View from Seed

OCTOBER 24, 2019

Or, if you can’t skip a round, when should you try to work extra hard to minimize dilution and when should you be prepared to take more dilution for the right partner/situation? Also, the benefit of raising a pre-seed from great partners probably outweighs the cost. Founders with limited experience.

Dilution 149

Dilution B2B Burn Rate Early Stage 149

Steve Blank

MAY 30, 2016

the teams spent the last two weeks learning what activities, resources and partners they would need to actually deliver their solution. Second: I also gave the commencement speech at the NYU engineering school here. Now with over 917 interviews of beneficiaries (users, program managers, stakeholders, etc.), See all the H4D posts here.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley San Diego Technical Review Incubator 120

Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2015

My guests on Bay Area Ventures on Wharton Business Radio on Sirius XM Channel 111 were: Eric Ries , entrepreneur and author of the New York Times bestseller, The Lean Startup. Eric was the very first practitioner of my Customer Development methodology which became the core of the the Lean methodology. Taking My Class.

Lean 120

Lean Technical Cofounder Silicon Valley Channel 120

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

Max entered Stanford in the fall of 2010 as a freshman, took as many of the engineering entrepreneurship classes as he could and independent study with me. (He Max and his partners interviewed and analyzed over 650 early-stage Internet startups. Filed under: Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital.

Technical Cofounder 333

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 333

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Draw Your Ideas - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , May 16, 2010 I saw Jack Dorsey give this talk at The 99% Conference last month. The Yin and Yang of Product and Engineering - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , May 22, 2010 For a tech company, product and engineering are the heart and soul of the business.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Steve Blank

JULY 28, 2011

Silicon Valley was born in an era of applied experimentation driven by scientists and engineers. The combination of Venture Capital and technology entrepreneurship is one of the great business inventions of the last 50 years. The NSF will fund 100 science and engineering research projects every year. billion U.S.

Engineer 280

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Intellectual Property 280

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. It might be its most important. ———-. Cold War Spin Outs.

Engineer 307

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital 307

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

If you’re a venture capitalist … you have limited partners that give you money to invest on their behalf, and you’re responsible for giving them outsize returns. As an entrepreneur, you’re always fighting that external war whether that’s with partners or with investors. Nayeem : (Nods.)

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2010

In my last post I described my approach to one of the three classes I teach at Stanford in the engineering school: Fundamentals of Technology Entrepreneurship. Having a teaching partner makes life a lot easier and the class improves. After Stanford, Ann joined Mike Maples’ Venture Capital firm Floodgate as a partner.

Business Model 230

Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 230

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. Dino and I kept in touch as he moved up to Bend, Oregon on a mission to engineer Bend into a regional technology cluster.

Silicon Valley 314

Silicon Valley Oregon Lean Venture Capital 314

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

One of the things he mentioned was that when it came to decision-making he still tended to think and act like an engineer. Since every situation is unique, there is no perfect solution to any engineering, customer or competitor problem, and you shouldn’t agonize over trying to find one. The same is true in your company.

Silicon Valley 302

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 302

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

My ex-boss was going to be the VP of Engineering and I would report to the CEO whose marketing acumen and sales instincts seemed at the time to be telepathic and sense of theater was legend. Our vision was that just as the PC was revolutionizing the business market, we were going to do the same for scientists and engineers.

North Carolina 126

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 126

Steve Blank

AUGUST 17, 2009

Stanford had a Customer Development loop going on inside their own lab. The discoveries in tube and circuit research suggested new electronic intelligence and countermeasure techniques and systems; in turn the needs of the Applied Lab pushed tube and circuit development. The future of the valley was clear – microwaves.

Silicon Valley 144

Silicon Valley RSS California Government 144

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. Silicon Valley, New York). Here’s how. Because We’ve Always Done It This Way. The Wrong Metrics.

Silicon Valley 292

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 292

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

I’ve introduced a new class at Stanford to teach engineers, scientists and other professionals how startups really get built. Jon Feiber of Mohr Davidow Ventures and Ann Miura-Ko of Floodgate are co-teaching the class with me (and Alexander Osterwalder is a guest lecturer.) Class 1 Jan 4 th Intro/Business Model/Customer Development.

Wiki 312

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 312

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. Silicon Valley, New York). Here’s how. Because We’ve Always Done It This Way. The Wrong Metrics.

Silicon Valley 263

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 263

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 1, 2011

Silicon Valley was born in an era of applied experimentation driven by scientists and engineers. The combination of venture capital and technology entrepreneurship is one of the great business inventions of the last 50 years. The NSF will fund 100 science and engineering research projects every year. Until today.

