Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014

How do you figure out what’s the right mix of skills for the co-founders of your startup? I was having breakfast with Radhika, an ex-grad student of mine who wanted to share her Customer Discovery progress for her consumer hardware startup. I told Radhika this is a perennial question for startups. ——-.

Cofounder 335

Cofounder Founder Intellectual Property Business Model 335

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Since the term “cloud computing” was coined in 1996—at least as we have come to understand its meaning—the software as a service industry has exploded. 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.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Steve Blank

JUNE 26, 2014

We’re changing the order in which we teach the business model canvas and customer development to better-fit therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices. The Lean LaunchPad class uses the three “ Lean Startup ” principles: Alexander Osterwalders “ business model canvas ” to frame hypotheses.

Intellectual Property 286

Intellectual Property Lean IP Open Source 286

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 2, 2013

Of the 100,000 people who will read this post, how many have made more money, and more consistent money, with less stress, with their startup than with their day jobs?) But the real life of a startup founder isn’t that at all. Startup founders want to say that, though. Even if it’s not really true day-to-day.

Cofounder 312

Cofounder Startup Founder Engineer 312

K9 Ventures

AUGUST 13, 2010

In fact, at the time (1996-1997) we offered both a downloadable product, that our customers could install on their own servers, and a “hosted-offering”, which came to be known as “On-Demand”, then the “ASP” (Application Service Provider) model, and today we call it “SaaS” (Software as a Service). This time we’d gotten it right.

Revenue 72

Revenue Developer Java Customer Development 72

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 15, 2019

Once upon a time every great organization was a scrappy startup willing to take risks – new ideas, new methods, new customers, targets, and mission. And by product, I mean the creation of new hardware, services, software, tools, operations, tradecraft, etc. Companies Run on Process. The result is process theater.

Government 319

Government Technical Review Acquisition Metrics 319

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. The last couple of years has also seen the huge initial success of Ycombinator, the Lean Startup and many other product driven approaches to going to market. That died with waterfall software development.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 8, 2008 The lean startup Ive been thinking for some time about a term that could encapsulate trends that are changing the startup landscape. After some trial and error, Ive settled on the Lean Startup. Of course, many startups are capital efficient and generally frugal.

Lean 168

Lean San Francisco Startup Continuous Deployment 168

Steve Blank

AUGUST 18, 2010

Here’s his story of when Customer Development failed. We’ve been a startup for the past two years or so and we’ve come to a critical point on this crazy roller coaster ride. We were lucky to learn about Customer Development early on in the life of our startup. So how did Customer Development fail us?

Customer Development 231

Customer Development Developer Customer California 231

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 25, 2010

In the last decade open source software (e.g It’s the combination of Business Model Design and Customer Development. Today every business organization from startup to large company uses the words “business model.” Business Model Design Gets Dynamic, Customer Development Gets Strategic. Business Model Design.

Customer Development 331

Customer Development Business Model Developer Customer 331

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

Should you co-found your company with a software development shop? I’ve talked with a number of software development shops who are eager to get into the business of cofounding companies, i.e., getting product revenue and equity instead of just consulting revenue. mentor VCs, e.g., most VCs. The discounts?

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

I’ve spent my life in innovation, eight startups in 21 years, and the last 15 years in academia teaching it. And I’ve been lucky enough to watch innovation happen not only in hardware and software but in Life Sciences – in Therapeutics, Medical Devices, Diagnostics and now Digital Health.

Restful 238

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 238

Steve Blank

MAY 6, 2015

It’s time to update Build, Measure, Learn to what we now know is the best way to build Lean startups. Build a product, get it into the real world, measure customers’ reactions and behaviors, learn from this, and use what you’ve learned to build something better. Then came the Build-Measure-learn focus of the Lean Startup.

Lean 120

Lean Agile Business Model Customer Development 120

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

It wasn’t so many years ago that starting a new e-commerce business on the Internet was a complex custom development project, usually costing a million dollars or more. With a little help from a friend, you can handle expenses, revenue, and payroll, with QuickBooks or a similar package.

Cost 405

Cost Entrepreneur Burn Rate Social Media 405

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

I continue to collect great content that is the intersection of startups, products, online and technology. Equity-Only CTO and Equity-Only Developers - SoCal CTO , November 1, 2010 I had a recent email dialog with the founder of a company looking for a CTO for their startup. Was it a Startup Founder Developer Gap ?

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Steve Blank

MAY 26, 2009

The best entrepreneurship textbooks and blogs assume that advice to startups is generalizable. But as I learned from my students this “one-size-fits-all” approach does not work for all startups. Different market opportunities present radically different startup risks and costs.

Vertical 154

Vertical Silicon Valley Intellectual Property RSS 154

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Five Quarters of Profitability During the 1980’s and through the mid 1990’s startups going public had to do something that most companies today never heard of – they had to show a track record of increasing revenue and consistent profitability. They taught you about customers, markets and profits.

Silicon Valley 233

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 233

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. While that’s not true, it is a fact that entrepreneurs only have one word for “startup.”

Customer Development 217

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 217

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 2, 2013

We talk a lot about Customer Development, but there’s nothing like seeing it in action to understand its power. But the big payoff came when their discussions with medical device customers revealed an entirely new way to think about pricing —potentially tripling their revenue. the Customer Life Time (CLT)).

