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How to build a billion-dollar start-up

by Steve Blank, April 20, 2012 | Comments

Value propositions solve a problem or fulfill a human social need

The quickest way to create a billion-dollar company is to take basic human social needs and figure out how to mediate them online. (Look at the first wave of the Web/mobile/cloud start-ups that have done just that: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Match.com, Pandora, Zynga, WordPress, LinkedIn.) It’s your turn. Hard-wired This week I’m in New York teaching a 5-day version of my Lean LaunchPad class at Columbia ...

Blinded by the Light

by Steve Blank, April 3, 2012 | Comments

	The Epiphany Epiphany e·piph·a·ny noun /iˈpifənē/ A moment of sudden revelation or insight We now know how to teach entrepreneurs how to think about business models and use customer development to turn hypotheses into facts. But there is no process to teach how to get an epiphany. We can only try to create the conditions where this might occur. ————- It All Just Came to Me In a ...
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National Science Foundation Innovation Corps

by Steve Blank, March 26, 2012 | Comments

What America Does Best

We ran the first National Science Foundation Innovation Corps class October to December 2011. 63 scientists and engineers in 21 teams made ~2,000 customer calls in 10 weeks, turning laboratory ideas into formidable startups. 19 of the 21 teams are moving forward in commercializing their technology. Watching the final presentations it was clear that the results were way past our initial expectations (comments from ...

Stanford 2012 Lean LaunchPad presentations

by Steve Blank, March 14, 2012 | Comments

Part 2 of 2

Today, the second half of the Stanford Engineering Lean LaunchPad Class gave their final presentations. Here are the final four (the first five are here.) Team ParkPoint CapitalThis team spoke face-to-face with 326 customers. As often happens, this team came into class convinced that their market research proved that their business was providing credit to underbanked customers. 8 weeks later they ended up ...

Search versus execute

by Steve Blank, March 12, 2012 | Comments

A startup's goal is to find a repeatable/scalable model, and then execute

One of the confusing things to entrepreneurs, investors and educators is the relationship between customer development and business model design and business planning and execution. When does a new venture focus on customer development and business models? And when do business planning and execution come into play? Here’s an attempt to put this all in context. Don’t throw the tomatoesI was in Washington ...

Stanford 2012 Lean LaunchPad Presentations

by Steve Blank, March 7, 2012 | Comments

	Part 1 of 2 Today, the first half of the Stanford Engineering Lean LaunchPad Class gave their final presentations. Here are the first five. It Feels Like 20 Years Ago TodayIt’s hard to believe it’s only been a year since we taught the first 10 teams in the Stanford Lean LaunchPad class. To share what we learned, we blogged each of those class sessions, (all the slides can be ...
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Killing your start-up by listening to your customers

by Steve Blank, March 5, 2012 | Comments

'Your job is not to make every possible customer happy'

The art of entrepreneurship and the science of Customer Development is not just getting out of the building and listening to prospective customers. It’s understandingwho to listen to and why. Five Cups of CoffeeI got a call from Satish, one of my ex-students last week. He got my attention when he said, “following your customer development stuff is making my company fail.” ...

Nail the customer development manifesto to the wall

by Steve Blank, March 3, 2012 | Comments

Guiding principles for a successful startup

When Bob Dorf and I wrote The Startup Owner's Manual we listed a series of Customer Development principles. I thought they might be worth enumerating here: A Startup Is a Temporary Organization Designed to Searchfor A Repeatable and Scalable Business Model There Are No Facts Inside Your Building, So Get Outside Pair Customer Development with Agile Development Failure is an Integral Part of the Search for ...

Who dares wins - Business Plan vs Business Model

by Steve Blank, February 27, 2012 | Comments

The 2nd Annual Business Model Competition

Alexander Osterwalder and I spent last week in Salt Lake City, Utah as judges at the 2nd Annual International Business Model Competition, hosted by Professor Nathan Furr and his team at the BYU Center for Entrepreneurship. The idea of a Business Model competition first emerged when I realized that Business Plan writing ought to be taught in English Departments – as ...

Why the movie industry can't innovate ...

by Steve Blank, January 9, 2012 | Comments

.... and the result is SOPA

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, online subscriptions and digital downloads. The Movie ...

The government starts an incubator

by Steve Blank, December 26, 2011 | Comments

The National Science Foundation Innovation Corps

Over the last two months, the U.S. government has been running one of the most audacious experiments in entrepreneurship since World War II. They launched an incubator for the top scientists and engineers in the U.S. This week, we saw the results. Some 63 scientists and engineers in 21 teams made 2,000 customer calls in eight weeks, turning laboratory ideas into formidable startups. Of the ...

The National Science Foundation Innovation Corps Class

by Steve Blank, December 22, 2011 | Comments

The Business Model Canvas

The Lean LaunchPad class for the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps is a new model of teaching startup entrepreneurship. This post is part two. Part one is here. Syllabus here. The 21 NSF teams had been out of the classroom for just 15 hours as they filed back in with their business model canvas presentations. Their assignment appeared (to them) to be deceptively ...

The startup team

by Steve Blank, December 20, 2011 | Comments

Lessons learned while teaching entrepreneurship

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 about having the right team. Startup Team Lessons LearnedDuring ...

Scientists unleashed

by Steve Blank, December 2, 2011 | Comments

Leading the way in a new era of entrepreneurship and innovation

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 goal is to accelerate the commercialization of their inventions. ...

You'll Be Dead Soon - Carpe Diem

by Steve Blank, November 30, 2011 | Comments

	Make your lives extraordinary 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. Steve Jobs Watching an entrepreneur ...
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