Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Since NewTV won’t be making the content, they will be licensing from and partnering with traditional entertainment producers. NewTV will depend on partners like telcos to distribute the content. After the crash, venture capital was scarce to non-existent. Will consumers want to watch short-form mobile entertainment?

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 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. Focus on capital efficient, scalable startups and founders. Look for $20-100M exits.

Early Stage 286

Early Stage Silicon Valley Oregon Technical Review 286

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2013

This post is about the rise of Chinese venture capital and how it helped build the countries entrepreneurial ecosystem. The Rise of Chinese Venture Capital. This helped the startups qualify for funding from banks and venture capital firms. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 271

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2013

This post is about the rise of Chinese venture capital and how it helped build the countries entrepreneurial ecosystem. The Rise of Chinese Venture Capital. This helped the startups qualify for funding from banks and venture capital firms. China Customer Development Technology Venture Capital'

Venture Capital 163

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 163

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

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

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

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series of posts and I need to file this one under both Raising Venture Capital and Startup Advice. That died with waterfall software development. I’m not even talking about your 12-page Powerpoint presentation that you need to raise venture capital or to talk with potential biz dev partners.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Steve Blank

JANUARY 27, 2011

This startup search process is the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. A business model competition would emulate the “out of the building” experience of real entrepreneurs executing the customer development / business model / agile stack. And they are ready to share!

Business Model 275

Business Model Utah Intellectual Property Agile 275

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for their portfolio companies. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

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. And in these last two weeks of class, they learn what activities, resources and partners they’ll need to deliver their solution and derive what it costs to build the company to deliver it.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley San Diego Technical Review Incubator 120

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 20, 2011

We taught them the business model / customer development / agile development solution stack. This methodology forces rapid hypothesis testing and Customer Development by getting out of the building while building the product. And since the rest of the slides were about Customer Development, I taught those.

Incubator 301

Incubator Government Silicon Valley Lean 301

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

Max and his partners interviewed and analyzed over 650 early-stage Internet startups. Filed under: Customer Development , Teaching , Venture Capital. He set up Blackbox.vc, a seed accelerator for technology startups (and one of the tour stops for entrepreneurs from around the world.) Congratulations.

Technical Cofounder 333

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 333

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’re here for Greycroft’s CEO Summit – a gathering of the CEO’s of their portfolio companies with guest speakers covering topics including how to build your team, PR, customer development, etc.

PR 279

PR Technical Review Portfolio Customer Development 279

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

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

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Product Development – Getting Funded as The Goal In a traditional product development model, entrepreneurs come up with an idea or concept, write a business plan and try to get funding to bring that idea to fruition.

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

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 146

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 146

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

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 312

Silicon Valley Oregon Lean Venture Capital 312

Steve Blank

JULY 8, 2010

Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, Jason Calacanis , founder of Mahalo.com, and Mark Suster of GRP Partners, have all weighed in on the nature side – you’re born being an entrepreneur or you’re not. Mark Suster, Vivek Wadhwa and Patrick Chung , Partner of New Enterprises Associates debated the subject on April 21st at Stanford.

Venture Capital 227

Venture Capital Entrepreneur Customer Development Partner 227

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 300

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 300

Steve Blank

MARCH 29, 2010

Having a teaching partner makes life a lot easier and the class improves. But it wasn’t until Ann Miura-Ko joined me as a teaching partner that this “teach the model not the plan” idea jelled. After Stanford, Ann joined Mike Maples’ Venture Capital firm Floodgate as a partner. Teaching Team.

Business Model 226

Business Model Silicon Valley California Engineer 226

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. It’s just a story about what happened to me. Are These Your Slides? He said, “Look again.”

Silicon Valley 225

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 225

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

New strategic direction in companies with loyal customers have different consequences then when you had no customers Acquiring new customers are a lot more expensive that converting existing ones. 5) The customer’s needs don’t match your long term direction. Fire might be a strong word.

Customer 195

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 195

Steve Blank

AUGUST 5, 2010

Consumer Internet investing seems to have split off from traditional Venture Capital, and is creating a new category of VC’s: Lean VC’s. I think you can blame Customer and Agile Development for a small part of it. Electron-based Venture Capital. Filed under: Customer Development , Venture Capital.

Lean 258

Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 258

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

The previous post described the evolution of the Chinese Venture Capital system. I trained the Startup Weekend Next Beijing mentors and instructors, presented to several hundred entrepreneurs, and had a great fireside chat with Zhen Fund founding partner Xu Xiaoping in front of another roomful of entrepreneurs.

Silicon Valley 267

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 267

ReadWriteStart

JULY 21, 2011

When we were trying to raise money for E.piphany, my last startup, I was negotiating with a venture capital firm called Infinity Capital. But it was my eighth startup and my partner Ben was even more experienced. All we had were six slides, and I wanted a $10 million post-money valuation. We can do $9.99

Post-Money Valuation 122

Post-Money Valuation Valuation IPO Venture Capital 122

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

If you take funding from a venture capital firm or angel investor and want to build a large, enduring company (rather than sell it to the highest bidder), this isn’t the decade to do it. The collapse of the IPO market and dysfunctional math in the venture capital community has stacked the odds against you. Here’s why.

Venture Capital 297

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 297

Steve Blank

JULY 25, 2011

While this signaled that investments in technology companies could be very lucrative, both Shockley and Fairchild could only be funded through corporate partners – there was no venture capital industry. government backed venture firms and limited partnerships. government backed venture firms and limited partnerships.

Engineer 305

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Venture Capital 305

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 16, 2012

When venture capital teamed up with technology entrepreneurs in the 1960’s they brought with them the canonical MBA planning tool – the business plan. Business Plan vs. Business Model + Customer Development. But you can’t fake a business model/customer development presentation. The Business Plan ?-

Business Model 263

Business Model Customer Development Utah Business Plan 263

Steve Blank

APRIL 13, 2013

The previous post described the evolution of the Chinese Venture Capital system. I trained the Startup Weekend Next Beijing mentors and instructors, presented to several hundred entrepreneurs, and had a great fireside chat with Zhen Fund founding partner Xu Xiaoping in front of another roomful of entrepreneurs.

Silicon Valley 159

Silicon Valley China Venture Capital Merger 159

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 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

Steve Blank

JULY 28, 2011

The combination of Venture Capital and technology entrepreneurship is one of the great business inventions of the last 50 years. They’ll explore the best way to deliver the product to customers, the resources required, as well as competing technologies. Filed under: Lean LaunchPad , Teaching , Venture Capital.

Engineer 278

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Intellectual Property 278

Steve Blank

MARCH 26, 2014

This leads to two key points: Point 1: You have to fight – and win- on two fronts (both outside and inside), in order to succeed in corporate venturing. One memorable example of this was Xerox’s internal venture capital fund, Xerox Technology Ventures (XTV). As Steve would say, this is a big idea.

Startup 327

Startup Business Model Lean Russia 327

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 290

Silicon Valley Business Model Venture Capital Balance Sheet 290