Entrepreneurs tend to view adversity as opportunity. You’re Hired, You’re Fired. My first job in Silicon Valley: I was hired as a lab technician at ESL to support the training department. I packed up my life in Michigan and spent five days driving to California to start work. (Driving across the U.S. is an adventure [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, ESL, Technology | Tagged: Entrepreneurs, ESL, Steve Blank | 18 Comments »
When I was a young marketer I learned how to listen to customers by making a fool of myself. 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. The OEM Business [...]
Filed under: Convergent Technologies, Customer Development, Technology | Tagged: Customer Development, Customer Discovery, Customer Validation, Early Stage Startup, Entrepreneurs, Steve Blank, Tips for Startups | 11 Comments »
I was at the Stanford library going through the papers of Fred Terman and came across a memo from 1956 that probably hasn’t been seen or read in over 50 years. It had nothing to do with the subject I was looking for, so I read it, chuckled, put it back in the file and [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Technology | Tagged: Early Stage Startup, Entrepreneurs, Fred Terman | 14 Comments »
Raising our kids and being an entrepreneur wasn’t easy. Being in a startup and having a successful relationship and family was very hard work. But entrepreneurs can be great spouses and parents. This post is not advice, nor is it recommendation of what you should do, it’s simply what my wife and I did to [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Family/Career/Culture, Technology | Tagged: Entrepreneurs, Steve Blank, Tips for Startups | 74 Comments »
Watching my oldest daughter graduate high school this week made me think about what it was like raising a family and being an entrepreneur. 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.” It was a [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Family/Career/Culture, Technology | Tagged: Entrepreneurs, Steve Blank, Tips for Startups | 43 Comments »
When my students ask me about whether they should be a founder or cofounder of a startup I ask them to take a walk around the block and ask themselves: Are you comfortable with: Chaos – startups are disorganized Uncertainty – startups never go per plan Are you: Resilient – at times you will fail [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Technology | Tagged: Early Stage Startup, Entrepreneurs, Steve Blank, Tips for Startups | 18 Comments »
This post makes sense when you read the previous three vertical markets posts first. 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. (As a reminder, the Customer Development process says your business plan is just [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Technology, Vertical Markets | 3 Comments »
I’ve screwed up a lot of startups on faith. One of the key tenets of entrepreneurship is that you start your company with insufficient resources and knowledge. Faith-based Entrepreneurship At first, entrepreneurship is a Faith-based initiative. There is no certainty about a startup on day-one. You make several first order approximations about your business model, [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Family/Career/Culture, Technology | Tagged: Customer Development, Early Stage Startup, Entrepreneurs, Startups, Steve Blank, Tips for Startups | 11 Comments »
This post makes sense when you read the previous two vertical markets posts first. Reducing Risk – Simulation versus Customer Development If you remember the first part of this discussion, startups face two types of risk; invention risk and/or customer/market risk. In either type of startup you want to put in place processes in place [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Technology, Vertical Markets | Tagged: Customer Development, Early Stage Startup, Steve Blank, Tips for Startups | 7 Comments »
In 1994 Rocket Science Games was the only video game company with a rock in its lobby. We had moved our game development facilities from Berkeley and Palo Alto and consolidated into one building on Townsend Street in the “South of Market” neighborhood in San Francisco. (We’re were just around the corner from the future [...]
Filed under: Marketing, Rocket Science Games | Tagged: Entrepreneurs, Steve Blank | 4 Comments »
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