How to be a better venture capitalist: Run a startup

Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is the author of Four Steps to the Epiphany. This story originally appeared on his blog.

Venture capitalists who are serious about turning their firms into more than one-fund wonders may want to have their associates actually start and run a company for a year.

Running a company is distinctly different from simply having operating experience, such as working in business development, sales or marketing. None of … Continue Reading

The pay-it-forward culture of startups

(Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is the author of Four Steps to the Epiphany. This story originally appeared on his blog.)

Foreign visitors to Silicon Valley continually mention how willing we are to help, network and connect strangers. We take it so for granted we never even to bother to talk about it.  It’s the Pay-It-Forward culture.

The chips are down

In 1962 Walker’s Wagon Wheel bar and restaurant in Mountain View … Continue Reading

Why governments don’t get startups

(Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is the author of Four Steps to the Epiphany. This story originally appeared on his blog.)

Not understanding and agreeing what “Entrepreneur” and “Startup” mean can sink an entire country’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

I’m getting ready to go overseas to teach, and I’ve spent the last week reviewing several countries’ ambitious attempts to kick-start entrepreneurship.  After poring through stacks of reports, white papers and position papers, I’ve come … Continue Reading

For good entrepreneurs, there’s always a Plan B

(Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is the author of Four Steps to the Epiphany. This story originally appeared on his blog.)

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.

Driving home over the mountains from a Coastal Commission hearing, … Continue Reading

Entrepreneurship is an art, not a job

(Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is the author of Four Steps to the Epiphany. This story originally appeared on his blog.)

Over the last decade we assumed that once we found repeatable methodologies (Agile and Customer Development, Business Model Design) to build early stage ventures, entrepreneurship would become a “science,” and anyone could do it.

I’m beginning to suspect this assumption may be wrong.

It’s not that the tools are wrong, I … Continue Reading

New rules for the new internet bubble

(Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is the author of Four Steps to the Epiphany. This is an edited version of a longer story that originally appeared on his blog.)

We’re now in the second Internet bubble. The signals are loud and clear: seed and late stage valuations are getting frothy and wacky; hiring talent in Silicon Valley is the toughest it has been since the dot.com bubble and investors are starting to … Continue Reading

Proposed: The boardroom for the 21st century

(Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is the author of Four Steps to the Epiphany. This story originally appeared on his blog.)

Last week, I made a call to entrepreneurs that it is time to change the boardroom structure. Startups, after all, have evolved over the past 20 years, but boardrooms haven’t.

Startups now understand what they should be doing in their early formative days is search for a business model. The … Continue Reading

It’s time to reinvent the boardroom

Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is the author of Four Steps to the Epiphany

As customer and agile development reinvent the Startup, it’s time to ask why startup board governance has not kept up with the pace of innovation. Board meetings that guide startups haven’t changed since the early 1900s.

It’s time.
Reinventing the board meeting may offer venture-backed startups a more efficient, productive way to direct and measure their search for a profitable … Continue Reading

Tune in, Turn on, Drop out: The Startup Genome project

(Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is the author of Four Steps to the Epiphany. This story originally appeared on his blog.)

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 … Continue Reading

Want to be a good entrepreneur? Be a good apprentice.

(Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is the author of Four Steps to the Epiphany. This story originally appeared on his blog.)

Silicon Valley is built on simple myths. One of the most pervasive is that all winning startups are founded straight out of school by 20 year olds from Stanford or Harvard. The reality is these are the exceptions, not the rule.

A student called me recently and said he had to … Continue Reading

Do you need a mentor – or a teacher?

(Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is the author of Four Steps to the Epiphany. This story originally appeared on his blog.)

Lots of entrepreneurs believe they want a mentor. In fact, they’re actually asking for a teacher or a coach. A mentor relationship is a two-way street. To make it work, you have to bring something to the party.

Recently when I was at a conference taking questions from the audience, I … Continue Reading

Today's napkin entrepreneuers take to the Web

(Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is the author of Four Steps to the Epiphany. This story originally appeared on his blog.)

The barriers for starting a company have come down.

Today the total available markets for new applications are hundreds of millions if not billion of users, while new classes of investors are popping up all over (angels, superangels, archangels, and even seraphim and cherubim have been spotted.)

Entrepreneurship departments are now … Continue Reading

Why rewriting code can be startup suicide

(Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is the author of Four Steps to the Epiphany. This story originally appeared on his blog.)

The benefits of customer and agile development and minimum features set are continuous customer feedback, rapid iteration and little wasted code. But over time if developers aren’t careful, code written to find early customers can become unwieldy, difficult to maintain and incapable of scaling.

Ironically it becomes the antithesis of agile. … Continue Reading

Liar, liar! Startup on fire!

(Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is the author of Four Steps to the Epiphany. This story originally appeared on his blog.)

There’s something about the combination of human nature (rationalization and self deception) and large hierarchical organizations (corporations, military, government, etc.) that actively conspire to hide failure and errors. Institutional cover-ups are so ingrained that we take them for granted.

Yet for a startup, a cover-up culture is death. In a startup, … Continue Reading

2011 may mark the beginning of a golden era for entrepreneurs

(Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is the author of Four Steps to the Epiphany. A longer version of this story originally appeared on his blog.)

As we wrap up 2010, things might seem bleak. The common wisdom says that the chickens have all come home to roost from a disastrous series of economic decisions including outsourcing the manufacture of America’s physical goods. The pundits say the American dream is dead and this … Continue Reading

Want VC cash? Learn to hone your pitch

(Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is the author of Four Steps to the Epiphany. This story originally appeared on his blog.)

Entrepreneurs hear that VC pitches ought to be short, 10-20 slides.  What most don’t know is that there is no way they can deliver a presentation that short by just “writing” the slide deck.

An entrepreneur I’ve known for a long time came by my ranch over Thanksgiving break to show … Continue Reading

Crisis management by firing executives – and why that’s futile

(Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is the author of Four Steps to the Epiphany. This story originally appeared on his blog.)

For decades startups were managed by pretending the company would follow a predictable path (revenue plan, scale, etc.) and being continually surprised when it didn’t.

That’s essentially Einstein’s definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Luckily most startups now realize there is … Continue Reading

Hubris vs. Humility: The positioning challenge

(Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is the author of Four Steps to the Epiphany. This story originally appeared on his blog.)

Describing your product as “new and “never been done before” instead of “we’re just like those others guys, but better” could cost your company billions.  RIM and TiVo are two examples of getting it right and wrong.

By 1992 Research in Motion (RIM) had been in business for eight years, had … Continue Reading