Steve Blank

If you spend 2-3 months reading HN daily for 10-15 minutes you will get a great base level exposure to startups. I also highly recommend http://steveblank.com Assuming BP = business plan templates, lesson #1 is forget those.

in alignment with the meta-discussion sparked by jacquesm, and after reading the actual submission, boy it sure does seem like we've been gamed. Is a shortened regurgitation of a steve blank book sleeve really worth being on the front page? If so, why not just a link to his blog or the book on amazon? http://steveblank.com/ http://amzn.com/0976470705 I know why you wrote the post; to market your website, but HN front page-worthy? I should hope not.

I highly recommend it too. The advice and method concrete enough but not too specific. It tells you a bit what to do, why and how. Since it's iterate process its gets better by time and goes well with agile development. At first your goal is to define your assumptions, test them with potential customers and gather facts. Next integrate the facts into your product development. Continue verifying your product and business with customers, start your sales and go-to-market activities. Last, if you're successful, scale your company. I read a lot business literature and Steve Blank's book is exceptional in way that it makes sense and offers you a path to walk on. For quick reference see http://www.slideshare.net/venturehacks/customer-development-methodolog… and http://steveblank.com/

Good blogs that follow the 4 Steps Model are: Steve Blank (author of the book) - http://steveblank.com/ Eric Ries - http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/ - An advisee/investment of Steve Blank, started IMVU.com, Venture Advisor at Kleiner Perkins) His blog has become somewhat less useful lately though as he's been using it mostly to promote his "Lean Startup" classes. Sean Ellis - http://startup-marketing.com/ - Has applied 4 Steps model at many companies, consults on "Customer Development" with VC backed companies Also Venture Hacks is a great place to start. Check out the archives at http://venturehacks.com/archives/

That's always been the case, in software and elsewhere. Yet, Ford didn't copy Tesla, why not? Checkout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma but overall the idea is that large corporations have totally different goals and incentive than startups. Also check https://steveblank.com and his startup owner manual trying to clarify that a startup is NOT a small company, rather it's searching for a product/market fit. So is it worth pursuing a (software) startup? Honestly if you want to make money, no. It's much easier to work for a large corporation (big economical benefits) or a public institution (work safety). You might not get ridiculously rich either way but you will be safer than most. If you want to make a ridiculous amount of money though, well you might have to make sacrifices you are underestimating. I don't want to promote the grind culture but checkout Silicon Valley, the TV show, in particular when they discuss VC and promises done. Basically if you ask for a very high valuation you have to deliver on those claims and obviously they investors are going to keep you accountable on that. You might have to work more than you wanted (which might make the whole process a nightmare more than a joy) but more dangerously you might lose the very raison d'etre of the company you founded. If it's "just" about making money, you won't care, if you have a genuine mission, those compromises are going to eat you alive. So... is it "worth it" very much depend on…

Describing yourself as an "aspiring founder" suggests that you are attracted to the idea of being an entrepreneur. It's not unlike aspiring to be a professional sports person or TV/film star. It is the glamour that you find appealing. Successful startups come about from recognizing a problem worth solving and having a market willing to pay to have that problem solved. Computers and software are means to an end. In addition to building up your knowledge, you also should seek out experience in some domain that you have an talent for. Once you have acquired a critical mass of real world experience, you will see lots of problems that need solving. Some of them might even be commercially viable. Perhaps a good option for you would be to identify startups that are active in an area that you could become interested in. In addition to your technical education, you could follow some proven entrepreneurial processes. I recommend Steve Blank's blog and book -- http://steveblank.com/ Being a founder also means not being motivated by job security. You either find investors to fund your runway, or build up considerable savings in advance and be self-funded series-A.

There's no such thing as "taken" like that. That is to say, just because somebody else is working on an idea, that doesn't mean you can't (or shouldn't) work on the same idea, or a closely related idea. If anything, if you're working on an idea and nobody else is, you should be asking some really hard questions of yourself, like "why is nobody else working on this if it's such a good idea. Am I really that much smarter than EVERYBODY ELSE IN THE WHOLE WORLD??" and so on.[1] If somebody else is working on the idea, then that's at least small amount of validation that it might be a good idea. If they have paying customers, so much the better. There's a quote I read once, and I wish I could find the original source so I could provide a proper citation, that I think was from Bob Parsons that goes "Never be afraid to enter a crowded market. Just be better than everybody else." That might be a little bit hyperbolic, but I think the general attitude is sound. Don't be afraid to get in there and mix it up and compete. As the old saying goes "Startups don't die by murder, they die by suicide." Most likely, the other startup you're think about is going to die by suicide anyway. They're going to fail to execute, choose a bad market segment, screw up their marketing, screw up sales, choose SVB as their bank, or any of 1000 other things that are going to send them to the Great Accelerator In The Sky. Just don't make those mistakes, outlast them, and the market is yours! Steve…

