Steve Blank (Author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany)

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Steve Blank

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Put to a vote, I might have been chosen â€œleast likely to succeedâ€� 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 Put to a vote, I might have been chosen â€œleast likely to succeedâ€� 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 â€œCustomer Developmentâ€� 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. Iâ€™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). ...more

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Steve Blank's Blog

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Hacking for Defense @ Stanford 2025 â€� Lessons Learned Presentations

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We just finished our 10th annual

What a year.

Hacking for Defense, now in 70 universities, has teams of students working to understand and help solve national security problems. At Stanford this quarter the 8 teams of 41 students collectively interviewed 1106 beneficiaries, st

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Steve Blankâ€™s books

Average rating: 4.02 · 30,281 ratings · 477 reviews · 24 distinct works â€� Similar authors

	The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win 3.95 avg rating — 16,647 ratings — published 2003 — 28 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company by Steve Blank, Bob Dorf 4.10 avg rating — 12,741 ratings — published 2012 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Startup Owner's Manual Strategy Guide 4.28 avg rating — 108 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Startup Owner's Manual for Web/Mobile Channel Startups (Book 3) 4.39 avg rating — 36 ratings — published 2012	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost 4.35 avg rating — 23 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Holding A Cat By The Tail: Lessons from an Entrepreneurial Life 4.42 avg rating — 19 ratings — published 2013 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Startup Owner's Manual for Physical Channel Startups (Book 2) by Steve Blank, Bob Dorf 4.75 avg rating — 16 ratings — published 2012	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Secret History of Silicon Valley vol 2 by Steve Blank, Tak Yamamoto (translator), Hiroko Nakajima (translator) it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Secret History of Silicon Valley vol 1 by Steve Blank, Tak Yamamoto (translator), Hiroko Nakajima (translator) it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Startup Inside Your Company: How Companies Fight Back Against Continuous Disruption by Steve Blank, Bob Dorf 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2013	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Steve Blank (?)

“My advice was to start a policy of making reversible decisions before anyone left the meeting or the office. In a startup, it doesnâ€™t matter if youâ€™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. Thatâ€™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.”
― Steven Gary Blank, The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win

tags: business, entrepreneur, meetings

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“In the early stages of a startup, focusing on â€œexecutionâ€� will put you out of business. Instead, you need a â€œlearning and discoveryâ€� process so you can get the company to the point where you know what to execute.”
― Steven Gary Blank, The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Startups That Win

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“In a startup no facts exist inside the building, only opinions.”
― Steven Gary Blank, The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win

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