Cafe > Startup Resources (Updated Mar 2013). VC Cafe covers early stage Israeli and European tech & mobile startups. Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Boilerplate Venture Funding Documents. National Venture Capital Association â?? Raising Venture Capital.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Startup 53