Stop reading books, stop getting courses and start doing things. Some people have tendencies to never learn from other people, and they make the same mistakes other people have done again and again. Other people, like you (it is obvious), go the other way, they want to know everything and not fail ever. The way they do it is procrastinating, never getting in the arena or over the stage until they are 100% prepared. And they are never "prepared", because failing hurts emotionally. You are like a skier that tries to avoid falling down so much he just can't learn. I created my own business when I was a kid, it is not that hard, offer things or services people need or want. Someone with a CS degree can figure it out. You need to get out in the real world and fail. Then you can read books and ask for advice. Now you will be able to calibrate all the info that you get from books and people in real scenarios. Without real world experience, most info is worthless. Spend the minimum amount of time reading, you should be experiencing life and writing down those experiences. Writing every day is much better than reading every day. One in active, the other passive and looks like work but it is not. Minimize passive things and activities in you life, like TV, until most of your life is active. This man was a serial entrepreneur: https://steveblank.com/ Start getting more aggressive, learn from this man: https://www.john-carlton.com/ You look too "soft",a "wussy", learn…

Do you want to do this for fun or business? If purely for fun, then I don't see any major flaws in your current approach. Sure, you end up with unfinished projects but you're hopefully learning tons and having a blast. But if you're thinking about structuring things so you can better go from ideas to businesses, you need to reevaluate your entire approach. You need tools that can practically guide you through the stages of creating a software business, not just a general philosophy of getting things done. Currently in the startup world, there's an interesting convergence between customer development and lean as applied to tech startups. Customer development is described in Steven Blank's "The Four Steps to the Epiphany" and Eric Ries' "The lean startup" is the book on lean startups. Both Blank and Ries have contributed to this convergence that I talk about at their respective sites [1] [2] but there's also overviews available [3] [4]. But why am I even recommending these two approaches? Because they cover business development from start to finish from as applied to software startups, so you know the advice is specific to our industry and very practical in nature. If you're serious about the business of software, customer development and lean startup will help you create a business with better certainty of execution and outcome. Together they provide a very potent combination of roadmap and compass, and principles and philosophy. [1] http://steveblank.com/ [2]…

Cool. I'm Malaysian too but located in East Malaysia. I'm working alone on a web project too. From my experience, going alone is emotionally tough, working first may help find people who share the same ambition. Don't give up...."how can you fail if you don't give up" :) Tell yourself you're going to take 4 years (or more if you're still young) and giving it all you have. Even if you fail, you would have gained valuable experience and knowledge. Be careful of saying that the software is done and launching it big. What you have is probably a product that you think what others will want. Until you get feedback and slowly releasing it to the world, you do not know. Probably getting those unmotivated people around you to try your software might be helpful as a start. I think historically there's been a higher chance of failure but as long as you learn from the mistakes, you'll do fine. Fail fast. fyi, I used to lecture CS in Malaysia :) and I failed trying to launch an ecommerce site in Malaysia. But I'm at it again.:) This article may shed some light on your dilemma http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/10/03/harnessing-entrepreneu… Keep reading and learning. If you don't already know, I find the following things helpful - http://ecorner.stanford.edu/ - http://steveblank.com - twitter It's not about the idea. It's the execution. If it's a good idea, someone else is probably doing the same thing...unless you…

One of the least read parts of The Lean Startup is the chapter on what I call engines of growth. This is my attempt to elucidate what I call the law of sustainable growth, meaning a situation where new customers come as a necessary side effect of the actions of past customers. Not really related to your question, but Steve recently wrote a great article about the new book that, if you're a fan of his, you might like too: https://steveblank.com/2026/06/09/incorruptible/

Yep, I would highly recommend reading the Secret History of Silicon Valley for those that are interested: https://steveblank.com/secret-history/

Steve Blank's 'Secret History of Silicon Valley' is great background here. [0] [0] https://steveblank.com/secret-history/

The classic article on this topic is https://steveblank.com/2019/04/10/startup-stock-options-why-a-good-dea… Nothing has substantially improved since the article was written. With “forever private” companies it’s only gotten worse.

