Steve Blank Quotes

To be a designer today is to be an entrepreneur. Whether you're a two-man operation in Shoreditch or a 3,000-person, vertically integrated brand, you need to have the wherewithal to run your business through investment, considering everything from start-up funds to your exit plan or what it takes to go public.

When the venture industry started, it was enough to just have money and then it was enough to sort of have this big fuzzy brand. But now startups are getting a lot smarter.

As a serial investor who has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for startups, I know that the business plans coming out of incubators tend to be vetted and more thoroughly validated. The incubator's input into your business plan will make you look far more polished and experienced - even if you have never run a business before.

Startups should be - if you graph their financial performance, it should be what's called a J curve. You start out at zero. you're not making any money; you're not losing any money.

So much of venture capital is pattern recognition.

Very ambitious startups often take a long time to work - or sometimes they take a very long time to look ambitious.

Well, I think that there's a very thin dividing line between success and failure. And I think if you start a business without financial backing, you're likely to go the wrong side of that dividing line.

I hear so many startups talking about how they can raise VC instead of questioning whether they need it in the first place.

Small businesses, you can give them capital, but what they often need as much is mentoring, advice and help with their business plan.

Not many venture firms have people whose job is to read academic research - on startups, ventures, and entrepreneurs - and gather knowledge from that.

There's nothing wrong with raising venture capital. Many lean startups are ambitious and are able to deploy large amounts of capital. What differentiates them is their disciplined approach to determining when to spend money: after the fundamental elements of the business model have been empirically validated.

At 25, I made many companies. I was thinking more like a businessman or entrepreneur than a CEO. I created many companies, small companies, medium companies. I tried to be involved in many kinds of activities, in finance, in real estate, in mining.

I'd stay away from investments in a variety of sectors that are capital intensive. Anyone who says we need $100 million before we know if what we're doing makes sense and the customers want it - that's not going to work.

I consider each business investment based on concept and revenue.

I think it's natural for any manager to want to grow his business. The question is at what rate, and in what direction, and in what format?

It's important to choose initial investors who are not twitchy and rushing for an exit. Wall Street's quarter-by-quarter lens may make the CEO make sub-optimal long-term decisions.

I don't find the business easy. The moment you start talking about the business, you start sounding like someone in Spinal Tap.

And I thought I'd always like some form of business, I didn't know what kind of business I'd go in.

I wish more LPs would blog to help VCs and entrepreneurs understand them better.

I've had a very good stretch with startup investing, and I think it's very important to know when to hold your chips.

If a founder has passion and innovation, he needs to be supported. I am more intuitive than a numbers person, and I recognise that not all investments are going to be positive. Some may fail, and some may have problems for other reasons. That is life.

The needs of the business sector must be understood.

Mitt Romney understands free enterprise, he has worked in it. He has seen companies succeed and he has seen them fail, too. He knows what people think about when they invest their money.

You have venture capitalists. We view them as experts who also help finance your company and give directions and also some pretty candid discussions about what you have to do better.

The economics of setting up a new restaurant are scary in good times and terrifying in bad ones.