Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2013

There was nothing suggesting that startups and new ventures needed their own tools and techniques, different from those written about in HBR or taught in business schools. To fill this gap I wrote The Four Steps to the Epiphany , a book about the Customer Development process and how it changes the way startups are built.

Technical Review 222

Technical Review Lean Venture Capital Customer Development 222

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. These companies would take our computers and put their name on them and resell them to their customers.

Technology 143

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 143

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 “ . It seamlessly creates a deal folder (company name) in our Google Drive. See How Private Equity and Venture Capital Investors Are Eating Their Own Dogfood. .

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

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 “ . It seamlessly creates a deal folder (company name) in our Google Drive. See How Private Equity and Venture Capital Investors Are Eating Their Own Dogfood. .

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

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. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 235

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 235

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

Note to Chinese Communist party – the best name for your propaganda department should probably not be the “Propaganda Department.”). Though they’re familiar with technology in the valley, I picked up some important cultural difference from students and startup engineers I talked to. It’s an amazing cat and mouse system.

China 327

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 327

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

Your name has come up a lot in that regard. He set up Blackbox.vc, a seed accelerator for technology startups (and one of the tour stops for entrepreneurs from around the world.) Filed under: Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital. It was signed Max Marmer. “How old are you?

Technical Cofounder 334

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 334

Steve Blank

APRIL 14, 2013

Note to Chinese Communist party – the best name for your propaganda department should probably not be the “Propaganda Department.”). Though they’re familiar with technology in the valley, I picked up some important cultural difference from students and startup engineers I talked to. It’s an amazing cat and mouse system.

China 219

China Silicon Valley Non-Compete Intellectual Property 219

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2010

Greycroft is Alan’s venture capital firm that recently raised its second fund ($130 million) with offices in both New York and LA. We learned this weekend that it was named after his East Hampton home. It is the key to “customer development” that Steve Blank talks about. I felt the same way.

PR 279

PR Technical Review Portfolio Customer Development 279

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

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

This post describes a solution – the Customer Development Model. In future posts I’ll describe how Eric Ries and the Lean Startup concept provide the equivalent model for product development activities inside the building and neatly integrates customer and agile development.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 253

Up and Running

MAY 18, 2016

You’ll learn more about what destroys startups, how to use the Customer Development method to succeed, how to use the Business Model Canvas, how to identify and keep your customers, and how to drive profits. Lean Customer Development: Building Products Your Customers Will Buy. B y Cindy Alvarez.

Startup 80

Startup Venture Capital Angel Investor Lean 80

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. Perhaps you can determine whether a product is new by asking customers to name the competition.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 220

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Customer Development We were starting Epiphany, my last company. I was out and about in Silicon Valley doing what I would now call Customer Discovery trying to understand how marketing departments in large corporations worked. Would you mind if you could share to us the name your competitor who stole your ideas ?

Silicon Valley 253

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 253

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Over the past decade, he has launched multiple businesses, including three technology companies. Inbound interest for partnerships, for employment, for investment (increased) — you name it from small companies, small HVAC contractors to large companies like AT&T. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times Ardent would be my third technology company as a VP of Marketing (Convergent Technologies and MIPS Computers were the other two.) It was my ex boss from Convergent Technologies, “Steve we’ve all just resigned from Convergent and we’re starting a new company.

North Carolina 131

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 131

Steve Blank

APRIL 2, 2009

We had thought really hard about “ market type ” and decided to reposition the company from a technology provider to a solutions provider. Tell Me How to Find You But having benchmarks in hand that showed us as the winner did us no good unless all our potential customers could see them.

Silicon Valley 127

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 127

Steve Blank

JANUARY 4, 2010

Staring at us in the board meeting were three term-sheets from brand name VC’s and an unexpected buy-out offer from Google. In fact, Google’s offer for $15 Million was equal to the highest valuation from the venture firms. Lets take venture capital and grow this thing into a real business.”. The Scalable Startup.

Hockey Stick 299

Hockey Stick Venture Capital Startup Cofounder 299

Steve Blank

JUNE 4, 2012

This is a 3-day program for entrepreneurship faculty from around the world how to teach entrepreneurship via the Lean LaunchPad approach ( business model canvas + customer development ) and bring their entrepreneurship curriculums into the 21st century. His name is Alex Lawrence. of the ~6 million companies in the U.S.

Silicon Valley 311

Silicon Valley Lean Utah Customer Development 311

Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2011

And with the 30-year statute of limitations now passed, stories about who I worked for (and the names of agencies.). Second, to share how my how my thinking about entrepreneurship as a distinct practice and how Customer Development as one of its central components has evolved over the last decade.

