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by Steven Loeb - February 19, 2013
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Featured Lessons learned

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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 ...

The tough decision of changing business models

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, April 13, 2012 | Comments

UTest founder and CEO Doron Reuveni on ditching one model for another

In this "Lessons learned" interview, uTest founder and CEO Doron Reuveni, talks about how the company changed business models since its launch in 2007. Boston-based uTest has about 50,000 engineers conducting crowd-sourced testing for companies. When the company first started, the payment model was a pay-per-bug model, said Reuveni. The market rejected the model. And, the company soon embraced a project-based as ...

Filetrek CEO Dale Quayle on repositioning a start-up

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, April 12, 2012 | Comments

How this cloud-based file-sharing service evolved into its business

Filetrek, which recently raised $10 million in funding earlier this year, recently pivoted to enter the market for file-sharing services in the cloud. In this "Lessons learned" interview, Dale Quayle, the newly-appointed CEO of FileTrek, talks about the company's lessons and challenges making those changes. Quayle also talks about the tax benefits of having an outsourced engineering team in Canada.

Start-ups need teams that can run fast, and change

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, April 6, 2012 | Comments

Bambi Francisco interviews Scott Button, founder and CEO of Unruly on his lessons learned

Scott Button became a first-time entrepreneur when he founded Unruly in 2006. He's since done a pretty good job at his first go at it. Unruly just raised $25 million in venture financing in January, thanks to revenue that tripled last year. Here's some lessons he's learned as a start-up founder for the last six years. Here's some highlights (slightly ...

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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Avoid Facebook Timeline being a time bomb

by Seth Lieberman, March 30, 2012 | Comments

Make the most out of the change by following these three steps

Effective March 30, all Facebook Brand Pages will switch to the new Facebook Timeline layout. This change will have a huge impact on the way brands and companies market to their Facebook audience. In particular, the new focus on engagement creates opportunities for brands to interact with and reach their audience in a more personal way. However, to get the ...

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 ...

So you think you have what it takes to start a business

by Eddie Kim, March 22, 2012 | Comments

Why I decided to join Triptrotting; Hint it has a lot to do with a hustler and a shark

Almost once a week, I get a random phone call, email, message, etc. It goes something like this: “Hey Eddie, I’ve got this million dollar idea. I just need a programmer to make it.” *pause - Before I go on any further, if you’re an engineer, I’m sure this already sounds familiar to you.*unpause “I checked and there’s nothing like this ...

The Board of Directors - the role of the Board Chair

by Fred Wilson, March 19, 2012 | Comments

	When it works, the Board Chair is hugely impactful (Fred Wilson is a VC at Union Square Ventures, based in NY. In this opinion piece, he writes about the significance of having a Board Chair and the details on selecting one.) Continuing our series on The Board Of Directors, this week I'll talk about the role of the Board Chair. The Board Chair runs the Board Of Directors. He or ...
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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 ...

The board of directors

by Fred Wilson, March 12, 2012 | Comments

	Selecting, electing and evolving (Fred Wilson is an investor with Union Square Ventures in Manhattan, and the author of the popular AVC blog.) This article is about the importance of selecting your board members and how to go about it.) Every company should have a Board Of Directors. At the start it can simply be a one person board consisting of the founder. But ...
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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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