As a regular reader of Rachelbythebay - I agree with the sentiment of a lot of other posters here, it's not the money that makes people quit. A classic story here is the "Sodas are no longer free" one: https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%… The total cost of free sodas for engineers is probably small compared to their salaries, and for the individual engineer, the new $0.50 per soda cost is probably negligible compared to their salary. But moving from free (as in free soda) to non-free signals a culture change, and so the best engineers started updating their CVs.

Steve Blank's "Secret History" gives a pretty good overview, starting with Terman and WWII, and going heavy on Cold War R&D. <https://steveblank.com/secret-history/> Something of an HN favourite as well: <https://hn.algolia.com/?q=https%3A%2F%2Fsteveblank.com%2Fsecret%2Dhist…

I'm pretty sure that I encountered the survivorship bias story before that picture, but that picture is how everyone visualizes it. But from https://steveblank.com/secret-history/ I learned that what really helped the planes most was not better armor, it was radar countermeasures that kept the Luftwaffe from being able to target the bomber stream. If you have an hour, I highly recommend that talk. And the blog series that goes with it is brilliant.

There is a classic text [1] about exactly this, the free soda. In short, when a company starts to pay attention to such petty details as the cost of soda, which must be a rounding error in the cost of running an office of a decent engineering company, it's a signal that the culture has changed. With that change, best engineering talent often leaves towards places where priorities are still aligned with lofty goals, not bean-counting. (Disclaimer: of last 10 companies I've worked for, only two did not offer free soda, due to being 100% remote.) [1]: https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%…

The soda is a classic: https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%…

Intel specifically, I couldn't say. But the government was a huge early customer of SV chip companies - particularly those that had to do with optics. The USA proudly (but quietly) had the best spy satellites in the world for decades, and the semiconductor industry was a big factor in why they did. Maybe still do - hard to know exactly without a hell of a lot of security clearances. Highly recommend Steve Blanks "Secret History of Silicon Valley" for more on this: https://steveblank.com/secret-history/?amp

I enjoyed very much this blog series and the video: https://steveblank.com/secret-history/ Unfortunately some people tends to cherry pick their favourite details. In my country there's a politician that says that the iPhone development was paid by US government.

> I work remote now and I love it, but for sales? Nothing beats meeting in person. I'm remote, too, and I worry about that being an obstacle sometimes. I saw that Steve Blank article "Be Where Your Business Is"[1] linked here a month ago. I think, in my case, I'll have to start with virtual discovery calls, but at some point it'll make sense to start hopping on trains/planes and making in-person visits. One difference is that we're trying to help analysts, who mostly work at a desk in front of a computer - but I've seen conferences really work to accelerate relationship-building. [1] https://steveblank.com/2023/01/10/be-where-your-business-is/

A classic on this topic: https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%…

https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%… Once they cut benefits that are widely lauded. Holiday-free PTO, exercise and health benefits, stuff that makes sense to anyone to attract talent when times are tough. You can cut corners, you can cut bonuses when times are tough - but you can't cut benefits. It's a short-term way of thinking, and you'll lose your best employees over it.

You probably meant, a bit obliquely, to greet Mr. Blank (HN-ID sblank) and subtly thank him for compiling that document and be so kind as to immediately remember this community and submit the information. https://steveblank.com/about/ We subscribe to the gratitude.

Steve Blank has a great essay on this. https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%…

I'm really interested to read this, but good gosh, do I despise al this working going into something as inaccessible for long form as Twitter. As an aside however, when I saw this topic, I immediately thought of Steve Blank's website, who goes into quite a great deal of depth on the history of Electronic Warfare and how Silicon Valley rose from the WWII infrastructure created for it. He has a number of articles here: https://steveblank.com/secret-history/ If you like this topic, you'll find those to be a good read.

for starters, there's this for IPOs (or lack of IPOs) https://steveblank.com/2019/04/10/startup-stock-options-why-a-good-dea… also, anecdotal, I've seen it happen. I was at a recent startup that got bought. I was employee 15. Somehow, the ISOs got set to $0 worth but the founders made out like bandits with their preferred stock.

Steve Blank compared Cook to Ballmer and analyzed the situation pretty well IMHO: https://steveblank.com/2016/10/24/why-tim-cook-is-steve-ballmer-and-wh… TLDR: When the visionary CEO (Gates, Jobs) leaves, a guy from operations (Ballmer, Cook) gets promoted to CEO, and keeps doing what he does best, operate and keep profits climbing. When the next CEO (Nadella, ?) comes, there can be focus on innovation again.

Steve Blank talks a lot about true start up business models, and he has all kinds of content out there: https://steveblank.com/ Here's his blog section on business models: https://steveblank.com/category/business-model-versus-business-plan/