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The Startup Owner's Manual Strategy Guide
Welcome to the first ebook in The Startup Owner’s Manual series.
This Strategy e-book provides an overview of why startups are not smaller versions of large companies. It explains how startups search for a business model using Customer Development, and explains the overall customer development methodology, and key implementation steps.
It is designed for founders, advisors, entrepreneurs and others curious about how the Customer Development process works.
Many readers prefer to use the Strategy Guide along with either The Startup Owner’s Manual for Physical Channel Startups or The Startup Owner’s Manual for Web/Mobile Startups as they work to build a successful startup.
This Strategy e-book provides an overview of why startups are not smaller versions of large companies. It explains how startups search for a business model using Customer Development, and explains the overall customer development methodology, and key implementation steps.
It is designed for founders, advisors, entrepreneurs and others curious about how the Customer Development process works.
Many readers prefer to use the Strategy Guide along with either The Startup Owner’s Manual for Physical Channel Startups or The Startup Owner’s Manual for Web/Mobile Startups as they work to build a successful startup.
608 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 1, 2012
18 people are currently reading
490 people want to read
About the author
Steve Blank
25 books381 followersPut to a vote, I might have been chosen “least likely to succeed” in my New York City high school class. My path has taken me from repairing fighter planes in Thailand during the Vietnam War, to spook stuff in undisclosed location(s), and I was lucky enough to arrive at the beginning of the boom times of Silicon Valley in 1978.
After 21 years in 8 high technology companies, I retired in 1999. I started my last company, E.piphany, in my living room in 1996. My other startups include two semiconductor companies, Zilog and MIPS Computers, a workstation company Convergent Technologies, a consulting stint for a graphics hardware/software spinout Pixar, a supercomputer firm, Ardent, a computer peripheral supplier, SuperMac, a military intelligence systems supplier, ESL and a video game company, Rocket Science Games.
Total score: two large craters (Rocket Science and Ardent), one dot.com bubble home run (E.piphany) and several base hits.
After I retired, I took some time to reflect on my experience and wrote a book (actually my class text) about building early stage companies called Four Steps to the Epiphany.
I moved from being an entrepreneur to teaching entrepreneurship to both undergraduate and graduate students at U.C. Berkeley, Stanford University and the Columbia University/Berkeley Joint Executive MBA program. The “Customer Development” model that I developed in my book is one of the core themes in these classes. In 2009, I was awarded the Stanford University Undergraduate Teaching Award in the department of Management Science and Engineering. The same year, the San Jose Mercury News listed me as one of the 10 Influencers in Silicon Valley.
I also followed my curiosity about why entrepreneurship blossomed in Silicon Valley and was stillborn elsewhere. It has led to several talks on The Secret History of Silicon Valley.
In 2007 Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed me to serve on the California Coastal Commission, the public body which regulates land use and public access on the California coast.
I am on the board of Audubon California (and its past chair) and spent several years on the Audubon National Board. I’m also a board member of Peninsula Open Space Land Trust (POST). In 2009 I became a trustee of U.C. Santa Cruz and joined the board of the California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV).
After 21 years in 8 high technology companies, I retired in 1999. I started my last company, E.piphany, in my living room in 1996. My other startups include two semiconductor companies, Zilog and MIPS Computers, a workstation company Convergent Technologies, a consulting stint for a graphics hardware/software spinout Pixar, a supercomputer firm, Ardent, a computer peripheral supplier, SuperMac, a military intelligence systems supplier, ESL and a video game company, Rocket Science Games.
Total score: two large craters (Rocket Science and Ardent), one dot.com bubble home run (E.piphany) and several base hits.
After I retired, I took some time to reflect on my experience and wrote a book (actually my class text) about building early stage companies called Four Steps to the Epiphany.
I moved from being an entrepreneur to teaching entrepreneurship to both undergraduate and graduate students at U.C. Berkeley, Stanford University and the Columbia University/Berkeley Joint Executive MBA program. The “Customer Development” model that I developed in my book is one of the core themes in these classes. In 2009, I was awarded the Stanford University Undergraduate Teaching Award in the department of Management Science and Engineering. The same year, the San Jose Mercury News listed me as one of the 10 Influencers in Silicon Valley.
I also followed my curiosity about why entrepreneurship blossomed in Silicon Valley and was stillborn elsewhere. It has led to several talks on The Secret History of Silicon Valley.
In 2007 Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed me to serve on the California Coastal Commission, the public body which regulates land use and public access on the California coast.