Silicon Valley 216

Silicon Valley California Vertical Customer Development 216

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2009

I didn’t recognize the behavior at the time, but anyone who loves technology and gadgets has at one time or another has bought a technology toy – USB memory sticks, iPod Shuffles, umbrellas with LED lights, alarm clocks that talked, Flip Video Cameras, etc. You may know it by its final name. The Novelty effect?

Video 184

Video Silicon Valley RSS California 184

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

competitive analyses, channel and customer collateral (white papers, data sheets, product reviews), customer surveys, and market requirements documents. At some point in my career as I began to formulate thoughts about mission and intent, I started to think about the broader role of marketing in a growing technology company.

Silicon Valley 269

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 269

Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

If you are a practitioner of Customer Development, ESL was doing it before most us were born. At ESL Military Intelligence Was No Longer an Oxymoron Perry not only took his best managers, but he also took his customers, and his desire to build a company culture that was the antithesis of working for a phone company.

Silicon Valley 194

Silicon Valley Stealth RSS California 194

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Customers went into the store either looking for the SuperMac product by name (if our demand creation activities had been effective) or went in unsure of which brand of board to buy. Hopefully you and your co-founders are experts in one or two parts (agile development, SEO/SEM, etc.)

Sales 120

Sales Silicon Valley RSS Las Vegas 120

Hearpreneur

JULY 30, 2016

I responded by saying attending an event like this was a good start and then asked him if his VC company was interested in interests outside of Technology and Medical. I would like to see more women come together in the name of innovation, business and artistic expression in a way that we empower one another. Photo Credit: Venae Watts.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Technical Cofounder Entrepreneur CTO Hire 48

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

Customer Development , Agile Engineering and the Lean methodology enforced a process of incremental and iterative development. Startups could now get a first version of a product out to customers in weeks/months rather than months/years. For a specific startup this list is probably a few hundred names.

Internet 335

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 335

Steve Blank

APRIL 27, 2009

—————- The next piece of the Secret History of Silicon Valley puzzle came together when Tom Byers , Tina Selig and Mark Leslie invited me to teach entrepreneurship in the Stanford Technology Ventures Program ( STVP ) in Stanford’s School of Engineering. Play spooky music here.

Silicon Valley 203

Silicon Valley Technical Review Europe Germany 203

Steve Blank

MARCH 22, 2009

Steve my name is Donald xx, and I’m the head of external affairs of the CIA’s venture capital firm and we’d like you to keynote our conference.” And you’d like me to do my talk on Customer Development and startups?” “No, we’re the other CIA.” Do you mean the Culinary Institute of America?

Silicon Valley 267

Silicon Valley Thailand RSS Venture Capital 267

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

He previously co-founded and served as Chief Technology Officer of IMVU. In 2007, BusinessWeek named Ries one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech and in 2009 he was honored with a TechFellow award in the category of Engineering Leadership. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 29, 2019

Meanwhile cultural taste, technology and platforms evolve, and new things are possible that might not have been just years ago. The cycle of creative destruction of the old being replaced by the new continues, fueled by angel and venture capital. How has the market/technology/customers evolved since then?

Bandwidth 299

Bandwidth Database Venture Capital Demand 299

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

The remaining company kept the Hewlett Packard name and focussed on computers. After failing dismally at making disposable digital cameras in 2003 Pure Digital Technologies reinvented their company in 2007 to make the Flip line of camcorders. Agilent is a $5.8 billion dollar test and measurement company.

Silicon Valley 186

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 186

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2010

We’ll build the class around the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. Instead you will be getting your hands dirty talking to customers, partners, competitors, as you encounter the chaos and uncertainty of how a startup actually works. What did you discover from customers?

Wiki 316

Wiki Lean Management Business Model 316

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.

Vertical 125

Vertical Silicon Valley RSS Marketing 125

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Where are the charitable foundations, business schools and hospitals named after him? Durant Versus Sloan – Part 1 « Steve Blank steveblank.com/2009/10/01/durant-versus-sloan-part-1 – view page – cached + Customer Development Manifesto: The Path of Warriors and Winners (part 5) + Can You Trust Any VC’s Under 40?

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 179

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2009

An existing market is one where competitors have a profitable business selling to customers who can name the market and can tell you about the features that matter to them. Do you know the archetype of their customers? An Existing Market All four were trying to resegment an “Existing Market.” This is easy to test.

Silicon Valley 206

Silicon Valley Startup RSS Customer Development 206

Steve Blank

APRIL 22, 2009

And that he might want to think about aligning all his video and Internet products under that name. Customer Development.) As we were plotting marketing strategy, I mentioned that the phrase “Speaking to the Big Dogs” might end up as his corporate brand. They are about forward motion, momentum and feedback loops (i.e.

Silicon Valley 201

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 201

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. Ajay Kshatriya.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Cofounder Seed Capital Texas 120