One of the great things about being a retired entrepreneur is that I get to give back to the community that helped me. I assembled this collection of free and almost free tools, class syllabi, presentations, books, lectures, videos in the hope that it can make your path as an entrepreneur or educator easier.
Free:
Startup Tools
If you’re building a startup, the Startup Tools tab on the top of this page has curated links to hundreds of startup resources. Specific links are:
- A list of startup tools is here
- Market research tools to help you figure out the size of the opportunity your startup is pursuing, are here
- Some of the best advice on founding and running a startup from other smart voices are here
Updates and suggestions for tools I’ve missed are welcomed on the Startup Tools comments page.
The Lean LaunchPad course online
I teach potential founders a hands-on, experiential class called the Lean LaunchPad at Berkeley, Stanford, Columbia and Caltech. The class teaches the three basic skills all entrepreneurs need to know:
- business model design
- customer development
- agile engineering
For my Innovation Corps class for the National Science Foundation it made sense to record the lectures and put them on-line. In my regular classes I now “flip” the classroom and have my students watch these online lectures as homework and we use the class time for discussion.
The free on-line class, hosted at Udacity is here.
Class Syllabi, My Lecture Slides and Student Presentations
The Slides/Video tab on the top of this page has all the open source course material for my classes. Specific links are:
- Educators Training Guide is here (part of the Educators Course – described in the Educators section below.)
- Course for Educators is here
- Teachable moments videos for the Lean Launchpad class here
- How do Customer Discovery videos here and here
- Sample Lean LaunchPad Lecture slides and suggested syllabus here
- Syllabi for all my classes are here
- Secret Notes for Instructors here
- Latest presentations posted click here
- Stanford presentations, lectures and syllabus here
- Berkeley presentations, lectures and syllabus here
- Columbia 5-day presentations, lectures and syllabus here
- Caltech 5-day presentations, lectures and syllabus here
- Some general customer development slides click here
The Entreprenuers Checklist
The good folks at Udemy have taken a few of my lectures at Stanford and put them together in a series online.
The free on-line lectures, hosted at Udemy are here.
Online Guide to How to Build a Startup: The Lean LaunchPad
Startupplays.com, publisher of online entrepreneurs processes guides, drew from my Udacity course and The Startup Owner’s Manual to create a free step-by-step guide to understanding your customers and creating your value proposition. Called “How to Build a Startup: The Lean LaunchPad,” it walks you through the Business Model Canvas and an overview of the customer development process.
Find it here.
Videos
The Slides/Video tab on the top of this page has a number of my talks on entrepreneurship, customer development and startup, some short, some long, and a few interesting.
Find them here.
Recommended Reading
The Books for startups tab on the top of this page is my recommended reading list. These books have influenced my thinking. There’s a short synopsis of why I like each book.
Updates and suggestions for books that I’ve missed are welcomed on the books comment page.
Visitors Guide to Silicon Valley
The Guide tab on the top of this page? I got tired watching dignitaries fly into Silicon Valley, visit Google, Facebook, Apple, and Stanford and then say they understand startups and entrepreneurship.
So for the rest of us I put together this Visitors Guide to Silicon Valley.
Updates and suggestions for places to see that I’ve missed are welcomed on the Guide comments page.
Secret History of Silicon Valley
What began as a hobby of mine – research in the intersection of my military, intelligence and Silicon Valley careers combined with my interest in the history of Silicon Valley and technology entrepreneurship – ended up in this video and PowerPoint presentation. I first gave the Secret History of Silicon Valley presentation as an invited talk at Google, then at the Computer History Museum.
When I gave the talk to audience of CIA staffers they asked how I came up with the talk, so I wrote a series of posts as the back-story that can be found here.
I still love giving this talk to people who lived it and people curious about it.
Almost Free:
Startup Weekend Next
Startup Weekend Next is a three-week version of the Lean LaunchPad class with hands-on instructors and mentors – offered in hundreds of cities around the world.
- The class is organized, led and delivered by Startup Weekend, the global non-profit that teaches entrepreneurs how to launch a startup in 54 hours.
- TechStars and Startup America are partnering to provide mentors in the U.S.
They don’t ask for equity and charge just enough to cover the costs of pizza and the room rental.
Sign up here.
The Lean LaunchPad Educators Course
Hosted by NCIIA, Stanford University and U.C. Berkeley, Jerry Engel and I teach a course for educators interested in learning how to update and revise their entrepreneurship curriculum for the 21st century as well as learning how to teach the Lean LaunchPad class.
The Lean LaunchPad Educators Training Guide here is part of this course.
Next class is Jan 30th. Click here for more information.
The Startup Owner’s Manual
The Startup Owners Manual written with Bob Dorf, has become the step-by-step reference manual for anyone even thinking about a startup. Each section offers detailed guidance and how-to’s, helping you make your way through the Customer Development process using MVP’s and Pivots as you search for a Business Model.
