Steve Blank

OCTOBER 19, 2009

I set up an advisory board as a vehicle to get these industry experts engaged with the company and product. Other advisors provided marketing with industry-specific advice in our initial vertical markets (computational fluid dynamics, computational chemistry, finite element analysis, and petroleum engineering).

Engineer 198

Engineer Silicon Valley Part-Time VPE Advisory Board 198

The Next Web

JANUARY 23, 2014

She previously served as the Chief Product Officer and Chief Marketing Officer at Smule , where she remains an advisor to the Board of Directors. Marketing is often treated as a bad word in Silicon Valley. If a product is good, we are told, it should simply sell itself. Talk about your product before you start building.

Product 147

Product Elevator Pitch Silicon Valley Vertical 147

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. Yet we hadn’t shipped a single product. All this activity occurring before we actually shipped a product.

Silicon Valley 122

Silicon Valley Product RSS California 122

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

are all expensive and potentially fatal distractions if done before you have found product/market fit and a repeatable sales model. Therefore when money is hard to come by, entrepreneurs (and their investors) look for ways to reduce cash burn rate and increase the chance of finding product/market fit before waste you bunch of money.

Lean 244

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 244

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2013

Production costs have fallen more than 90%. Ynon immediately began working with the founding team: Danny Zappin, Lisa Donovan and Ben Donovan and he established a really strong rapport as somebody who had the media chops and executive relationships but was grounded in the economics of low-cost video production & distribution.

Video 320

Video Los Angeles Technical Cofounder CTO Hire 320

Austin Startup

AUGUST 7, 2017

Partnerships with innovative global companies in major industry verticals provide unique opportunities for customer validation, pilot programs and strategic investment. Entrepreneurs in San Antonio will drive up to Austin for a day of office hours with guest mentors visiting from Silicon Valley. It’s not Silicon Valley.

Texas 97

Texas San Antonio Houston Dallas 97

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

While I was consulting for them, I got a call from a recruiter for a company called SuperMac, which made add-on products for the Macintosh. They sold their product through the computer retail channel, something I knew nothing about. The new products potentially looked to be industry leaders if and when they came to market.

Silicon Valley 146

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 146

Steve Blank

JUNE 29, 2009

My first job in Silicon Valley: I was hired as a lab technician at ESL to support the training department. It makes you appreciate that the Silicon Valley technology-centric culture-bubble has little to do with the majority of Americans.) They surprised themselves with how good the final product was.

Agile 245

Agile Silicon Valley RSS California 245

Version One Ventures

FEBRUARY 3, 2021

Then, Silicon Valley collectively deplatformed Trump (a scary precedent even if you vehemently dislike the guy). Let’s explore the status and implications of each vertical. . The first major product market fit is in building an open, permissionless financial system (commonly referred to as DeFi). But time will tell. .

Web 193

Web Technical Review Software Review Social Network 193

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

This post describes how following the traditional product development can lead to a “startup death spiral.&# In the next posts that follow, I’ll describe how this model’s failures led to the Customer Development Model – offering a new way to approach startup sales and marketing activities. The board raises a collective eyebrow.

Customer Development 224

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 224

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 238

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 238

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

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. Get out of the building, get some more customer feedback, spin your product and go back and read the book.

Customer Development 262

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 262

Steve Blank

APRIL 10, 2009

An example of a reversible decision could be adding a product feature, a new algorithm in the code, targeting a specific set of customers, etc. An irreversible decision is firing an employee, launching your product, a five-year lease for an expensive new building, etc. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.

Silicon Valley 300

Silicon Valley RSS Startup Agile 300

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. Little did I know.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Technical Review RSS Software Review 120

The Equity Kicker

MAY 9, 2016

The bit I liked the most described the role of Stanford in getting Silicon Valley going in the late 1950s. Silicon Valley started in the small district of Palo Alto and the emergence of Tech City here in East London has been similarly important. We focus on ecommerce and marketplaces.

Silicon Valley 60

Silicon Valley Venture Capital eCommerce Startup 60

Steve Blank

MAY 11, 2021

This ordeal takes two years or more , during which startups should anticipate little or no revenue as they try to push their product through the bureaucracy. Is there strong interest for the product? ai entered the defense market having already built a successful commercial business in the energy vertical.

Artificial Inteligence 326

Artificial Inteligence Marketing Startup Silicon Valley 326

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. It’s just a story about what happened to me.

Silicon Valley 225

Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 225

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 21, 2015

During the last three years he’s worked with over 100 companies, many of which established Innovation Outposts in Silicon Valley. He’s now helping companies get the most out of their relationships with Silicon Valley. In addition, firms found themselves now managing diverse product lines. Institutional Adjustments.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley Venture Capital United States Technical Review 120

Steve Blank

JUNE 25, 2009

Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. They couldn’t keep up with the fast product development times that were enabled by using standard microprocessors.

Technology 138

Technology Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 138

Steve Blank

JULY 7, 2009

Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. luck… and as one of Steve Blank’s posts today mentioned, you can’t test hypotheses from within your building. to make sense of the unstructured feedback received from customers. Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Order Here. Now In Print!

