The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible – and achieve it, generation after generation. Pearl S. Buck Ask people what makes entrepreneurs successful and you’ll hear a familiar list of adjectives; agile, tenacious, resilient, opportunistic, etc. What you don’t hear is that often they didn’t know any [...]
Filed under: Family/Career/Culture, Technology | 50 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 | 27 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 | 15 Comments »
Filed under: Technology | 10 Comments »
Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood… Daniel Burnham A lot of entrepreneurs think that their startup is the next big thing when in reality they’re just building a small business. How can you tell if your startup has the potential to be the next Google, Intel or Facebook? A first [...]
Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan, Customer Development, Technology, Venture Capital | 19 Comments »
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 »
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 look back. However, in catching up with the VP of Sales of Ardent last night, I was reminded one of the few times I did return for closure. National Supercomputer [...]
Filed under: Ardent, Family/Career/Culture, Technology | 17 Comments »
Charts like the U.S. Frequency Allocation Chart keep me amused for hours. Download it here. Interesting to consider how many billions of dollars of business is done over the electromagnetic spectrum we didn’t know existed 150 years ago.
Filed under: Technology | 1 Comment »
This post is the latest in the “Secret History Series.” They’ll make much more sense if you read some of the earlier ones for context. See the Secret History bibliography for sources and supplemental reading. ———————– Swords Into Plowshares After the end of World War II, returning veterans were happy to beat swords into plowshares (and microwave [...]
Filed under: Secret History of Silicon Valley, Technology | Tagged: Cold War, Electonic Warfare, Fred Terman, Signals Intelligence | 5 Comments »
Once I recovered from burnout at Zilog, I was working less and accomplishing more. I even had time to find a girlfriend who was a contractor to the company. One of her first comments was, “I didn’t know you even worked here. Where were you hiding?” If she only knew. What’s the Worst that Can [...]
Filed under: Marketing, Technology, Zilog | Tagged: Entrepreneurs, Steve Blank | 21 Comments »
I did a fireside chat with a few entrepreneurs interested in Customer Development at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, the venture firm behind such Skype, Baidu, Overture, …. Ravi Belani was nice enough to set it up, blog about the talk and film it. The relevant part starts about 4:30 into the video (wait for it to download.) [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Market Types, Technology | Tagged: Customer Development, Customer Discovery, Customer Validation, Early Stage Startup, Entrepreneurs, Steve Blank, Tips for Startups | 3 Comments »
Entrepreneurs tend to view adversity as opportunity. You’re Hired, You’re Fired. My first job in Silicon Valley: I was hired as a lab technician at ESL to support the training department. I packed up my life in Michigan and spent five days driving to California to start work. (Driving across the U.S. is an adventure [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, ESL, Technology | Tagged: Entrepreneurs, ESL, Steve Blank | 18 Comments »
When I was a young marketer I learned how to listen to customers by making a fool of myself. Twenty eight years ago I was the bright, young, eager product marketing manager called out to the field to support sales by explaining the technical details of Convergent Technologies products to potential customers. The OEM Business [...]
Filed under: Convergent Technologies, Customer Development, Technology | Tagged: Customer Development, Customer Discovery, Customer Validation, Early Stage Startup, Entrepreneurs, Steve Blank, Tips for Startups | 11 Comments »
I was at the Stanford library going through the papers of Fred Terman and came across a memo from 1956 that probably hasn’t been seen or read in over 50 years. It had nothing to do with the subject I was looking for, so I read it, chuckled, put it back in the file and [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Technology | Tagged: Early Stage Startup, Entrepreneurs, Fred Terman | 14 Comments »
Raising our kids and being an entrepreneur wasn’t easy. Being in a startup and having a successful relationship and family was very hard work. But entrepreneurs can be great spouses and parents. This post is not advice, nor is it recommendation of what you should do, it’s simply what my wife and I did to [...]
Filed under: Customer Development, Family/Career/Culture, Technology | Tagged: Entrepreneurs, Steve Blank, Tips for Startups | 75 Comments »
For Orders Outside the U.S.
Team, Student and Classroom discounts.
For International Orders
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
Get the Podcasts for Free
