Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Yet two smart VC firms, Sigma and Matrix Partners, realized that somewhere in this mess there was value. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. And with all of that they had gone broke, out of business and into Chapter 11. Their guess was that they would find value in the high margin graphics business.

Silicon Valley 146

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

The functions of an early-stage board are pretty obvious and well understood: Providing introductions to customers, biz dev partners, recruits, the press, other investors, etc. Offering a sparring-partner function on strategic decisions. how much energy to put into channel partners vs. direct sales. Mentorship.

Technical Review 325

Technical Review Early Stage Software Review Los Angeles 325

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

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. I remember presenting our ideas for Marketing Automation to one VP of Marketing in a large Silicon Valley company. Are These Your Slides? He said, “Look again.”

Silicon Valley 225

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 225

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

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Did the partner have a good or bad day, etc. We were able to raise a Seed round from Bessemer Venture Partners on a powerpoint idea, and never found the repeatable customer model. Anything that is not a standard VC dozen format will get thrown away by a junior associate with MBA before it is ever seen by a partner. Order Here.

Customer Development 262

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Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

Reply One difference between VCs and Entrepreneurs « Lightspeed Venture Partners Blog , on April 20, 2009 at 7:06 am Said: [.] Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Blank: “Speed and Tempo” – Fearless Decision Making for Startups. Great startups have a tempo of 10x a large [.] Order Here.

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2015

Evangelos has spent the last 15 years as a Venture Capitalist, first at Apax Partners and later at Trident Capital. During the last three years he’s worked with over 100 companies, many of which established Innovation Outposts in Silicon Valley. and to develop professional managers and management hierarchies to run them.

Silicon Valley 120

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Steve Blank

JULY 13, 2009

Our “Hollywood meets Silicon Valley” story played great in Silicon Valley, they ate it up in Hollywood, and the business press tripped over themselves to talk to us. The positive effect of the tidal wave of press was as a door opener for us to raise money from corporate partners. Order Here. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 122

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Steve Blank

JULY 16, 2009

Meanwhile my partner was in heaven working with his newly hired group of game designers directing and producing our first games. No, not really, but my partner owns the studio and tells me it’s spectacular and everyone will love it. Go spend some time outside the building talking to potential distribution partners. Order Here.

Silicon Valley 207

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YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 29, 2011

As founder Luke Deering would say, it’s like a “virtual Silicon Valley at your fingertips” Using Entrepreneur Finder is easy. By September, they reached a point where the company’s lack of funding and their inability to find the ideal marketing partner was really starting to hurt. The best way to overcome this?

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 26, 2009

This is the first of two posts about the rise of “risk capital” and how it came to be associated with what became Silicon Valley. ———————– Building Blocks of Entrepreneurship By the mid 1950’s the groundwork for a culture and environment of entrepreneurship were taking shape on the east and west coasts of the United States. Whitney Co.

Silicon Valley 159

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Steve Blank

JULY 9, 2009

So I got out out of the building to meet and understand our customers and distribution partners. I remember after a month or two of talking to 14-22 year old male gamers (our potential target market,) I realized that for the first time in my career I had no emotional connection to my customers or channel partners.

Silicon Valley 139

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Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Union Square Ventures The next morning I got to spend time with Brad Burnham , partner at Union Square Ventures talking about their investment strategy and insights about web-based businesses. Bill and his partner Fred Wilson have invested in ~30 or so companies with 27 still active. That’s no longer the case in Silicon Valley.

Customer Development 219

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 219

Steve Blank

AUGUST 10, 2009

Funded by military contracts, these 1950′s microwave tube startups would help build Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial culture and environment. They would also set the standard for the 20% carry for general partners. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Why Electronics Intelligence?

Silicon Valley 155

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David Teten

JANUARY 9, 2018

Many VCs focus on specific verticals, usually based on the sector in which a VC initially made her reputation. That said, one limitation in early-stage investing particularly is that 2022’s growth sectors probably don’t fit neatly into a vertical we can define today. What VCs most typically talk about are: – Industry expertise.

Venture Capital 60

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David Teten

JANUARY 9, 2018

Many VCs focus on specific verticals, usually based on the sector in which a VC initially made her reputation. That said, one limitation in early-stage investing particularly is that 2022’s growth sectors probably don’t fit neatly into a vertical we can define today. What VCs most typically talk about are: – Industry expertise.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Private Equity Silicon Valley Differentiation 60

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

Also, there are a variety of strategies for “easing out&# gracefully such as finding an outsourcing vendor or new partner. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. I’ve watched new CEO’s brought into large existing consumer products companies to turn around a failing strategy. Fire might be a strong word.

Customer 195

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 195

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 29, 2009

This is the second of three posts about the rise of “risk capital” and how it came to be associated with what became Silicon Valley. ———————– The First Valley IPO’s Silicon Valley first caught the eyes of east coast investors in the late 1950’s when the valleys first three IPO’s happened: Varian in 1956, Hewlett Packard in 1957, and Ampex in 1958.

Silicon Valley 125

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Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

The culture and work ethic of Convergent had earned it the title “the Marine Corps of Silicon Valley”. He was my role model at Convergent, mentor at Ardent and partner at E.piphany. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. And so was his reputation for being verbally abusive to his direct reports.

