Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2019

As there was no venture capital, these early startups were funded by early sales to weapon systems prime contractors and subcontractors. Within a decade, the rise of venture capital in Silicon Valley enabled startups to find commercial customers rather than military ones. Startups can do anything.

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Government Artificial Inteligence Silicon Valley North Korea 313

The Startup Magazine

AUGUST 11, 2023

It is necessary to cover the early stages of product development, thorough market research, and other processes during the initial step. Seed capital is a component of the initial investments made in young businesses. In most cases, this is the first important round of venture capital funding that the company has received.

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Seed Stage Technical Review Early Stage Due Diligence 130

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2018

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. Consider licensing your product or intellectual property, and “white labeling.”

Intellectual Property 134

Intellectual Property Technical Review Startup Incubator 134

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Are there customers for what you are building? How many are there? Can it scale?”

Customer Development 267

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 267

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

After 20 years of working in startups, I decided to take a step back and look at the product development model I had been following and see why it usually failed to provide useful guidance in activities outside the building – sales, marketing and business development. So what’s wrong the product development model?

Customer Development 244

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 244

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

Finally, I’ll write about 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. Three to six months after first customer ship, if Sales starts missing its numbers, the board gets concerned.

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 232

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

the wave of semiconductor startups in the 1960’s/70’s, the emergence of Venture Capital as a professional industry, the personal computer revolution in 1980’s, the rise of the Internet in the 1990’s and finally. The second thing that’s changed is that we’re now Compressing the Product Development Cycle. The founders.

Restful 243

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

Pattern Recognition One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is that you are constantly running a pattern recognition algorithm against a continual collection of customer and market data. Let’s Fire Our Customers Part of the DNA of great entrepreneurs is a bias towards decisive and immediate action. Get it done, now.

Customer 216

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 216

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 8, 2009

Your friends and advisers tell you that this means you need revenue because in this economy VC’s will only fund businesses with revenue. So if it’s not necessarily revenue that’s preventing an investment, then WTF is traction? It’s marketing 101 for tech companies in terms of how you market to customers.

Technical Review 309

Technical Review Term Sheet Venture Capital Revenue 309

Steve Blank

MARCH 16, 2016

But startups require money upfront for product development and later to scale. Luckily in the last quarter of the 20 th century a new source of money called risk capital emerged. At its core Venture Capital is nothing more than a small portion of the Private Equity financial asset class. ——-.

Liquidity Event 120

Liquidity Event Founder Liquidation Preference Private Equity 120

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. And most startup code and features end up on the floor as customers never really wanted them.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2010

That is when no customers wanted to work with Internet startups because we as an industry had burned so many customers. My company had raised venture capital in April 2001 but we were told that there may never be any more coming. I learned how to better run a product management process.

Venture Capital 285

Venture Capital Hiring Software Review Stock Options 285

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2015

I first met Evangelos Simoudis when he ran IBM’s Business Intelligence Solutions Division and then as CEO of his first startup Customer Analytics. Evangelos has spent the last 15 years as a Venture Capitalist, first at Apax Partners and later at Trident Capital. and the emergence of new industries, markets and customers.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Venture Capital United States Technical Review 120

Steve Blank

MAY 28, 2009

Customer/Market Risk Versus Invention Risk One day I was having lunch with a VC sharing what I learned from my students. 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.”

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Vertical Silicon Valley Marketing Customer 162

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 20, 2019

On the other hand, if you arrive at a VC pitch without a comprehensive understanding of the industry you’re hoping to compete in, or without a clear path to profitability or a thoughtful product-development road map, you’ll likely leave empty-handed. You may be able to generate revenue, but VCs want exponential growth.

Technical Review 140

Technical Review Due Diligence Early Stage Differentiation 140

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. We’ve managed startups like this forever; there is no other way to manage them.”

Silicon Valley 131

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 131

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. A description of the problem you’re solving for your customers, and your solution to the problem, which is usually your product or service.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

This post describes how the traditional product development model distorts startup sales, marketing and business development. The meaning of alpha test , beta test, and first customer ship are pretty obvious to most engineers. For example, some startup sales execs believe hiring the core sales team is a key objective.

Customer Development 228

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 228

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. love to find great products and services made by entrepreneurs who are trying to change the world. This should not deter you. billion dollar mistake.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Transformify

MARCH 14, 2020

At the same time, the stock markets collapsed, and most businesses already report skyrocketing losses, unmet revenue targets and insufficient stock due to production slow down in China, India and the rest of the world. Over the last decade, a new trend emerged as tech talent was scarce where it was needed the most.

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The Startup Magazine

SEPTEMBER 12, 2019

Most startups view venture capital funding as a blessing from above — eager to take it as soon as they can get it. Tempted by large sums of money and the perceived validation that comes along with being funded, founders turn to venture capitalists to accelerate their company’s growth. Focus on Product Development First.

