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 235

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 235

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

I was consulting for the two venture capital firms who between them put $12 million into my last failed startup. Yet when I talked to my venture capital friends, they said, “Well, that’s just how startups work. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S.

Silicon Valley 131

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 131

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

This tendency is a two edged sword: by iterating strategy a startup can dramatically improve the size and trajectory of the company, but at times this process can be the bane of venture investors (and why they have prematurely grey hair.) 4) You don’t see any revenue gain past three years. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S.

Customer 216

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 216

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Being in Ohio, which lacks the startup ecosystem of an entrepreneurial cluster like Silicon Valley, made it difficult for Will to get funding for his first startup, Huddlewoo : The type of business that we were building needed an investment of capital ahead of revenue. Drive Capital came in (to Columbus).

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Ohio Columbus Entrepreneur 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 9, 2009

And it was going to mention the two words that SuperMac marketing needed to live and breathe: revenue and profit. If marketing can’t deliver the 40,000 leads what else can we do for sales to still achieve our revenue and profitability?”) They understood the mission intent was our corporate revenue and profit goals.

Silicon Valley 269

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS PR 269

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. Freemium models have their own scorekeeping.)

Customer Development 228

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 228

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

a new type of graphics architecture, or a new communications chip architecture) mean you may not know if the chip performs as well as you thought until you get first silicon. These two numbers have direct impact on revenue and financial health. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Order Here.

Vertical 162

Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 162

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. After twelve months Handspring’s revenue was $170 million. They never understood Market Type. End result?

Customer Development 220

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 220

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 267

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 267

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

Unfortunately most startups learn this by going through the “Fire the first Sales VP&# drill: You start your company with a list of potential customers reading like a “who’s who&# of whatever vertical market you’re in (or the Fortune 1000 list.) Your board nods sagely at your target customer list. Order Here.

Silicon Valley 143

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 143

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. Quickly iterate the product in front of customers.

Lean 263

Lean Internet Silicon Valley Venture Capital 263

Steve Blank

APRIL 30, 2009

Luckily (or maybe because we were in Silicon Valley where there was a domain expert for everything) there was a very smart consultant in the retail computer space, Seymour Merrin, who preached about the importance of packaging. 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

Steve Blank

JULY 28, 2011

Silicon Valley was born in an era of applied experimentation driven by scientists and engineers. This approach would shape Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial ethos: In startups, failure was treated as experience (until you ran out of money). Filed under: Lean LaunchPad , Teaching , Venture Capital.

Engineer 284

Engineer Silicon Valley United States Intellectual Property 284

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

The signals are loud and clear : seed and late stage valuations are getting frothy and wacky, and hiring talent in Silicon Valley is the toughest it has been since the dot.com bubble. They taught you about customers, markets and profits. The old rules of sustainable revenue and consistent profitability went out the window.

Internet 335

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 335

Steve Blank

APRIL 22, 2009

Corner Cases and Consensus are For Large Companies Carefully considering each and every possible outcome before you proceed with a decision is something large companies with large revenues, shareholders and employees need to do. Customer Development.) Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

Silicon Valley 201

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 201

Steve Blank

JULY 11, 2016

We were depending on investor funding, but with $60,000 in revenue no one would fund it. . When Peggy first arrived in Silicon Valley, she worked for Boole & Babbage , before founding her own firm. I started working with startups and venture capitalists. Filed under: Customer Development , SiriusXM Radio Show.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Cofounder Customer Development 120

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

This series of posts is a brief explanation of how we’ve evolved from Product Development to Customer Development to the Lean Startup. Yet we used the product development model not only to manage product development, but as a road map for finding customers and to time our marketing launch and sales revenue plan.

Silicon Valley 269

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 269

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

For those of you who have been following the discussion, a Lean Startup is Eric Ries ’s description of the intersection of Customer Development , Agile Development and if available, open platforms and open source. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that.

Lean 260

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 260

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

In hindsight it appeared clear that startups that survive the first few tough years do not follow the traditional product-centric launch model espoused by product managers or the venture capital community. Through trial and error, hiring and firing, successful startups all invented a parallel process to product development.

Silicon Valley 133

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital California 133

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

Sloan put in place GM’s management accounting system (borrowed from DuPont) that for the first time allowed the company to: 1) produce an annual operating forecast that compared each division’s forecast (revenue, costs, capital requirements and return on investment) with the company’s financial goals.

