Comments on: Closure http://steveblank.com/2009/11/19/closure/ Entrepreneurship and Conservation Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:56:36 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Tim Pham http://steveblank.com/2009/11/19/closure/#comment-1956 Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:33:33 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=4119#comment-1956 Very entertainment.. Good closure, Steve!
You probably know this customer’s buying scenario would not fit into your sales process/strategy. You just can’t change this mainstream customer with a direct approach.
I bet there are a lot more wasteful spending when the purse-holders are always on the risk-averse side. Any guerilla sales tactics somebody may know for situation like this?

I hope you make some good deals on that machine when Cray bought it back :)

]]> By: A Supercomputer Saga « Photon Courier Test Blog http://steveblank.com/2009/11/19/closure/#comment-1955 Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:44:24 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=4119#comment-1955 [...] Story here. [...]

]]> By: BillSeitz http://steveblank.com/2009/11/19/closure/#comment-1947 Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:51:46 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=4119#comment-1947 Did you put your pinky next to the corner of your mouth and demand “1 beellion dollars”?

]]> By: Yuri Ammosov http://steveblank.com/2009/11/19/closure/#comment-1946 Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:29:47 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=4119#comment-1946 So, Steve, is there any lesson to be learnt? Was Ardent’s business model flawed from the start for being so short on potential customers with deep pockets? Was it your error or cruel fate? And what did Ardent VCs say when they found out they lost all they invested (and how much they lost)?

]]> By: Top Posts « WordPress.com http://steveblank.com/2009/11/19/closure/#comment-1943 Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:25:20 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=4119#comment-1943 [...] Closure For those that know me, I’m kind of a “life is too short” kind of guy. I liked to fail fast, move on, and not [...] [...]

]]> By: dispatches from TJICistan » Blog Archive » Closure http://steveblank.com/2009/11/19/closure/#comment-1941 Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:25:25 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=4119#comment-1941 [...] http://steveblank.com/2009/11/19/closure… [...]

]]> By: Jim Sing http://steveblank.com/2009/11/19/closure/#comment-1940 Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:09:48 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=4119#comment-1940 They had supercomputers back in the 1950′s. I thought that was interesting.

]]> By: Jerry Ji http://steveblank.com/2009/11/19/closure/#comment-1937 Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:15:18 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=4119#comment-1937 Such is the life worth living for, such is the life worth dying for.

]]> By: Joe http://steveblank.com/2009/11/19/closure/#comment-1934 Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:58:02 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=4119#comment-1934 Great story! There is nothing harder than changing customer behavior, except maybe changing the procurement department’s behavior. Of course when you do succeed at changing customer behavior, you have a game changer.

]]> By: Beth Albert http://steveblank.com/2009/11/19/closure/#comment-1932 Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:37:51 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=4119#comment-1932 I remember when we sold that machine. Clearing out space for another machine that is now gone as well. And where are we today…distributed computing.

]]> By: eortiz http://steveblank.com/2009/11/19/closure/#comment-1931 Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:07:26 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=4119#comment-1931 What an AWESOME story. Love it. Love it. Love it… Great closure.
ceo

]]> By: How to Test Your Start-Up Idea and Etsy Hits it Big | Extranet Factoring http://steveblank.com/2009/11/19/closure/#comment-1930 Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:30:16 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=4119#comment-1930 [...] A entrepreneur’s idea of closure. Longtime tech entrepreneur Steve Blank says he’s always been a guy who “liked to fail fast, move on, and not look back.” But today he writes about the one time he just had to get closure. It involved two semi-trailers, $45,000, and a computer that could design a nuclear weapon. [...]

]]> By: jorge http://steveblank.com/2009/11/19/closure/#comment-1929 Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:16:52 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=4119#comment-1929 Quote from CRAY seller at Pittsburg: “We’re basically about $75,000 ahead of where would have been if we hadn’t done the eBay thing.”

And taxpayers are only out $35M on that one machine. What a deal.
:)

]]> By: TJIC http://steveblank.com/2009/11/19/closure/#comment-1928 Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:54:04 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=4119#comment-1928 > I bought the Cray.

You’re my hero.

]]> By: Alan Peters http://steveblank.com/2009/11/19/closure/#comment-1924 Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:45:32 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=4119#comment-1924 I have visions of that poor Cray locked up out by the barn. I hope you adhered to the Geneva conventions.

]]> By: sfmitch http://steveblank.com/2009/11/19/closure/#comment-1922 Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:06:55 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=4119#comment-1922 So, how much did Cray buy it back for?

Was it a profitable Flip?

]]> By: Mark Essel http://steveblank.com/2009/11/19/closure/#comment-1919 Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:55:50 +0000 http://steveblank.com/?p=4119#comment-1919 Haha, closure is well worth the effort when an entertaining tale can be shared!
I experienced a microscopic variant of this with a roleplaying game I and a friend wrote up over the last 10-11 years. We kept putting it off, and rewriting it. It was an evolutionary Frankenstein. Finally I passed my buddy a few bucks to put it together in a form we can put out for free. Who knows, maybe one other person will enjoy playing it and I’ll have the seductive and delusional peace of mind of seeing it out in the wild.

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