Customer Development 124

Customer Development Developer Silicon Valley Customer 124

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

And without revenue how do we know if we achieved product/market fit to exit Customer Validation?” I gave my boilerplate answer, “I’m a product guy and I tend to invest and look at deals that have measurable revenue metrics. Market Type affects your spending and sales ramp after you reach product/market fit. Don’t launch.

Customer Development 219

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 219

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2018

When Sloan arrived at GM in 1920 he realized that the traditional centralized management structures organized by function (sales, manufacturing, distribution, and marketing) were a poor fit for managing GM’s diverse product lines. But the spirit of Billy Durant would rise again in what would become Silicon Valley.

Michigan 268

Michigan Cofounder Stock Forecast 268

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

We are currently in the process of validating our hypotheses about our product, customers, and markets. Actually, the essence of everything in CD is the same as Marc Andreesen’s Product-Market Fit. Not just because we can command a 3-4x step up in valuation if we find product/market fit pre [.] Order Here. Now In Print!

Venture Capital 209

Venture Capital Silicon Valley RSS Hockey Stick 209

Steve Blank

JUNE 11, 2009

Passionate – is the company/product/customers the most important thing in your life? And you’ll still need to have a resilient and agile personality, as new customer and product opportunities will appear and change your work. Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. Can you recognize and capitalize on them?

Cofounder 219

Cofounder Founder Silicon Valley Technical Cofounder 219

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

Over time you start to figure out who you customers are and how to sell to them or how to get them to adopt your products if you’re a consumer-oriented startup. how to market our products and company. when to build out our offices in Silicon Valley, New York & Los Angeles. how to market our products and company.

Technical Review 325

Technical Review Early Stage Software Review Los Angeles 325

Steve Blank

JULY 9, 2009

In previous companies I could talk about technology details and how the product features could solve a customers problem. There couldn’t have been a worse choice for CEO in Silicon Valley. This wasn’t just some random Silicon Valley fantasy. I was in a very, very different business.

Silicon Valley 139

Silicon Valley RSS California Video 139

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 5, 2009

A Phone Call After I left MIPS Computers I was in New York tagging along with a friend (a computer architect whose products at Apple a decade later would change the shape of personal computing) who was consulting for a voice recognition startup. It would be the company where I actually earned the title.

North Carolina 125

North Carolina Silicon Valley Fractional VPE Part-Time VPE 125

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.

Silicon Valley 159

Silicon Valley Securities and Exchange Commission Venture Capital RSS 159

Steve Blank

AUGUST 13, 2009

The first few months of my startups were centered around building the founding team, prototyping the product and raising money. This mantra of talking to customers and iterating the product is the basis of the Lean Startup Methodology that Eric Ries has been evangelizing and I’ve been teaching at U.C. Fundraising isn’t the product.

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley RSS Technical Review Lean 179

Steve Blank

AUGUST 10, 2009

This next product, the Traveling Wave Tube, would have a major impact on electronic intelligence. Funded by military contracts, these 1950′s microwave tube startups would help build Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial culture and environment. Why Electronics Intelligence?

Silicon Valley 155

Silicon Valley RSS SBIC California 155

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

While it is “just business,” many customers form emotional bonds sometimes with products, other times with the company itself. In fact, if you’re doing your job right as a startup, you’re encouraging customers to be passionate about your company and products. No discount for existing users? You’ve been an idiot for sticking with us.”

Customer 195

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 195

Steve Blank

JULY 20, 2009

Burnout can turn productive employees into emotional zombies and destroy careers. Hitting “burnout” changed the trajectory of both ends of my career in Silicon Valley. Zilog Zilog was my first Silicon Valley company where you could utter the customer’s name in public. The bill had come due. Order Here.

Silicon Valley 175

Silicon Valley Chad RSS San Francisco 175

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

As the engineers were busy rearchitecting the original Stanford MIPS chip into a commercial product, one of my jobs was to find out what features customers wanted. Customer Development is about testing the founder’s hypothesis about what constitutes product/market fit with the minimum feature set.

Customer Development 278

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 278

Austin Startup

MARCH 3, 2020

Likely working in innovation strategy/new product concepting for an agency or big tech firm. This track brings together founders and funders and showcases exciting new companies, products, services, and business models across different verticals and industries. If you weren’t working for LexSet, what would you be doing?

Technical Review 63

Technical Review Los Angeles Cofounder Silicon Valley 63

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

Steve Blanks 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice. I have been working on getting a startup to revenue for a while, and while this is my 4th iteration and I have not yet succeeded, I’ve been learning new things every time. Reply Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S. Now In Print!

Silicon Valley 125

Silicon Valley RSS Venture Capital Customer Development 125

Steve Blank

AUGUST 6, 2009

Funded by military contracts these 1950′s startups would help build Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial culture and environment. Terman was describing the valley’s already existing ecosystem for building vacuum tubes in 1950. .&# Air Force and its Strategic Air Command.

Silicon Valley 144

Silicon Valley RSS Germany California 144

Steve Blank

AUGUST 3, 2009

If you read only one previous post, read this one (or this one.) ————- The Birth of Entrepreneurship in The Hot Cold War Silicon Valley entrepreneurship was born in the middle of a secret war with the Soviet Union. Where were their production facilities? military, the CIA and the National Security Agency.

Silicon Valley 153

Silicon Valley RSS Europe Germany 153