One of the toughest problems for entrepreneurs is to keep score as they search for their business model. Keeping Score One of the key concepts of Customer Development is writing down your initial hypotheses (guesses) of all the parts of your business model, then updating them with the facts you find outside the building. Since [...]
Filed under: Customer Development | 8 Comments »
If you’ve had a great career what happens to all your knowledge and experience when you retire? Great Suit My wife and I had dinner last night with a friend of hers from high school. Tom, her husband whom I had never met before joined us as well. I took one look at his suit [...]
Filed under: Teaching | 31 Comments »
Startup CEO’s can’t delegate sales and expect it to happen. Customer Validation needs to have the CEO actively involved. Here’s an example in a direct sales channel. Customer Development Diagnostics over Lunch A VC asked me to have lunch with the CEO of a startup building cloud-based enterprise software. (Boy did I feel like Rip [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Customer Development Manifesto | 14 Comments »
As a founder I fought with VC’s over vesting as they brought in a new CEO and walked me out the door. As a board member I negotiated with founding CEO’s over vesting when I thought it was their time to go. At best this is an argument where no one wins, at worst it’s [...]
Filed under: Venture Capital | 19 Comments »
If you take funding from a venture capital firm or angel investor and want to build a large, enduring company (rather than sell it to the highest bidder), this isn’t the decade to do it. The collapse of the IPO market and dysfunctional math in the venture capital community has stacked the odds against you. [...]
Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan, Technology, Venture Capital | 23 Comments »
I started working when I was 14 (I lied about my age) and counting four years in the Air Force I’ve worked in 12 jobs. I left each one of them when I was bored, ready to move on, got fired, or learned as much as I can. There was only one job that I [...]
Filed under: Air Force, Technology | 13 Comments »
Taking Sides Are you are born with innate entrepreneurial talent or can you can be taught to operate like an entrepreneur? Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, Jason Calacanis, founder of Mahalo.com, and Mark Suster of GRP Partners, have all weighed in on the nature side – you’re born being an entrepreneur or you’re not. [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Venture Capital | 14 Comments »
My summer has circled around serendipity and three presentations I’ve given. Full Circle from Yosemite Nine years ago I took my young daughters on a 7-day pack trip riding mules at 10,000 feet to the Yosemite High-Sierra camps. Granite mountains and alpine green meadows during the day, unblinking stars in the frigid August nights. At [...]
Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan, Customer Development, Venture Capital | 6 Comments »
Read the reviews.
To Order Outside of the U.S.
Now In Print! Steve Blank's 30 years of Silicon Valley startup advice.
Follow me on twitter @sgblank
Follow my speaking schedule on Plancast @sgblank
