Steve Blank Quotes

People talk about getting lucky breaks in their careers. I’m living proof that the “lucky breaks” theory is simply wrong. You get to make your own luck... The world is run by those who show up…not those who wait to be asked.

Greatest risk is not development of new product, but development of customers and markets

Unless you have tested the assumptions in your business model first, outside the building, your business plan is just creative writing.

A startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.

The world is run by those who show up not those who wait to be asked.

There are no facts inside the building so get the hell outside.

Using the Product Development Waterfall diagram for Customer Development activities is like using a clock to tell the temperature. They both measure something, but not the thing you wanted.

Startups don’t fail because they lack a product; they fail because they lack customers and a profitable business model.

Startups are painful, stressful and at times demoralizing. You need to be a true believer in the vision of what you are doing. You need to passionate about it and love what you’re doing. If you don’t, there is no way you can sustain the hours, stress and disappointment. There’s no way you’re going to be able to convince investors, customers and most importantly recruit a world-class team if you not building something you think is going to change the world.

You need to ask yourself, ‘Where do you want to work: startups, mid-size or large companies?’ If you find yourself debating the ‘startup versus large company’ choice you’ve already chosen the big company. Entrepreneurship isn’t a career choice it’s a passion and obsession.

Build and they will come’ is not a strategy, it’s a prayer.

The company that consistently makes and implements decisions rapidly gains a tremendous, often decisive, competitive advantage.

In a startup no facts exist inside the building, only opinions.

A business model describes how your company creates, delivers and captures value.

Disruption on the first day always looks like a toy.

We now know that something between 85 and 90 percent of most software product features are unwanted and unneeded by customers. That is an enourmous ammount of waste of time and money that ends up on the floor.

My advice was to start a policy of making reversible decisions before anyone left the meeting or the office. In a startup, it doesn't matter if you're 100 percent right 100 percent of the time. What matters is having forward momentum and a tight fact-based data/metrics feedback loop to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions. That's why startups are agile. By the time a big company gets the committee to organize the subcommittee to pick a meeting date, your startup could have made 20 decisions, reversed five of them and implemented the fifteen that worked.

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

When you're gone would you rather have your gravestone say, 'He never missed a meeting.' Or one that said, 'He was a great father.'

At the end of the day, you can decide whether you want to be an employee with a great attendance record, getting promoted to ever better titles and working on interesting projects - or whether you want to attempt to do something spectacular - this be or do should be a question you never stop asking yourself - for the next 20 years, and beyond.

No Plan Survives First Contact With Customers

The core tenant of what I teach is there are no facts inside the building. When we come up with a new idea, we tend to slide into our own reality distortion field to convince ourselves and others. And that's not healthy.

Business plans are the tool existing companies use for execution. They are the wrong tool to search for a business model.

One of the mistakes we'll make because we're human beings is to believe that your vision is a fact. That's the natural optimism of human beings.

For students to understand what the future of journalism is going to be, they're going to have to invent it. It's a big idea. We don't know what journalism is going to look like in the next three years, let alone the next 10 years.