Customer 326

Customer Churn Rate Customer Development Lean 326

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 29, 2024

Then, consider how you’ll reach your customers and what kind of relationship you want to build with them. Revenue streams are another critical component of your business model. They allow you to easily edit, share, and collaborate on documents without the need for multiple software solutions.

Intellectual Property 158

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Business Model Bootstrapping 158

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

I was between my 7th and 8th and final startup; licking my wounds from Rocket Science, the company I had cratered as my first and last attempt as a startup CEO. I was consulting for the two venture capital firms who between them put $12 million into my last failed startup. It was a long way from Ellis Island.)

Silicon Valley 129

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 129

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? All things being equal, of course, you’d rather have more revenue rather than less. And yet revenue alone is not a sufficient goal.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 9, 2018

If you’re a startup trying to disrupt an existing business you need to read The Fixer by Bradley Tusk and Regulatory Hacking by Evan Burfield. startups might run into an alphabet soup of federal regulatory agencies, for example; ATF , CFPB , DEA , EPA , FAA , FCC , FDA , FDIC , FERC , FTC , OCC , OSHA , SEC. In the U.S. An insurer?

Marketing 324

Marketing Startup Government SEC 324

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

And building a startup is not for the faint of heart. The tools and temperament needed to get from startup idea to startup success were the focus of the guests on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Prior to founding Andela , he co-founded 2U , an education technology startup that went public in 2014.

Cofounder 145

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 145

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

I thing I’ve learned over the years is that technology purists hate advertising even when it is that revenue stream that truthfully drives much of our industry. Bill had previously created a packaged software company called Knowledge Adventure the produced children’s educational software. Think YouTube vs. the rest.

Product 350

Product Tuvalu Dilution Incubator 350

Steve Blank

JANUARY 6, 2014

For the last 75 years products (both durable goods and software) were built via Waterfall development. Smart companies will figure out how to educate their customers and communicate these changes. The Old Days – Waterfall Product Development. Waterfall – The Customer View.

Continuous Deployment 331

Continuous Deployment Customer Agile Cloud 331

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2013

What if we could increase productivity and stave the capital flight by helping Life Sciences startups build their companies more efficiently? One would think that designing a medical device would be a simple engineering problem, and startups would be emerging right and left. Life Sciences II – Medical Devices. Regulatory Issues.

Startup 299

Startup Venture Capital Lean IPO 299

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Investors sitting through Incubator or Accelerator demo days have three metrics to judge fledgling startups – 1) great looking product demos, 2) compelling PowerPoint slides, and 3) a world-class team. A Lean Startup methodology offers entrepreneurs a framework to focus on what’s important: Business Model Discovery.

Oakland 329

Oakland Incubator Lean Metrics 329

Steve Blank

AUGUST 15, 2016

And building a startup is not for the faint of heart. The tools and temperament needed to get from startup idea to startup success were the focus of the guests on today’s Entrepreneurs are Everywhere radio show. Prior to founding Andela , he co-founded 2U , an education technology startup that went public in 2014.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Entrepreneur Africa Sales Cycle 120

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2009

Of all the tactics I have advocated as part of the lean startup , none has provoked as many extreme reactions as continuous deployment , a process that allows companies to release software in minutes instead of days, weeks, or months. If we accept the verdict of customers instead of pundits, I think these claims are easy to dismiss.

Continuous Deployment 167

Continuous Deployment Software Review San Francisco Lean 167

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

My service startup quickly grew and became a platform to identify new problems we could solve for clients. Inversely, if you’re using the agency model to fund another startup or product, you should probably keep things lean. A dramatic example of this is a software development agency offering UX and UI services.

PR 120

PR B2B Lean Audience 120

Steve Blank

APRIL 4, 2011

The Stanford Lean LaunchPad class was an experiment in a new model of teaching startup entrepreneurship. This week they were testing who the customer, user, payer for the product will be (and discovering if they have a multi-sided business model , one with both buyers and sellers.) The news from customers was not good.

Customer 239

Customer Business Model Nebraska Cloud 239

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 10, 2011

This week, the startup tribe from Harvard Business School is making their annual trek to Silicon Valley. They’ll hear from a variety of experts and get to see many startups firsthand. Even today, I routinely hear MBA’s advised to remove the degree from their resume when applying to startup jobs.

Silicon Valley 167

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Investment Bankers 167

Steve Blank

JULY 2, 2009

Video Games At SuperMac , Peter Barrett was the witty and creative 24-year old Australian engineer who had designed several of our most successful products, culminating with the software for the Video Spigot. Now he wanted to go off start his own company.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 19, 2013

Part 4: This Will Save us Years – Customer Discovery in Medical Devices. Part 5: Value proposition and customer segments in Life Sciences. Part 7: Revenue Streams in Life Sciences. Part 8: When Customers Make You Smarter –Customer Discovery in Digital Health. If you can’t see the video above, click here.

Lean 255

Lean Customer Development Video Distribution 255

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 20, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, February 20, 2009 Work in small batches Software should be designed, written, and deployed in small batches. The batch size is the unit at which work-products move between stages in a development process. For software, the easiest batch to see is code. This is easiest to see in deployment.

San Francisco 161

San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment Development Team Review 161

Steve Blank

JANUARY 22, 2013

In this second cohort, Startup teams were selected from over 100 applicants in Colombia by SENA , a quasi-government organization that provides tech support, prototype labs, and mentoring to Colombian entrepreneurs. this may well be the most ambitious government-sponsored startup catalyst effort on the globe.

Colombia 324

Colombia Lean Silicon Valley Coder 324