Steve Blank’s Followers (381)

Steve Blank

Born

The United States

Website

https://steveblank.com

edit data

Put 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 Put 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). ...more

587 posts
Steve Blank's Blog

Steve Blank isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but they do have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from their feed.

How to Sell to the Dept of War – The 2025 PEO Directory – Now with 500 more names

The October 2025 PEO Directory – Update 2.

The Department of War (DoW) is one of the world’s largest organizations. If you’re a startup trying to figure out who to call on and how to navigate the system, it can be – to put it politely – challenging.Those inside the DoW have little perspective of how hard it is to understand what to an outsider looks like in an impenetrable, incredibly complex

Combine Editions
Steve Blank’s books

Average rating: 4.02 · 30,377 ratings · 483 reviews · 24 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win 3.96 avg rating — 16,695 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 4.11 avg rating — 12,773 ratings — published 2012 — 38 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 — 107 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

More books by Steve Blank…

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 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.”
― Steven Gary Blank, The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win

tags: business, entrepreneur, meetings

23 likes

“In the early stages of a startup, focusing on “execution” will put you out of business. Instead, you need a “learning and discovery” 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

8 likes

“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

7 likes

See all Steve Blank's quotes »

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
You'll love this ...: Joe's Low Octane "Never Too Late" Alphabet	9	27	Jun 28, 2013 02:52AM
The Challenge Fac...: Hooray for Technology! E-Reader Challenge-May Edition	30	76	Jun 05, 2018 04:28PM
The Challenge Fac...: May TCF Monthly Challenge	34	68	Jun 06, 2018 02:13AM
Booktastic Bookah...: Color Count 2018	8	26	Jul 03, 2018 08:39AM
2025 Reading Chal...: Richo's Challenges to Get to 1,000 Books	83	455	Oct 28, 2018 05:12AM
Nothing But Readi...: Level 5 of the Serious Reader Challenge for 2018	30	235	Jan 01, 2019 07:44AM
2025 Reading Chal...: Richo's 365 books for 2018	944	646	Jan 06, 2019 03:57AM

More…

Is this you? Let us know. If not, help out and invite Steve to Goodreads.