I am on the board of Audubon California (and its past chair) and spent several years on the Audubon National Board. I’m also a board member of Peninsula Open Space Land Trust (POST). In 2009 I became a trustee of U.C. Santa Cruz and joined the board of the California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV).
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 12, 2014
Despite the title, this is not a general purpose strategy guide for startups, but a guide focused on how to validate products in the market. Of course, this is still an important topic, and most startups should follow the iterative approach in this book. The ideas of seeing a startup as search process, seeing product development as a series of experiments, and the pivot or proceed examples at the end are great. That said, the writing style sounds like an infomercial (the book regularly describes itself with superlatives like "revolutionary") and is *extremely* repetitive. You get 90% of the value from reading the introduction. Skim the rest.
Some good quotes:
Today, after half a century of practice, we know unequivocally that the traditional MBA curriculum for running large companies like IBM, GM and Boeing does not work in startups. In fact, it’s toxic. With the benefit of hindsight, entrepreneurs now understand the problem, namely that startups are not simply smaller versions of large companies. Companies execute business models where customers, their problems, and necessary product features are all “knowns.” In sharp contrast, startups operate in “search” mode, seeking a repeatable and profitable business model. The search for a business model requires dramatically different rules, roadmaps, skill sets, and tools in order to minimize risk and optimize chances for success.
But what exactly is a startup? A startup is not a smaller version of a large company. A startup is a temporary organization in search of a scalable, repeatable, profitable business model.
Winners also recognize their startup “vision” as a series of untested hypotheses in need of “customer proof.” They relentlessly test for insights, and they course-correct in days or weeks, not months or years, to preserve cash and eliminate time wasted on building features and products that customers don’t want.
Startups begin with a set of initial hypotheses (guesses), most of which will end up being wrong. Therefore, focusing on execution and delivering a product or service based on those initial, untested hypotheses is a going-out-of-business strategy.
A startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. Within this definition, a startup can be a new venture or it can be a new division or business unit in an existing company.
Search embraces failure as a natural part of the startup process.
If you’re afraid to fail in a startup, you’re destined to do so.
The customer discovery process searches for problem/solution fit: “have we found a problem lots of people want us to solve (or a need they want us to fill)” and “does our solution (a product, a website, or an app) solve the problem in a compelling way?”
Some good quotes:
Today, after half a century of practice, we know unequivocally that the traditional MBA curriculum for running large companies like IBM, GM and Boeing does not work in startups. In fact, it’s toxic. With the benefit of hindsight, entrepreneurs now understand the problem, namely that startups are not simply smaller versions of large companies. Companies execute business models where customers, their problems, and necessary product features are all “knowns.” In sharp contrast, startups operate in “search” mode, seeking a repeatable and profitable business model. The search for a business model requires dramatically different rules, roadmaps, skill sets, and tools in order to minimize risk and optimize chances for success.
But what exactly is a startup? A startup is not a smaller version of a large company. A startup is a temporary organization in search of a scalable, repeatable, profitable business model.
Winners also recognize their startup “vision” as a series of untested hypotheses in need of “customer proof.” They relentlessly test for insights, and they course-correct in days or weeks, not months or years, to preserve cash and eliminate time wasted on building features and products that customers don’t want.
Startups begin with a set of initial hypotheses (guesses), most of which will end up being wrong. Therefore, focusing on execution and delivering a product or service based on those initial, untested hypotheses is a going-out-of-business strategy.
A startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. Within this definition, a startup can be a new venture or it can be a new division or business unit in an existing company.
Search embraces failure as a natural part of the startup process.
If you’re afraid to fail in a startup, you’re destined to do so.
The customer discovery process searches for problem/solution fit: “have we found a problem lots of people want us to solve (or a need they want us to fill)” and “does our solution (a product, a website, or an app) solve the problem in a compelling way?”
August 4, 2023
Though it is very technical and kind of repetitive, this book showed me light in my entrepreneurial path. This is just the first of three parts of the entire manual and it was long and technical enough to make it hard to read for me, but in the meanwhile it has worth the time. A different ideology, well supported by facts and techniques and writed by very experienced renamed guys in the topic. I recommend this reading just if you need this kind of knowledge enough to push yourself to end it.
August 9, 2021
Informative but so boring
January 6, 2022
A good intro to startups and what you should think about before jumping in.
May 11, 2015
Extremely detailed and thorough. A good roadmap for different kinds of business models that can be created.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews