Posted on February 9, 2012 by steveblank
While entrepreneurship is in the news fairly regularly, I seldom make news myself. Today, however there are two important updates for entrepreneurs everywhere. Let me be brief… The “Startup Owner’s Manual” goes On Press Tuesday 2/14 Two years in the making and literally ten years in development, I’m proud to announce that my new book, [...]
Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan, Business Model versus Business Plan, Customer Development, Lean LaunchPad, Teaching | 52 Comments »
Posted on January 4, 2012 by steveblank
This year the movie industry made $30 billion (1/3 in the U.S.) from box-office revenue. But the total movie industry revenue was $87 billion. Where did the other $57 billion come from? From sources that the studios at one time claimed would put them out of business: Pay-per view TV, cable and satellite channels, video rentals, DVD sales, [...]
Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan, Customer Development | 167 Comments »
Posted on December 27, 2011 by steveblank
I was lucky enough to get interviewed by Rob Morris of American Entrepreneur Radio. Ron Morris has a great “radio voice,” and actually seemed to understand what the heck I was talking about. It made for a fun interview. Click here to listen to the interview: Steve Blank American Entrepreneur Radio interview The following week Ron Morris interviewed [...]
Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan, Business Model versus Business Plan, Customer Development | 3 Comments »
Posted on October 20, 2011 by steveblank
Read part 1 of this post for background. By the early 1920’s General Motors realized that Ford, which was now selling the Model T for $290, had an unbeatable monopoly on low-cost automobile manufacturing. Other manufacturers had experimented with selling cars based on an image and brand. (The most notable was an ad by the [...]
Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan, Technology | 32 Comments »
Posted on October 18, 2011 by steveblank
It was the most advanced consumer product of the century. The industry started with its innovators located in different cities over a wide region. But within 20 years it would be concentrated in a single entrepreneurial startup cluster. At first it was a craft business, then it was driven by relentless technology innovation and then [...]
Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan, Technology | 7 Comments »
Posted on September 1, 2011 by steveblank
Not understanding and agreeing what “Entrepreneur” and “Startup” mean can sink an entire country’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. ——— I’m getting ready to go overseas to teach, and I’ve spent the last week reviewing several countries’ ambitious attempts to kick-start entrepreneurship. After poring through stacks of reports, white papers and position papers, I’ve come to a couple [...]
Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan, Business Model versus Business Plan, Teaching, Technology, Venture Capital | 59 Comments »
Posted on August 29, 2011 by steveblank
What makes startups succeed or fail? More than 90% of startups fail, due primarily to self-destruction rather than competition. For the less than 10% of startups that do succeed, most encounter several near death experiences along the way. Simply put, while we now have some good theory, we just are not very good at creating [...]
Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan, Business Model versus Business Plan, Customer Development, Market Types | 12 Comments »
Posted on August 22, 2011 by steveblank
Over the last few weeks I’ve gotten involved in hiring for two startups, a public agency and a non profit. Part of each conversation was getting asked to help them put together a “job spec.” I had them leave with a pie chart. ——– There must be something in the air. In the last week [...]
Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan, Customer Development, Family/Career/Culture, Technology | 31 Comments »
Posted on June 2, 2011 by steveblank
There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come Victor Hugo When The Boardroom is Bits A revolution has taken hold as customer development and agile engineering reinvent the Startup process. It’s time to ask why startup board governance has failed to keep pace with innovation. Board meetings that guide startups haven’t changed since [...]
Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan, Business Model versus Business Plan, Lean LaunchPad, Teaching, Venture Capital | 32 Comments »
Posted on June 1, 2011 by steveblank
There are none so blind as those who will not see. Jonathan Swift What’s Wrong With Today’s Board Meetings As customer and agile development reinvent the Startup, it’s time to ask why startup board governance has not kept up with the pace of innovation. Board meetings that guide startups haven’t changed since the early 1900’s. [...]
Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan, Business Model versus Business Plan, Lean LaunchPad, Teaching, Venture Capital | 18 Comments »
Posted on April 26, 2011 by steveblank
We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master Ernest Hemingway Silicon Valley is built on simple myths – one of the most pervasive is that all winning startups are founded straight out of school by 20 year olds from Stanford or Harvard. The reality is these are the exceptions [...]
Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan, Family/Career/Culture | 9 Comments »
Posted on April 9, 2011 by steveblank
I wrote about entrepreneurs as artists in a previous post. The FounderLy team interviewed me and got me to give a better explanation of what I was trying to say in this 2 minute video clip. If you can’t see the video click here.
Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan, Business Model versus Business Plan, Customer Development, Family/Career/Culture | 20 Comments »
Posted on March 31, 2011 by steveblank
Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not. George Bernard Shaw Over the last decade we assumed that once we found repeatable methodologies (Agile and Customer Development, Business Model Design) to build early stage ventures, entrepreneurship would become a “science,” and anyone could [...]
Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan, Customer Development, Family/Career/Culture | 37 Comments »
Posted on March 29, 2011 by steveblank
Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase. Martin Luther King, Jr. The barriers for starting a company have come down. Today the total available markets for new applications are hundreds of millions if not billion of users, while new classes of investors are popping up all over (angels, [...]
Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan, Teaching | 48 Comments »
Posted on March 21, 2011 by steveblank
I gave a talk at the Stanford Graduate School of Business as part of Entrepreneurship Week on the Democratization of Entrepreneurship. The first 11 minutes or so of the talk covers the post I wrote called “When It’s Darkest, Men See the Stars.” In it I observed that the barriers to entrepreneurship are not just being removed. [...]
Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan, Customer Development | 12 Comments »
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