Silicon Valley 118

Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Balance Sheet Lean 118

www.kernelmag.com

MARCH 8, 2012

Smart people with a lot more experience than me have been observing how the amount of capital required to start a tech company has reduced dramatically. Recently, my friend Harjeet Taggar, partner at US seed fund YCombinator, tweeted that, increasingly, the problems faced by start-ups they fund are being addressed by other start-ups.

Cofounder 43

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Founder Coder 43

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

This post is about the how the Chinese government engineered technology clusters. There are close to 100 specialized incubators for companies founded by returned overseas Chinese scientists and engineers. Most Venture Capitalists in China viewed the Innofund the same way most U.S. – The Torch Program. Lessons Learned.

Programming 280

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 280

Steve Blank

MAY 16, 2016

This week teams figured out how to measure mission achievement and success, and our advanced lectures were on activities, resources and partners. The OODA loops and the four steps of Customer Development and the Lean Methodology are rooted in the same “get of the building/get eyes out of your cockpit” and “speed and urgency” concepts.)

San Diego 143

San Diego Metrics Indonesia Silicon Valley 143

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

This post is about the how the Chinese government engineered technology clusters. There are close to 100 specialized incubators for companies founded by returned overseas Chinese scientists and engineers. Most Venture Capitalists in China viewed the Innofund the same way most U.S. – The Torch Program. Lessons Learned.

Programming 172

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 172

Steve Blank

MAY 21, 2009

If you think you are going to offend your customers or embarrass your engineering organization, get out of the marketing department. 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. Visually, demo’s, wild colors, etc.

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 185

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 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. I remember thinking, “What a disappointment one of the smartest engineers I know and he is going to waste his time making games.” How could it go wrong? Little did I know.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

www.instigatorblog.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

This is especially true when you think of a tech startup, where the first few hires are typically engineers/programmers. To make round numbers let's say you have 100,000 share outstanding and you give your lead engineer 1000. link] VC part 3: Engineers deserve more equity — Some French Guy [.] 1% is just not a lot.

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Equity Employee Startup Vesting 41

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Who better to answer than the company's engineering lead. Storm Clouds - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , November 12, 2010 We have enjoyed an amazing run in the web startup and investing space over the past five or six years. Ask a question and get an answer - that is, after all, what all Q&A sites offer.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

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

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.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. Consequently, I either needed a tech co-founder or to pay someone to develop the product. Given those criteria, where are the watering holes to find these engineers?

Cofounder 47

Cofounder Technical Review San Francisco Founder 47

Steve Blank

JUNE 29, 2009

Since there was very little documentation my time was split between the design engineers who built the system and the test and deployment team getting the system ready to go overseas. After I was done teaching each the day, I continued to write the operations manuals and work with the test engineers. (I Are You Single? Sign me up.

Agile 251

Agile Silicon Valley RSS California 251

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

They have many, many man-years of development and customer development in them. I want to go to this homepage and think me, as the founder of WP Engine, I want to go in here and think, ‘Oh my God, we need this,’ and then sign up. No, I’m a very happy customer actually. Jason: Yeah. Edwin: Right.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

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. The best composition is probably one engineer whose passion lies in the pixels on the screen and another engineer whose passion is making bits fly really fast through servers. Sorry, folks.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

Steve Blank

AUGUST 10, 2009

———————– In the 1950′s Stanford University’s Electronics Research Laboratory (ERL) continued to develop innovative microwave tubes for the U.S. They would be one the first venture firms to organize their firm as a partnership rather than an SBIC or public company.

Silicon Valley 158

Silicon Valley RSS SBIC California 158

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 26, 2009

Communication between scientists, engineers and corporations were relatively open, and ideas flowed freely. At Stanford, Dean of Engineering Fred Terman wanted companies outside of the university to take Stanford’s prototype microwave tubes and electronic intelligence systems and build production volumes for the military.

Silicon Valley 163

Silicon Valley Securities and Exchange Commission Venture Capital RSS 163

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2009

Now we were faced with the fact that even though we were gaining market share daily, there was nothing coming out of Engineering. Instead of eight boards, Engineering was going to be able to deliver one new graphics board. We were about to be partners in building a new product family. What could we do? Yes, yes and yes.

Silicon Valley 136

Silicon Valley Product RSS Engineer 136

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 29, 2009

Interestingly enough, Fred Terman, Dean of Stanford Engineering was tied to all three companies. In a typical venture fund, the partners receive a 2% management fee. This is where the partners would make their money. For the first time venture investors would have a very strong performance incentive.

Silicon Valley 126

Silicon Valley SBIC San Francisco RSS 126

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 16, 2015

Frank Rimalovski is the executive director of the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute and managing director of the NYU Innovation Venture Fund. Frank has spent 20+ years in technology companies and venture capital, working at Lucent , Sun Microsystems , Apple and NeXT.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Cofounder Investment Bankers 120