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 179

Steve Blank

MAY 17, 2011

Years later this area would become known as Silicon Valley. But I learned that in Silicon Valley, honest failure is a badge of experience. As it turned out, rather than run me out of town on a rail, the two venture capital firms that had lost $12 million in my failed startup actually asked me to work with them.

Philadelphia 336

Philadelphia Miami Thailand Silicon Valley 336

Steve Blank

JUNE 22, 2009

We Changed Our Mind In 1966, 10 years after Hewlett’s memo, Hewlett Packard’s revenue and headcount had grown ten fold; $200 million and 11,000 employees – all from test and measurement equipment. And venture capital and entrepreneurship has made life even tougher for the modern corporation. Order Here.

Silicon Valley 186

Silicon Valley RSS California Agile 186

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2009

I was asked to explain why a marketing program that cost $150,000 bucks literally generated nothing in revenue for the company. Reply Customer Development Gut Checks « Market By Numbers - Brant Cooper , on April 28, 2009 at 11:38 am Said: [.] Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 120

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 1, 2011

Silicon Valley was born in an era of applied experimentation driven by scientists and engineers. This approach would shape Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial ethos: In startups, failure was treated as experience (until you ran out of money). It provides private funds for untested and unproven technology and entrepreneurs.

Silicon Valley 118

Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Balance Sheet Lean 118

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

Entrepreneur-in-Residence After SuperMac I had been approached by one of our venture investors to be an entrepreneur in residence (EIR), a Silicon Valley phrase which says one thing but means another. Peter described the first company in which “Hollywood meets Silicon Valley” and we were enthralled.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Steve Blank

MAY 16, 2016

In a company you know you’ve been successful when you generate revenue and profit. In those case revenue will become an additional metric. Note that they plan a trip to San Diego to visit the customer. With a great assist from the State Departments innovation outpost in Silicon Valley.) Now back to the class. .

San Diego 145

San Diego Metrics Indonesia Silicon Valley 145

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

We faced this same problem in entrepreneurship and venture capital, but we are getting past it. Seed-stage investors are learning the metrics of traction, and are getting better at identifying those companies that are really achieving validated learning about customers. What is the right revenue model?

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

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. Competing To Win Deals - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , November 7, 2010 The venture capital business is highly competitive.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

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.

Entrepreneur 114

Entrepreneur India Silicon Valley Massachusetts 114

Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

Page views drive his ad revenue, which is probably CPM based. Customers walk, patients sue, and people vote. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Is this behavior an outlier or is it the norm in the PR industry? Or is it just someones end of innocence ? Mike Arrington is a capitalist. Order Here.

Silicon Valley 210

Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 210

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

In fact, SaaS industry revenue is projected to grow from $49 billion in 2015 to $67 billion in 2018, a compound annual growth rate of approximately eight percent. At this stage, simply list your primary revenue streams and your key expenses. At this stage, simply list your primary revenue streams and your key expenses.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Steve Blank

MAY 26, 2009

All teams raised their hands and screamed: we hundreds of angels and dozens of VCs, all of them say they will only fund deals with prototypes, beta customers, first revenue and executive teams all in place, and they say it will be 2 years from now because their coffers are out of cash and LPs in default. Yeah, I said. Order Here.

Vertical 156

Vertical Silicon Valley Intellectual Property RSS 156

Steve Blank

MAY 4, 2009

But without sales there is no revenue, and without revenue there is no company. All the strategic thinking in the world won’t make up for a missed revenue plan. If sales revenue and profits are high enough, we could take the company public or sell it, and the stock would be worth more than the paper it was printed on.

Silicon Valley 132

Silicon Valley RSS Non-Compete California 132

Steve Blank

APRIL 16, 2009

We did that when we surveyed our customers. And in this very unique case, we figured out how to maximize revenue and profit by branding and product line extensions. Marketings job is to take engineering products and use them to maximize revenue and profit. This requires deep customer and competitive knowledge. Order Here.

Silicon Valley 145

Silicon Valley Product RSS Engineer 145

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. Especially if you aren’t from around Silicon Valley. thanks to advice like yours, people like me spent that time developing rather than begging for money. Johnny Good post.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

I’ve seen the Valley grow from Sunnyvale to Santa Clara to today where it stretches from San Jose to South of Market in San Francisco. I’ve watched the Valley go from Microwave Valley – to Defense Valley – to Silicon Valley to Internet Valley. So how did this happen? Where is it going?

Restful 243

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 243