Steve Blank Quotes

Customer discovery is the process of translating a founder's vision for the company into hypotheses about each component of the business model and creating a set of experiments to test each hypothesis.

What I tell founders is not to sweat the business model too much at first. The most important task at first is to build something people want. If you don't do that, it won't matter how clever your business model is.

We now understand the distinction between startups - who search for a business model - versus existing companies - that execute a business plan.

Unlike many other startup processes, Customer Development is deep, detailed, and rigorous.

The Lean Startup process builds new ventures more efficiently. It has three parts: a business model canvas to frame hypotheses, customer development to get out of the building to test those hypotheses, and agile engineering to build minimum viable products.

Essentials of how to do a startup do not include writing a business plan

I always knew I wanted to start my own line. Nights and weekends, I would work on my business plan.

The point of an accelerator is to teach you about companies and business, not about technology.

In a startup, in the early days, it can be hard to explain what you do.

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

One of the top causes of startup death - right after cofounder problems - is building something no one wants.

Young entrepreneurs should spend an awful lot of time thinking about what they want to go into.

Don't wallow in brainstorming. Time spent fiddling with a business plan or filling up whiteboards with ideas is time that you could spend actually launching your business and seeing if the idea floats. Launching gives you real, solid feedback, instead of the imaginary 'what if' scenarios dreamed up in a conference room.

The problem with taking venture capital is if you take $5m from someone, it may feel great; you may feel like they're validating your business model. But they're giving $5m out to 20 different people, hoping one of them will be a hit. They don't really care if it's you.

If you're an entrepreneur and you're starting a company, I think the first thing you do is you go and talk to a bunch of people. But then the next thing you probably should do is figure out if there's a broader demand than just people you know. That's where I think SurveyMonkey is pretty valuable to people.

One of the rookie mistakes first-time entrepreneurs often make is to be too guarded about their idea - in fact, many will actually spend their first $25,000 on patent lawyers without ever fully vetting their product.

If opening your own business is the dream, then it must start with a Dream - not only to understand what it is that you want to do, but also, how you are going to build something better than the same chaotic environment you just left.

Entrepreneurship works on the apprenticeship model. The best way to learn how to be an entrepreneur is to start a company and seek the advice of a successful entrepreneur in the area in which you are interested. Or work at a startup for a few years to learn the ropes.

A lot of people want to start a business, and they're like, 'I wanna start a business, give me some money to invest.' Where is your business plan? Are you investing money yourself into your own business? How is this going to work? People think that they can just come to you with an idea and have money.

The most incredible businesses are started by entrepreneurs who relentlessly pursue their passion, but passion works best with a thoughtful, ambitious-yet-grounded business plan.

It typically takes multiple iterations and pivots to find product/market fit - the match between what you're building and who will buy it.

I think a lot of entrepreneurs think they need money to build the business faster when they actually haven't figured out the business equation yet.

When you're starting your own business it's really important to think through your plan: what's the idea, why is it relevant to the market, how much money you are going to invest, how are you going to tell people about it.

Customer Development changes almost every aspect of startup behavior, performance, metrics, and, as often as not, success potential.

Build something, make something, test something, sell something. Learn for yourself if your idea is a good one.