Steve Blank Quotes

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

  Steve Blank

  Failing, Profitable Business, Models

  35 Copy quote

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

  Steve Blank

  Facts, Hell, Building

  "Steve Blank: Lessons From 35 Years of Making Startups Fail Less". Interview with Jake Cook, 99u.com.

  39 Copy quote

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

  Steve Blank

  Risk, Development, New Products

  48 Copy quote

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

  Steve Blank

  Writing, Creative, Firsts

  "No Plan Survives First Contact With Customers – Business Plans versus Business Models". steveblank.com. April 08, 2010.

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

  Steve Blank

  Inspirational, Graduation, Running

  Philadelphia University Commencement Speech, steveblank.com. May 15, 2011.

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• 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.

  Steve Blank

  Graduation, Running, Careers

  Steve Blank's Commencement Address at Philadelphia University in in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, www.businessinsider.com. May 17, 2011.

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

  Steve Blank

  Prayer, Strategy, Blank

  Steve Blank (2013). “The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win”, p.30, BookBaby

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

  Steve Blank

  Organization, Blank, Models

  Steve Blank (2012). “The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-by-Step Guide for Building a Great Company”, p.77, BookBaby

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• No Plan Survives First Contact With Customers

  Steve Blank

  Firsts, Blank, Contact

  Steve Blank (2012). “The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-by-Step Guide for Building a Great Company”, p.70, BookBaby

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• 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.

  Steve Blank

  Disappointment, Stress, Team

  33 Copy quote

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

  Steve Blank

  Decision, Gains, Advantage

  Steve Blank, Bob Dorf (2012). “The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-by-Step Guide for Building a Great Company”, p.115, BookBaby

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• 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.

  Steve Blank

  Passion, Careers, Choices

  30 Copy quote

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

  Steve Blank

  Facts, Opinion, Building

  Steve Blank (2013). “The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win”, p.32, BookBaby

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

  Steve Blank

  Capture, Company, Models

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• 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.

  Steve Blank

  Waste, Wasting Time, Ends

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• 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.'

  Steve Blank

  Father, Balance, Gone

  12 Copy quote

• Disruption on the first day always looks like a toy.

  Steve Blank

  Looks, Firsts, Toys

  18 Copy quote

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

  Steve Blank

  Writing, Essentials, Plans

  13 Copy quote

• 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.

  Steve Blank

  Years, Interesting, The End Of The Day

  "Playing It Safe Will Get You Nowhere" by Steve Blank, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 16, 2013.

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• 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.

  Steve Blank

  Business, What Matters, Data

  16 Copy quote

• 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.

  Steve Blank

  Trust, Development, Waterfalls

  Steve Blank (2013). “The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win”, p.29, BookBaby

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• 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.

  Steve Blank

  Reality, Ideas, Healthy

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• 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.

  Steve Blank

  Mistake, Believe, Optimism

  Source: www.pbs.org

  7 Copy quote

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

  Steve Blank

  Tools, Use, Execution

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• 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.

  Steve Blank

  Years, Ideas, Three

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

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