Last month we added a Kindle version, reorganized to make it easier to follow on a tablet and incorporating hundreds of links to websites, blog posts, and presentations.
The Founder’s Workbook
Zoomstra, the publisher of online workbooks offers The Founders Workbook to help you track and monitor your progress through every step of the Customer Development process. It takes the static 57 checklists from The Startup Owner’s Manual and makes them dynamic and accessible by putting them online as an interactive checklist. Use it to keep your team on track and ensure you have completed each critical task as you search for a scalable business model.
Click here for more information.
The Four Steps to The Epiphany
The Four Steps to the Epiphany has been described as the book that launched the Lean Startup movement. The book is still relevant today as when it was written. The last two chapters deal with scale and management of growing startups.
Now get out of the building and make something happen!
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Filed under: Customer Development, Lean LaunchPad, Teaching |
Steve, Outstanding tour ideas. I think the best way to get a sense of the valley is to attend a Demo Day.
Wonderful resources. Thanks for posting them. Have you considered adding a forum to your blog, Steve?
[…] one. Just had to repost this. This is a tremendous resource for anyone who wants to know about how modern entrepreneurship and […]
FYI, a bunch of the resources from Mozilla’s WebFWD are also available: https://webfwd.org/about/resources
Nice post Steve. Looking forward to your keynote at the Lean Conference next week!
Every regional startup community should have a visitors guide so that folks who want to come visit (or return) know where to get plugged in. 🙂
Alex,
Brilliant idea. Why don’t you take my Guide and use it as a template for your part of the country?
steve
Great suggestion, I’m on it! Will definitely keep you posted. Also, long overdue (but hopefully better late than never), some video from your visit to Detroit this past summer. Hope to have you back soon!
http://www.growdetroit.com/steve-blank-on-detroits-startup-scene/
Thank you Steve for giving back to the community!
Great resources, Steve. Thanks for being a giver!
Reblogged this on THE tony d and commented:
Great resources for entrepreneurs and educators from Steve Blank!
Thanks so much, Steve. This is a fantastic list with the benefit of great research and experience to validate it. Nice work!
Great lists!
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Steve, small error in the
Visitors Guide: 1964 is
when the Free Speech
protesters took over
Sproul Hall at Berkeley.
Paul,
Thanks – fixed.
steve
what a great list! Thank you! the only thing we need now is time.
[…] Steve Blank posted “Open Source Entrepreneurship” which is an update on all the materials available on his website and a challenge for us all […]
Reblogged this on blog.weitzenegger.de and commented:
As retired entrepreneur, Steve Blank assembled this collection of free and almost free tools, class syllabi, presentations, books, lectures, videos in the hope that it can make your path as an entrepreneur or educator easier. Thanks, Steve!
Steve, thanks for sharing these resources!
Thank you, Steve!
Why don’t you write an autobiography?
You Built That eh??? LOL
[…] that has all the resources that any entrepreneur can use in this blog post with the Title “Open Source Entrepreneurship“. I am a big fan and I hope we all can use the wisdom and knowledge that has been aggregated […]
Steve,
Thank you for the post. How can I learn when SWNext may be launched in Paris?
Kind regards,
@gastonbilder
Would love to know what charities and social enterprises should be doing differently and where I can find resources like this for them.
Thank you, Steve. I teach this stuff over here in FLA and so all of this content is really helpful. Many thanks again on what you are doing for economies all over the world.
[…] блог-посте Open Source Entrepreneurship, опубликованном во вторник, Бланк предлагает десятки […]
Great Resource Pool Steve. I wish, everone thinks opensource like you do and understands the phenomenon of sharing and collaborating 🙂 God bless.
Hi Steve, just a small link typo: under two sections – “Class Syllabi, My Lecture Slides and Student Presentations” and “The Lean LaunchPad Educators Course” – the link for the Educator’s Training Guide is “http://www.slideshare.net/upload?from_source=loggedin_profile.” Shouldn’t it be http://www.slideshare.net/sblank/lean-launchpad-educators-teaching-handbook ?
And aside from the guide, educators would probably be interested in the Secret Notes for Instructors/Educators in your Udacity course http://www.udacity.com/view#Course/ep245/CourseRev/1/Unit/408002/Nugget/462001
Great suggestions – fixed and added.
Reblogged this on groundbreaking winds and commented:
Wonderful free tips, tools, guides, lectures and videos to be an entrepreneur powered by Steve Blank.
Muchas gracias por toda esta información, es una guía excelente.
hi Steve, where can i find the promotion poster that you use to recruit new student teams. i remember you telling us you had them at the LLP Educators Training. thnks in advance.
regards Marcellien
Marcellien,
See here
steve