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

I had hired the VP of marketing from a potential software partner who was responsible to get all this 3 rd party software on our computer. I’ve been on the side of your potential partners, and I know that often too much ‘persistence’ is offputting. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

Silicon Valley 324

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Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Each VC firm/partner has a different spin on what to weigh more.) These types seem dangerous, yet are often the ones needed on board to get the fund to invest in the first place, seeing that the younger partners naturally have less pull during the Monday round-ups. I find the same still going on with a few firms and partners.&#

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

Or at times an even more honest answer, “My senior partners say this is the only way to do it.” Look at the early Silicon Valley companies – Homebrew Club =>PCs. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Why change something that has worked so well over the last three decades?” Order Here.

Customer Development 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 31, 2014

Creating a vertically oriented regional ecosystem is a pretty amazing accomplishment for any country or industry. The trap most of them fell into (common almost everywhere): they were reading the blog posts and advice of Silicon Valley-based companies and believing that it uniformly applied to them. It doesn’t.

Global 335

Global Australia Silicon Valley China 335

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 8, 2009

Law firm partners often have anger management issues, but the thing about anger is that it is not always wrong to be angry — if somebody is angry at you because you did something wrong, then that anger is valid. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply.

Silicon Valley 271

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Haystack

DECEMBER 29, 2018

And as more economies worldwide seek to shift their investment strategies offshore and seek out technology, hubs like Silicon Valley and Shanghai, among others, have reaped the benefits. Technology is, like water, flowing and seeping into nearly every sector and eventually into most of the global economy. 2/ The Scooter Phenomenon.

Technical Review 165

Technical Review Venture Capital Russia China 165

Version One Ventures

OCTOBER 17, 2018

And we also look at companies that are creating the best product for a specific vertical – including bio/healthcare and other emerging tech. From Fund I and now to Fund III, we have been able to serve as an important bridge between Silicon Valley and other tech ecosystems. It is a true honor to be a partner of yours!

Silicon Valley 127

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ReadWriteStart

JUNE 23, 2011

I asked Harshil to focus his entire product and go-to-market strategy on the college-bound age 18 market and develop his assessment module, vertical search engine for colleges and trust network to address the needs of that market and that market alone. partners to help bring his product to market.

Spain 115

Spain Entrepreneur India San Francisco 115

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 1, 2023

By Daniel Sokolovksy, Co-Founder and CEO, WARP and Troy Lester, Co-Founder and CRO, WARP The dissolution of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was more than just a bank collapse, it was a reality check for both startups and the VCs that fund them. That includes us. As an early-stage company that just closed our seed round at $8.1

Early Stage 113

Early Stage Los Angeles Silicon Valley Cofounder 113

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2009

Convergent Technologies When I was in my 20’s I worked at Convergent Technologies , a company that was proud to be known as the “Marine Corps of Silicon Valley.” And one would become my mentor and partner in later companies.) Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. sigh* It’s a sad thing.

Entrepreneur 276

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Steve Blank

MAY 22, 2009

While one could argue that a trade show is just another demand creation activity akin to advertising or PR, trade shows are the closest eyeball-to-eyeball contact you’re company is going to have with customers, competitors and partners. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. These two posts were amazing.

Silicon Valley 128

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ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 27, 2011

However, the mistake Said has made is to go "spray and pray" and build numerous different verticals without really fleshing out the business strategy for any of them. Today, instead of going niche and focused, he and his partners are going broader, even, and planning to burn even more money. PTA Portals.

Entrepreneur 116

Entrepreneur San Francisco Technical Review New Jersey 116

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

In 2019 we partnered with several revenue-based lending providers, effectively creating a marketplace. “. We collect more data on an individual business than, to our knowledge, any other RBI investor, through our application process, data partners, and various public sources online. Bigfoot Capital.

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

The Startup Magazine

APRIL 9, 2018

For 2018, the IoT World and Project Kairos events are May 16-17 in the Silicon Valley area at the Santa Clara Convention Center. Selected startups pitch on the Startup stage as part of their Startup Pack, judged by a panel of investors & leaders for each vertical. What are the verticals for the pitching competition?

Vertical 84

Vertical Startup Artificial Inteligence Silicon Valley 84

Growthink Blog

FEBRUARY 27, 2010

In 1999, Lee joined the Silicon Valley new media content contingent as an Internet-company CEO, and has since founded two innovative Los Angeles media companies. A former partner in two leading Los Angeles media law firms, Lee holds a J.D. in History from UCLA.

Los Angeles 85

Los Angeles Silicon Valley Technical Review Distribution 85

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 2, 2021

Khosrowshahi, who previously served as CEO of Expedia before taking the reins at Uber in 2017, sat down with Greylock general partner Reid Hoffman to discuss the past, present and future of the mobility and delivery business that now operates in 71 countries around the world and employs around 20,000 people globally. RH: Yeah, totally agree.

Iran 39

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ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 6, 2011

Drawing on traditions in the Latin American community, Julie and her partner are bringing to market a very specific product to address a very specific pain, and I believe she can build a very successful e-commerce business based on this idea.

Vertical 115

Vertical Web San Francisco Entrepreneur 115

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 21, 2010

The word conjures images of twenty-something graduate students hacking code in a Silicon Valley dorm room, fueled by a steady supply of Red Bull and Ramen. The vertical axis measures the “percentage of individuals. By Akira Hirai Entrepreneurship. This last point is illustrated by the chart below. So why is this important?

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Silicon Valley Investment Bankers Affiliate Vertical 233