Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Posted on September 14, 2009 by steveblank Over the last 30 years Wall Street’s appetite for technology stocks have changed radically – swinging between unbridled enthusiasm to believing they’re all toxic. Large companies were acquiring technology startups just to get in the game at the same absurd prices.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

But what made the overwhelming impression for me was finding an entrepreneurial software cluster on par with the Internet software portion of Silicon Valley. Startups here are primarily in what they call the TMT (Technology, Media and Telecommunications) segment. China Venture Capital. innovation in the U.S.

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Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Our firm has a portfolio of companies across a broad range of markets and the way we look at it is pretty simple – the deals fall into two types: those with customer/market risk and those with invention risk.” Markets with Customer/Market Risk are those where the unknown is whether customers will adopt the product.

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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. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. You might as well bring your lucky rabbits foot to the VC meeting. Just as a refresher.

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provided the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development. As a result, the standard product development model is not only useless, it is dangerous.

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Steve Blank

JULY 27, 2009

MBA or Domain Expert Years later when I was running marketing departments I came up with a heuristic that replicated my own hire: in a technology company it’s usually better to train a domain expert to become a marketer than to train an MBA to become a domain expert. or whatever is necessary to build a company. Thanks Steve!

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Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2013

Summary: I’ve lived in Silicon Valley for 35 years, I’ve taught in entrepreneurial clusters in New York, Boston, Helsinki, Santiago Chile, St. Each of these clusters has wondered how to become the next Silicon Valley. viewed science and technology as a strategic asset. Beijing is already there.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

Prior to founding Andela , he co-founded 2U , an education technology startup that went public in 2014. Prior to founding Carely , Michael Eidsaune earned his MBA in finance and spent several years in investment management, eventually earning his level 1 CFA certification. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2013

The first post described how China built a science and technology infrastructure to support advanced weapons systems development. The first wave of startups began when R&D centers and universities began to provide the technology and seed capital for new startups that were spin-outs or spin-offs. Like the U.S.

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Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

Prior to founding Andela , he co-founded 2U , an education technology startup that went public in 2014. Prior to founding Carely , Michael Eidsaune earned his MBA in finance and spent several years in investment management, eventually earning his level 1 CFA certification. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2013

Summary: I’ve lived in Silicon Valley for 35 years, I’ve taught in entrepreneurial clusters in New York, Boston, Helsinki, Santiago Chile, St. Each of these clusters has wondered how to become the next Silicon Valley. viewed science and technology as a strategic asset. Beijing is already there.

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China Taiwan Silicon Valley Guam 207

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.

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 11, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, November 11, 2008 Where did Silicon Valley come from? Among those: plentiful financing and nerds , a culture that celebrates both failure and success, and an ethos of openness and sharing. And what were they doing beforehand?

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Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2013

The first post described how China built a science and technology infrastructure to support advanced weapons systems development. The first wave of startups began when R&D centers and universities began to provide the technology and seed capital for new startups that were spin-outs or spin-offs. Like the U.S.

Venture Capital 163

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 163

Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

Reinventing the board meeting may offer angel-funded startups – which because of geography or size of investment typically don’t have formal boards or directors – to attract experienced advice and investment outside of technology clusters (i.e. Silicon Valley, New York). Here’s how. What’s Wrong With a Board Meeting?

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Steve Blank

JUNE 1, 2011

Reinventing the board meeting may offer angel-funded startups – which because of geography or size of investment typically don’t have formal boards or directors – to attract experienced advice and investment outside of technology clusters (i.e. Silicon Valley, New York). Here’s how. What’s Wrong With a Board Meeting?

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Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 258

Steve Blank

JANUARY 17, 2016

Silicon Valley’s pay-it-forward culture means that others will help when you’re starting up. Looking to create their accelerator/incubator, Wayne and seven other founders rented a Silicon Valley house together one summer. Not just a problem in terms of access to technology. (It’s

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Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 9, 2013

Mass TLC Unconference: Large annual conference put on by the MA Technology Leadership Council. Lean Startup Circle Boston – Meetup dedicated to the lean startup and customer development methodology. Not Boston focused, but definitely follow his reports of PE and VC financings and the state of the venture market. @danprimack.

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Steve Blank

DECEMBER 30, 2014

The landscape for how to turn life science and health care technologies into viable companies has changed more in the last 3 years than in the last 30. ———– The National Institutes of Health recognizes that Life Science/Health Care commercialization has two components: the science/technology, and the business model.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 8, 2009

In the last three posts, we drew the relationship of market risk and invention risk with vertical markets and pointed out verticals where customer development would be useful. In contrast to simply executing your business plan, the Customer Development process is built on low-cost and continuous learning and iterating.

