Serial Entrepreneur
Steve Blank is a retired serial entrepreneur with over 30 years of experience in high technology companies and management. He is a Consulting Professor at Stanford in the Graduate School of Engineering STVP Program.
Steve has been a founder or participant in eight Silicon Valley startups since 1978. His last company, E.piphany, started in his living room. His other startups include two semiconductor companies (Zilog and MIPS Computers), a workstation company (Convergent Technologies), a supercomputer firm (Ardent), a computer peripheral supplier (SuperMac), a military intelligence systems supplier (ESL) and a video game company (Rocket Science Games).
Steve is on the board of CafePress.com, an on-line marketplace, and IMVU, a 3D IM social network.
Steve was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to the California Coastal Commission and is the Chairman of Audubon California and on the board of the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST.)
His Google Tech talk, "The Secret History of Silicon Valley" (available on YouTube) is one of the definitive views on the early history of innovation in Silicon Valley.
Steve teaches entrepreneurship and a methodology of managing marketing, sales and business development in high technology startups. His course text "Four Steps to the Epiphany" is the definitive work on Customer Development and is one of the foundations of Lean Startups.
Last Updated: Wed, Oct 1, 2008
Customer feedback simply cannot be outsourced, according to serial entrepreneur Steve Blank. Here he shares an anecdote demonstrating the importance of founders speaking directly to customers. Blank recalls how entrepreneur Alan Michaels was forced to listen to customer needs and altered his product accordingly. These changes turned single-digit sales into the thousands, and resulted in an eventual $400 million company sale.
No matter what business vertical you're entering, serial entrepreneur Steve Blank outlines a few points of necessary focus for the emerging business start-up, including market opportunity, market regulations and distribution, competitors and complimentors, and technology breakthroughs. He notes that the customer is not always the same thing as the payer, and that this bifurcation is creating interesting new business models.
The odds of success in Silicon Valley are about 1,000:1. How can so many good ideas fail to find their place in the market? Too many start-ups burn too many resources on sales and marketing too soon, says serial entrepreneur Steve Blank. Less than ten percent of start-ups fail because of faulty technology or engineering, whereas most allude success because they don't pinpoint the right market or the right customer.
Silicon Valley lore includes anecdotes of company founders being thrown out of their own companies. But starting a company and growing a company are two different skill sets, says serial entrepreneur Steve Blank. Investors are often frightened away by world class entrepreneurs who know how to build, but not deepen and enrich, a later stage enterprise. The tragedy, says Blank, is that the largest, best-known tech companies are still run by their founders - think Microsoft, Oracle, or Apple. The gap in this insight, says Blank, is of theatrical proportion.
Public relations and media contact should be strategic, rather than serendipitous. Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is deeply against media coverage for a fledgeling start-up, as too many factors are variable in the early stages of a growing business.
The most radical thing a new company can do is sell their product, says serial entrepreneur Steve Blank. He believes that the company founders - not the sales team - should be the first to try to turn a profit, as they will learn firsthand about their product's shortcomings and usability. Great engineers directly understand what their customers need.
From equity, to bonds, to real estate, MissionPoint Capital Partners co-founder Jesse Fink explains how traditional capital markets can be reoriented toward a low-carbon economy. Supporting non-profits is crucial in long-term environmental thinking, says Fink, as this sector pushes policy. But only for-profit business will catalyze true market solutions with pull. 
Stanford instructor and seasoned serial entrepreneur Steve Blank looks back at the commonalities and quirks of the quarter's previous speakers. Blank outlines a thorough checklist of questions and analysis helpful to any new enterprise leader, and offers insight and case studies from industry giants and new technology plays alike.
Stanford instructor and seasoned serial entrepreneur Steve Blank looks back at the commonalities and quirks of the quarter's previous speakers. Blank outlines a thorough checklist of questions and analysis helpful to any new enterprise leader, and offers insight and case studies from industry giants and new technology plays alike.
Retired serial entrepreneur Steve Blank interviews MissionPoint Capital co-founder Jesse Fink. The two discuss the manifold investment opportunities in alternative energies and environmental conservation.
An entrepreneur needn't be a heart surgeon, but they must have an understanding of the tools a heart surgeon might need. That said, learning a business vertical is the responsibility of a great financier, regardless of its complexity, says Steve Blank, serial entrepreneur. Without this depth of customer understanding - knowing their problems and why they buy - no new venture can succeed.
Why is it a bad idea to be the first and only player in a market? Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank outlines a host of reasons, including limited market opportunity, the expense of defining new markets, and the positioning risk involved in setting the market standard. Blank cautions that it may not be wise to be break new ground, and that safer terrain can be found in the footholds of the "first fast follower."
Business model innovator Alexander Osterwalder lays out reasons to map a product or service's value proposition with the actual pains customers face. Using building blocks from his business model canvas framework, Osterwalder maps the relationship and discusses, with interviewer Steve Blank, how value is created.
Market risk is the concern that you'll find your customers before you run out of funding. A technical risk asks if the innovation is in place to bring your start-up idea to market successfully. Both of these concerns are paramount for an entrepreneurial venture, says serial entrepreneur Steve Blank, and both have the potential to cause a young business to shutter. 
With endowments seeking the right investment products and non-profits staffing business school graduates, rather than butting heads, non-profits and for-profit enterprises are more collaborative than ever. Jesse Fink of MissionPoint Capital Partners points out that particulary in the environmental sector, the spectrum is narrowing between the two. 
Can entrepreneurs be made? This question is incredibly important for aspiring entrepreneurs, investors, and educational organizations like BASES. For some, the answer is straightforward; if you inherently possess a certain set of qualities, then, at the very least, you have the potential to become a successful entrepreneur. Otherwise, you're out of luck. For others, there is a relatively distinct manner in which entrepreneurs can be developed, through both intentional circumstances and otherwise, such as family background and education.
Start-ups are not junior versions of larger companies. It's a different animal, says serial entrepreneur Steve Blank. Rather than developing a sales team or a marketing team from the get-go, Blank believes that a launching company should bring them together under the umbrella of customer development.
The canonical product development model - concept, develop, alpha, beta, first customer, ship - is how Silicon Valley grew strong. But why does this process to build a business only succeed part of the time? And how can early stage ventures reduce their overall risk? Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank points out that most founding partners strongly focus on product and ship. But too often, startups confuse engineering's accomplishments with marketing and sales success, and they pop the champagne corks too soon.
Ninety-percent of Silicon Valley's start-ups fail not because of faulty product, but because they don't tap the right market and they don't know their customer. Well-seasoned serial entrepreneur Steve Blank drafts a new model for plotting the path between good idea and market success.
Priceline co-founder Jesse Fink explains to entrepreneur Steve Blank how his early company was a technology-enhanced solution to a business model - and not a real technology play - that succeeded in providing for both business and consumer. Fink brings these same solutions to his current investment firm, MissionPoint, who believes it will be business models and capital markets that find environmental solutions, and not the technology itself.