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 | 161 Comments »
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 | 2 Comments »
Individuals play the game, but teams beat the odds SEAL Team saying Over the last 40 years Technology investors have learned that the success of startups are not just about the technology but “it’s about the team.” We spent a year screwing it up in our Lean LaunchPad classes until we figured out it was [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Family/Career/Culture, Lean LaunchPad, Teaching | 30 Comments »
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Family/Career/Culture | 55 Comments »
Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not. George Bernard Shaw We’re in the middle of our National Science Foundation Innovation Corps class – taking the most promising research projects in American university laboratories and teaching these scientists the basics of entrepreneurship. Our [...]
Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan, Customer Development | 10 Comments »
I was invited to Finland as part of Stanford’s Engineering Technology Venture Program partnership with Aalto University. (Thanks to Kristo Ovaska and team for the fabulous logistics!) I presented to 1,000’s of entrepreneurs, talked to 17 startups, gave 12 lectures, had 9 interviews, chatted with 8 VC’s, sat on 4 panels, talked policy with 2 government ministers, 2 members of [...]
Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan, Customer Development, Teaching, Venture Capital | 15 Comments »
I spent the month of September lecturing, and interacting with (literally) thousands of entrepreneurs in two emerging startup markets, Finland and Russia. This is the first of two posts about Finland and entrepreneurship. —— I was invited to Finland as part of Stanford’s Engineering Technology Venture Program partnership with Aalto University. (Thanks to Kristo Ovaska and team [...]
Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan, Customer Development, Teaching, Technology, Venture Capital | 19 Comments »
If you’re an experienced coder and user interface designer you think nothing is easier than diving into Ruby on Rails, Node.js and Balsamiq and throwing together a web site. (Heck, in Silicon Valley even the waiters can do it.) But for the rest of us mortals whose eyes glaze over at the buzzwords, the questions are, [...]
Filed under: Business Model versus Business Plan, Customer Development, Lean LaunchPad | 44 Comments »
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 »
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 »
The Four Steps to the Epiphany (Четыре Шага к Озарению) is now available in Russian. Thanks to Denis Dovgopoliy for making the Russian version happen. It joins the French version: Les quatre étapes vers l’épiphanie and the Japanese version アントレプレナーの教科書 [単行本（ソフトカバー） Pay It Forward What’s pretty remarkable is these translations are not from a commercial publisher, but rather [...]
Filed under: Customer Development | 22 Comments »
Everyone has a plan ’till they get punched in the mouth. Mike Tyson One of the key distinctions between an entrepreneur and an operating executive is an entrepreneur’s almost seamless agility in the face of changing circumstances versus an operating executive’s intense execution focus on a plan. World-class entrepreneurs learn how to combine both. WTF? [...]
Filed under: California Coastal Commission, Customer Development | 21 Comments »
In April 2010 I received an email that said, “I’m an incoming Stanford student in the fall and working on a project that a number of people suggested I get in touch with you about.” Ok, I get a lot of these. Is this some grad student or post doc who wanted to do some [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Teaching, Venture Capital | 23 Comments »
Om Malik runs Gigaom, probably the most interesting and technically accurate sites on the blogosphere. He had me in for an interview. We covered a wide range of topics. 0:22 – the Entrepreneurial explosion 1:45 – Are we in a Bubble? 3:20 - The Last Bubble 6:30 – Rules for the New Bubble 8:05 – Metrics [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Teaching, Venture Capital | 4 Comments »
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 »
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