Steve Blank RSS
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9 Deadliest Start-up Sins
Inc. magazine is publishing a 12-part series of excerpts from The Startup Owner’s Manual, the new step-by-step “how to” guide for startups. The excerpts, which appeared first at Inc.com, highlight the Customer Development process, best practices, tips and instructions contained in our book. Feedback from my readers suggested you’d appreciate seeing the series posted here, as well. [...]
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Why Innovation Dies
Faced with disruptive innovation, you can be sure any possibility for innovation dies when a company forms a committee for an “overarching strategy.” —– I was reminded how innovation dies when the email below arrived in my inbox. It was well written, thoughtful and had a clearly articulated sense of purpose. You may have seen [...]
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Five Days to Change the World – The Columbia Lean LaunchPad Class
We’ve taught our Lean LaunchPad entrepreneurship class at Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia and the National Science Foundation in 8 week, 10 week and 12 week versions. We decided to find out what was the Minimum Viable Product for our Lean LaunchPad class. Could students get value out of a 5-day version of the class? The Setup [...]
Chubby Brain RSS
Both Sides Of The Table RSS
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What to do About that Chip on Your Shoulder?
I’m fond of saying that I look for entrepreneurs that have a chip on their shoulder. That they have something to prove. That they’re not afraid to stick their noses up to the establishment. I have always felt this way. It’s something I kind of seek out. I guess my thoughts are that if you’re [...]
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Marketing Presentation from Blue Glass Conference
I recently spoke at the Blue Glass conference on the topic of marketing. I’ll write up some thoughts in a blog post format soon. I’ve been spending time looking at marketing conversion metrics at portfolio companies lately. We’ve been testing things like: How do Facebook “Likes” perform relative to FB ads that drive you directly [...]
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To Be Successful You’ll Need to Shake Hands and Kiss Babies.
It’s Wednesday late afternoon. I’m aboard Delta flight 1833 from Cincinnati (actually, Northern Kentucky for what it’s worth) to Los Angeles. I had a very enjoyable day in Cincinnati meeting many local entrepreneurs, angels and accelerators. I was here to see one of our LPs (limited partners are the people who invest money in VC [...]
The Founders Block
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Is Your Ideal Domain Name Already Taken? Here’s What You Can Do About It
After days of heated debate with your co-founder, you finally settle on the perfect name for your startup. You go to check if the .com is available and, lo and behold, the domain is taken and being parked at Go Daddy. To add insult to injury, Go Daddy won’t even tell you who the seller is unless you fork over $75 for one of their “certified representatives” to fetch the information for you. Sound familiar? Every day, entrepreneurs with new ideas are discovering that the domains they’d like to build business on ... No related posts.
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Know Your Audience or Why I Never “Showed HN” EasyUnsubscriber.com
Knowing the audience for your startup is crucial. Great feedback from the wrong audience can take you in the complete wrong direction. Although I originally targeted Easy Unsubscriber as a productivity tool for tech savvy users, I quickly found that it was much more popular with the older, less tech savvy crowd. Indicator #1 was that over 60% of my visitors use Internet Explorer. Indicator #2 was these are the users who actually call you when you put your phone number on the website. Originally, I was planning for ... Other posts you may enjoy:A Weekend Experiment with the Lean Startup – Part 1 The Next Big Thing Want To Get Gamification Right? Build a Community First
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What to Consider When Hiring a Freelance Developer
We’ve all heard the story: You’ve got a great idea for the next billion dollar company and maybe even some respectable domain expertise to back it up, but you need a prototype built in order to gain traction and attract investors and you have no idea how to code it yourself. Your options are: 1) Find a CTO 2) Learn to code yourself 3) Hire developers to build your prototype Here are the well-known challenges with each: 1) Find a CTO Welcome to the club. Everyone is looking to find a CTO. The supply is scarce and the ... Other posts you may enjoy:Making the Transition From a Business Founder to a Technical Founder A Weekend Experiment with The Lean Startup – Part 2: “We did more of a jumpstep than a pivot” The Lean Adwords Way
JimHarrer
Recent Posts
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Dr. Rob Wiltbank at last night's PubTalk in Bend, Oregon.
EDCO sponsors Dr. Wiltbank at last night's PubTalk. It constantly amazing me the quality of speakers EDCO (Economic Development for Central Oregon) hosts each month at PubTalk. Last night was no exception. This is the first time I've heard Dr. Wiltbank speak. His bio is impressive, leading with the fact he is an Associate Professor of Strategic ...Feb 24 -
Best Time to Start a Company
Don't wait. Here are seven reasons to launch a venture today. By Michael Lazerow | @lazerow | Feb 13, 2012 Now that you know my belief that starting a company is your best hope of living the life you want, here's the next logical question: When should you get started? You're young. You're miserable at w ...Feb 14 -
Microsoft's BizSpark Program
Getting Started. I recently helped a technology start-up, go from an idea scribbled on the back of an envelope to developing the product feature list, often called the Product Backlog. The team is made up of experienced Java and C# programmers. The company plans to focus on mobile applications that live in the cloud and take advantage of the ela ...Feb 10 -
Steve Blank (Videos) on the topic Customer Development for startups.
Steve Blank on Customer Development, with additional comments by Eric Ries. This is from 2009, but it is still very relevant today. Steve Blank, founder of E.piphany, author of Four Steps to the Epiphany, and creator of Customer Development methodology (slides). Steve will speak about Speed & Tempo for Startups, a discussion about decision-ma ...Jan 30 -
Eric Ries, author of, "The Lean Startup" (Video)
Google hosts Eric Ries author of, "The Lean Startup" We're going to be discussing Eric Ries's book during our Venture Launch educational series. I found this high quality video filmed at Google and thought you might enjoy it. The Lean Startup movement is taking hold in companies both new and established to help entrepreneurs and managers do one i ...Jan 25 -
Other entries by JimHarrer
Jim Boeddeker
Recent Posts
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VentureBox - "Wild Pitch" Event - April 20
Today VentureBox announced an exciting new event that will target entrepreneurs and new startups in the community. The "Wild Pitch" is an informal, all are invited, event that will give budding founders and their businesses a chance to tell their story to a panel of VentureBox mentors. Selected participants will have 10 minutes to "Pitc ...Mar 27 -
VentureBox Ribbon Cutting
We had a very sucessful Ribbon Cutting event at the OCB last night. It was an opportunity for us to introduce ourselves to the larger Bend business community through this Chamber of Commerce event. I had an opportunity to speak a bit with new Chamber president Steve Galash and I'm excited to have a strong collaboration with his team. As we prepare ...Jan 25 -
Other entries by Jim Boeddeker
