Steve Blank
A prolific educator, thought leader and writer on Customer Development for Startups, Steve Blank is a retired serial entrepreneur who teaches, refines, writes and blogs on “Customer Development,” a rigorous methodology he developed to bring the “scientific method” to the typically chaotic, seemingly disorganized startup process. Now teaching entrepreneurship at three major universities, Blank co-founded his first of eight startups after several years repairing fighter plane electronics in Thailand during the Vietnam War, followed by several years of defense electronics work for U.S. intelligence agencies in “undisclosed locations.” Four Steps to the Epiphany, Blank’s fast-selling book, details the Customer Development process and is increasingly a “must read” among entrepreneurs, investors, and established companies alike, when the focus is optimizing a startup’s chances for scalability and success.
After 21 years driving 8 high technology startups, today Steve teaches entrepreneurship to both undergraduate and graduate students at U.C. Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Stanford University’s School of Engineering and the Columbia/Berkeley Joint Executive MBA program. His “Customer Development” teaching and writing coalesce and codify his experiences and observations of entrepreneurs in action, including his own and those he advises. “Once removed from the day-to-day intensity of founding a startup, I was able to observe a pattern that distinguishes successful startups from failures,” Blank says. In 2009, he earned the Stanford University Undergraduate Teaching Award in Management Science and Engineering. The San Jose Mercury News listed him as one of the 10 Influencers in Silicon Valley. In 2010, he was earned the Earl F. Cheit Outstanding Teaching Award at U.C. Berkeley Haas School of Business. Despite these accolades, Steve says he might well have been voted “least likely to succeed” in his New York City high school class.
Steve Blank arrived in Silicon Valley in 1978, as boom times began. His early startups include two semiconductor companies, Zilog and MIPS Computers; Convergent Technologies; a consulting stint for Pixar; a supercomputer firm, Ardent; peripheral supplier, SuperMac; a military intelligence systems supplier, ESL; Rocket Science Games. Steve co-founded startup number eight, E.piphany, in his living room in 1996. In sum: two significant implosions, one massive “dot-com bubble” home run, several “base hits,” and immense learning leading to The Four Steps.
An avid reader in history, technology, and entrepreneurship who seldom cracks a novel, Steve has followed his curiosity about why entrepreneurship blossomed in Silicon Valley while stillborn elsewhere. It has made him an unofficial expert and frequent speaker on “The Secret History of Silicon Valley.”
Steve’s interest in combining conservation with best business practices had Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appoint him a Commissioner of the California Coastal Commission, the public body which regulates land use and public access on the California coast. He also serves on the Expert Advisory Panel for the California Ocean Protection Council. Steve serves on the board of Audubon California, was its past chair, and spent several years on the Audubon National Board. A board member of Peninsula Open Space Land Trust (POST), Blank recently became a trustee of U.C. Santa Cruz and a Director of the California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV). Steve’s proudest startups are daughters Katie and Sara, co-developed with wife Alison Elliott. The Blanks live in Silicon Valley.
Recent posts
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We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to... Read more »
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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 e-mail below... Read more »
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The quickest way to create a billion dollar company is to take basic human social needs and figure out how to mediate them online.
Look at the first wave of the Web/mobile/cloud startups... Read more »
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The art of entrepreneurship and the science of Customer Development is not just getting out of the building and listening to prospective customers. It’s understanding who to listen to and why... Read more »
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Individuals play the game, but teams beat the odds.
—SEAL team saying
Over the last 40 years technology investors have learned that the success of a startup is not just about the... Read more »
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Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all... Read more »
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A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
—Mark Twain
Venture capitalists who are serious about turning their firms into more than... Read more »
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Read part 1 of this post for background.
By the early 1920s General Motors realized that Ford, which was now selling the Model T for $290, had an unbeatable monopoly on low-cost automobile... Read more »
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It was the most advanced consumer product of the century. The industry started with its innovators located in different cities over a wide region. But within 20 years it would be concentrated... Read more »
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As part of our Lean LaunchPad classes at Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia and for the National Science Foundation, students build a startup in 8 weeks using Business Model Design + Customer Development.
One... Read more »
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Foreign visitors to Silicon Valley continually mention how willing we are to help, network and connect strangers. We take it so for granted we never even to bother to talk about... Read more »
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Not understanding and agreeing what “entrepreneur” and “startup” mean can sink an entire country’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.
I’m getting ready to go overseas to teach, and I’ve spent the last week... Read more »
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What makes startups succeed or fail? More than 90 percent of startups fail, due primarily to self-destruction rather than competition. For the less than 10 percent of startups that do succeed,... Read more »
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One of the key distinctions between an entrepreneur and an operating executive is an entrepreneur’s almost seamless agility in the face of changing circumstances versus an operating executive’s intense execution focus... Read more »
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When I was in my 20s, I was taught the relationship between marketing and sales over a bonfire.
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Over 30 years ago, before the arrival of the personal computer, there were desktop computers called... Read more »
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Scientists and engineers as founders and startup CEOs is one of the least celebrated contributions of Silicon Valley.
It might be its most important.
ESL, the first company I worked for in Silicon Valley... Read more »
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[This post combines Part 1 and Part 2 of a series posted this week on Steve Blank's blog.]
As customer and agile development reinvent the Startup, it’s time to ask... Read more »
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In April 2010 I received an email that said, “I’m an incoming Stanford student in the fall and working on a project that a number of people suggested I get in touch with you about.”
Ok,... Read more »
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The Stanford Lean LaunchPad class was an experiment in a new model of teaching startup entrepreneurship. This last post – part nine – highlights the final team presentations. Parts one through eight,... Read more »
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The Stanford Lean LaunchPad class was an experiment in a new model of teaching startup entrepreneurship. This post—part eight—was the last formal lecture. Parts one through seven of the lectures are here... Read more »