Early Stage 85

Early Stage Venture Capital Bootstrapping Pre-Money Valuation 85

abovethecrowd.com

OCTOBER 1, 2013

No other metric so holistically captures as many critical aspects of a web site – user design, usability, performance, convenience, ad effectiveness, net promoter score, customer satisfaction – all in a single measurement. Nearly every Internet company on the planet has invested in some form of the first activity, customer acquisition.

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Metrics Conversion Internet Acquisition 93

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. They never understood Market Type. Why does Market Type matter?

Customer Development 220

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 220

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 26, 2014

Every startup needs access to capital, whether for funding product development, for initial rollout efforts, acquiring inventory, or paying that first employee. These are people who should believe in you, without waiting to see if your idea works, or waiting until you have real customers, revenue, and hard assets.

Entrepreneur 254

Entrepreneur Finance Equity Early Stage 254

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

Listen to this episode if you want to hear about a founder who has a product and users and paying customers … and is trying to figure out how to take his company to the next level and grow faster. Jason: So how many of those 20,000 people are paying customers? Edwin: Okay, I have different types of customers.

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Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

VC Cafe

NOVEMBER 11, 2011

BigBand Networks, which has more than 200 customers in North America, Asia and Europe, provides broadband service providers with digital video networking solutions designed to make it easier to distribute, manage and monetize video. Fifty of its manufacturing activities and 70% of its consolidated revenues derive from global operations.

Peru 96

Peru Technical Review North America 96

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

I’ve seen a range of options for supporting entrepreneurs, which I can rank from least to most involvement in companies by investors: financier VCs, e.g., Correlation Ventures. portfolio operator VCs, e.g., Andreessen Horowitz, ff Venture Capital, First Round Capital, Google Ventures. mentor VCs, e.g., most VCs.

Software Developers 60

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 6, 2013

Every startup needs access to capital, whether for funding product development, for initial rollout efforts, acquiring inventory, or paying that first employee. These are people who should believe in you, without waiting to see if your idea works, or waiting until you have real customers, revenue, and hard assets.

Finance 243

Finance Startup Equity Early Stage 243

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 24, 2014

According to the National Venture Capital Association , the amount of money that VC’s invested rose 8% to nearly $30 billion in 2013. To help build new product development and venture teams, my colleague Rob Goldberg, of Stages of Innovation , created an assessment tool called Talent for Growth.

Startup 252

Startup Angel Investor Early Stage LLC 252

Hearpreneur

JULY 10, 2017

Prior to starting Ozmo both Ming and I worked in a design house creating new and better products. Throughout my five years of experience in product development, I realized that most of product launch failure could have been avoided by getting the product right earlier on, or understanding the limit of the maker.

Entrepreneur 101

Entrepreneur Hungary Software Review Cofounder 101

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2009

Your Customers are Not Who You Think For years I thought this “million unit chip sale by accident&# was a “one-off&# funny story. That is until I saw that in startup after startup customers come from places you don’t plan on. Your board nods sagely at your target customer list. What happened?

Silicon Valley 143

Silicon Valley RSS California Customer Development 143

Steve Blank

AUGUST 24, 2009

Dinner in a Strange Land When I was in my mid 20′s working at ESL, I was sent overseas to a customer site where the customers were our three-letter intelligence agencies. Page views drive his ad revenue, which is probably CPM based. I think it is because in the end, customers count. Mike Arrington is a capitalist.

Silicon Valley 210

Silicon Valley PR Technical Review RSS 210

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 20, 2016

enabling you to expand on an already working business model), and if you’re in the extremely early stages of building your company, you still need to develop your product. Product development. When it comes to product development and marketing in the early stages of your tech startup, funding is optional.

Early Stage 60

Early Stage Startup Forecast Channel 60

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 29, 2020

Most importantly, the phrase “ bootstrapping a startup ” translates into “growing your business with little or no venture capital or outside investment. It means relying on your own savings and revenue to operate and expand.”. Product development also occurs in small iterations or changes. Invest in your brand.

Bootstrapping 85

Bootstrapping Global Startup Hungary 85

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. The Product Development Diagram Emerging early in the twentieth century, this product-centric model described a process that evolved in manufacturing industries.

Silicon Valley 269

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 269

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. In particular, the winners invent and live by a process of customer learning and discovery.

Silicon Valley 133

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital California 133

The Equity Kicker

JANUARY 10, 2020

Nic is also the author of one of Europe’s most popular venture capital blogs – www.theequitykicker.com. Every good VC looks for the same three things: a great team, a great product, and a large and attractive market. They find a niche in the market where they can grow some revenues and then they raise some more money.

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Partner Early Stage Portfolio Metrics 68