No posts until January. Time off for the holidays, out hiking at the ranch and getting ready for Stanford (E-145 and MS&E 178/278) and Berkeley (MBA 295) classes.
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The Seven Days of Christmas
Posted on December 24, 2009 by steveblank
I’m sitting next to the fireplace in my favorite chair listening to holiday music, looking at the ocean and making occasional attempts to “help” get ready for Christmas dinner. We went for a hike checking out our new trail signs and playing “spot the bobcat.” Our kids are home for the school break, some friends [...]
Filed under: Air Force, Family/Career | 6 Comments »
The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free
Posted on December 21, 2009 by steveblank
Sometimes financial decisions that are seemingly rational on their face can precipitate mass exodus of your best engineers. We Hired the CFO Last week as a favor to a friend, I sat in on a board meeting of a fairly successful 3½ year-old startup. Given all that could go wrong in this economy, they were [...]
Filed under: Family/Career | 66 Comments »
Building a Company with Customer Data – Why Metrics Are Not Enough
Posted on December 17, 2009 by steveblank
Gathering real-world feedback from customers is a core concept of Customer Development as well as the Lean Startup. But what information to collect? Only 57 Questions Yesterday I got an email from an ex-student lamenting that only 2% of their selected early testers responded to their on-line survey. The survey said in part: The survey [...]
Filed under: Customer Development Manifesto | 21 Comments »
In Victory: Magnanimity
Posted on December 14, 2009 by steveblank
“In War: Resolution. In Defeat: Defiance. In Victory: Magnanimity. In Peace: Goodwill.” Winston Churchill ——– In March I was the keynote at the In-Q-Tel Venture Capital Conference, giving a talk on the Secret History of Silicon Valley. (In-Q-Tel is the Central Intelligence Agency’s Venture Capital firm in Silicon Valley.) . The gist of the talk was that [...]
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Someone Stole My Startup Idea – Part 3: The Best Defense is a Good IP Strategy
Posted on December 10, 2009 by steveblank
Early on in my career I took a “we’re moving too fast to deal with lawyers” attitude to patents and Intellectual Property (IP.) That changed when I joined the board of a startup, and we sued Microsoft and Sony on the same day for patent infringement – and won $120 million. A few caveats, this [...]
Filed under: Technology, Venture Capital | 9 Comments »
Someone Stole My Startup Idea – Part 2: They Raised Money With My Slides?!
Posted on December 7, 2009 by steveblank
In my 21 years of startups, I had my ideas “stolen” twice. See part one for the first time it happened. This time it was serious. As a reminder, this post is not legal advice, it’s not even advice. It’s just a story about what happened to me. Customer Development We were starting Epiphany, my [...]
Filed under: E.piphany | 24 Comments »
Someone Stole My Startup Idea – Part 1: Are Those My Initials?
Posted on December 3, 2009 by steveblank
In my 21 years of startups I’ve had my ideas “stolen” twice. Once it almost mattered. This is about the time it didn’t. Worries from the garage One of the worries I hear from entrepreneurs (not just my students) is that Customer Development means getting out of the building and sharing what you are working [...]
Filed under: Rocket Science Games | 14 Comments »
