Comments on: The Road Not Taken

By: Bill Smith

Bill Smith — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 23:18:29 +0000

Enjoyed your presentation last week at the Plug n Play Centre. I was down with Canada and CardioComm (which I founded 21 years ago). I read your book on the plane home to Canada – and was delighted to see you worked for Zilog. Back in early 80′s I had a company in Victoria selling more Z80 systems (using RIO) than the rest of the Zilog world put together. John White and Many Fernandez came to Victoria to find out how we were doing it. We wlaked the beach at 4 am and talked about a pre-Visio tool I had got my hands on. Manny told me a new thing called Networks would eb even more significant

I found your concepts quite brilliant and I plan to use your customer development model for my ventures.

By: jorge

jorge — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 20:15:25 +0000

I made a similar decision when I left a defense contractor to “go to California” and work at startups nearly 20 years ago.

At the time I couldn’t articulate it either, and I just told my friends and family: “I want my work to make a difference in the success of the project/company”.

You can’t do that on those big black projects. They’re so big that your technical contribution ends up being a circuit in a sub-systems of a sub-system…

By: AH

AH — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:54:47 +0000

“You make a choice. You make a call. You may rise, or you may fall. You will pay for what you get. You’ve got no room in you bag for regrets.” Groovelily

By: Top 10 Technologies Transforming Sports : The New Dork Times

Top 10 Technologies Transforming Sports : The New Dork Times — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 21:52:31 +0000

[...] The Road Not Taken (steveblank.com) [...]

By: Fred H Schlegel

Fred H Schlegel — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:50:23 +0000

Wonderful insight between two ‘right’ decisions. Comprehension of why we choose one over another is often delayed, if only because the reasoning comes down to preference not fact. I really enjoyed reading through this (and wrapping up with Frost always makes my day).

By: Small Companies « Golden Eggs and other Gems

Small Companies « Golden Eggs and other Gems — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:20:39 +0000

[...] Small Companies “Startups were not just smaller versions of a large company, they were about invention, innovation and iteration – of business model, product, customers and on and on. Startups were doing discovery of the problem and solution in real-time.” (From Steveblank.com) [...]

By: Great Quote from Steve Blank | Rob Grady

Great Quote from Steve Blank | Rob Grady — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 02:57:55 +0000

[...] quote from Steve Blank “Startups were not just smaller versions of a large company, they were about invention, [...]

By: Maurice Karnaugh

Maurice Karnaugh — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 21:25:10 +0000

Robert Frost’s poem raises questions. Is taking the road less traveled really the right policy. If so, why?

To begin with, one needs to know what roads are available and what criteria are to be used in selecting one. The problem, I assume, is to select the RIGHT road. That is no simple matter, given two very uncertain variables. One must know one’s self and one must know the future. Very few of us do. However, if the choice works out well, one can retrospectively write a poem about it.

How delightful it would be to have a presidential candidate named Frost. I have a ready made slogan: Frost in war, Frost in peace, and Frost in the hearts of his countrymen. Pols love ambiguity.

By: Chad Albrecht

Chad Albrecht — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 18:23:43 +0000

Great post! You did an excellent job articulating this concept!

By: Michael F. Martin

Michael F. Martin — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:54:38 +0000

I’m a big Frost fan. You might be interested to know that Frost called this “a tricky poem.”. Try searching for some of his letters on the subject. This fact kind of added to my enjoyment of the poem in the end.