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Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 122

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

In Customer Development the goal of a minimum feature set is to pare the features of the first product release to the minimum necessary for early customers. The finance system didn’t talk to the sales system which didn’t know the manufacturing system even existed. All the Data and Not a Drop to Think.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 5, 2010

The Fundamentals of Technology Entrepreneurship course at Stanford taught undergraduates how to take a technical idea and turn it into a profitable and scalable company. Students formed teams, came up with a business idea then talked to customers, vendors and sales channel partners to validate their business model.

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Sloan kept the corporate staff small and focused on policymaking, corporate finance and planning. This time in what would become Silicon Valley. Reply David Locke , on May 12, 2010 at 7:01 am Said: Yes, the Durant meme moved to Silicon Valley, as did the tradition of boards ousting founders.

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Steve Blank

MARCH 22, 2009

And you’d like me to do my talk on Customer Development and startups?” “No, we’re the other CIA.” So I gave my “ The Secret History of Silicon Valley ” talk as the keynote to the CIA’s venture capital conference. So this post is how I came to write “The Secret History of Silicon Valley&#. (I’ll

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SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

I continue to collect great content that is the intersection of startups, products, online and technology. 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. Finance, IT, Legal). This should not deter you.

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Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 13, 2011

Reinventing the board meeting may offer angel-funded startups - which because of geography or size of investment typically don't have formal boards or directors - to attract experienced advice and investment outside of technology clusters (i.e. Silicon Valley, New York). Here's how. Because We've Always Done It This Way.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

The previous post described how China built its science and technology infrastructure. This post is about the how the Chinese government engineered technology clusters. Torch has four major parts: Innovation Clusters , Technology Business Incubators (TBIs), Seed Funding (Innofund) and Venture Guiding Fund. Innovation Clusters.

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Programming Technical Review SBIR China 278

conversionxl.com

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

It’s Not a Conversion Problem, It’s a Customer Development Problem. This is a customer development problem. So What is Customer Development? The core idea behind customer development is that the assumptions you make about a target market are only guesses. Website Analysis.

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Steve Blank

APRIL 28, 2016

Ajay Kshatriya , co-founder and CEO of Biota Technology , which applies DNA sequencing technology to the energy industry. Before co-founding Biota Technology , he was an investor and entrepreneur-in-residence at Seed Capital , a investing in science-based innovation. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Cofounder Seed Capital Texas 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 28, 2016

Ajay Kshatriya , co-founder and CEO of Biota Technology , which applies DNA sequencing technology to the energy industry. Before co-founding Biota Technology , he was an investor and entrepreneur-in-residence at Seed Capital , a investing in science-based innovation. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Cofounder Seed Capital Texas 120

ReadWriteStart

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

Well, it turns out that to port long tail productivity apps to Google's App Engine is a somewhat cumbersome job, and requires a lot of custom development. The long tail apps can easily be ported to or developed on Google App Engine in a third of the time and cost using OrangeScape as an application platform. Enter OrangeScape.

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Entrepreneur India Silicon Valley Massachusetts 114

Steve Blank

MAY 18, 2009

Founding a company is a sheer act of will and tenacity in the face of immense skepticism from everyone – investors, customers, friends, etc. You literally have to take your vision of the opportunity and against all rational odds assemble financing, and a team to help you execute. And that’s just to get started. were born in India.

Founder 297

Founder Silicon Valley RSS China 297

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

The previous post described how China built its science and technology infrastructure. This post is about the how the Chinese government engineered technology clusters. Torch has four major parts: Innovation Clusters , Technology Business Incubators (TBIs), Seed Funding (Innofund) and Venture Guiding Fund. Innovation Clusters.

Programming 170

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 170

Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

Which at this stage of the company was marketing and financing. Our “Hollywood meets Silicon Valley” story played great in Silicon Valley, they ate it up in Hollywood, and the business press tripped over themselves to talk to us. Not being able to hear negative customer input is an extremely bad idea.

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Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2016

So essentially, the government invests in both (research), and (development).” ” Two of the entrepreneurial programs, which I managed is called the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR), and the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show.

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Small Business Administration SBIR United States Entrepreneur 120

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. The course does not examine financing options or the composition of founding teams. I’ll be honest.

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 26, 2009

This is the first of two posts about the rise of “risk capital” and how it came to be associated with what became Silicon Valley. ———————– Building Blocks of Entrepreneurship By the mid 1950’s the groundwork for a culture and environment of entrepreneurship were taking shape on the east and west coasts of the United States.

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