Steve Blank in NYC Next Friday
Are you a fan of Steve Blank's Customer Development model for startups? I am. And next friday morning (Nov 12th) from 10am to noon, Steve will be speaking up at Columbia University in the Davis Auditorium in the Schapiro Center.
This event is hosted by our friend Professor Chris Wiggins and the Columbia Entrepreneurship Program and is free. Steve will be talking about his Four Steps To The Epiphany and the Customer Development Model.
I am trying to figure out how to attend. I'm already booked at that time next friday. But I am fairly certain there will be a number of people from our firm there. If you are an entrepreneur and want to get better at launching products and companies, you really should think about spending a couple hours listening to Steve.
If you want to attend, please save your place by emailing [email protected].

Comments (Archived):
Thanks for the tip! Do you know if they will publish a video after the event? I’ve checked in Columbia Entrepreneurship website but they say nothing.
i will find out and get back to you
Great, thanks!
Just wish Four Steps was available on Kindle.
wtf?
wtf is right, if I want it I either pay amazon UK $75 or order it from the US site for $40 plus shipping of $7 and a two week wait. There’s nothing lean about that!
there may be a torrented .pdf version floating around. – just sayin
lol
there deserves to be just because it’s so freakin hard to get a legitimate copy
He is finding the steep price not so lean. I guess he and many others would hope to get a fair deal and according to the publisher that is the fair deal take it or leave it, forcing them to find other means to source the content.So as much as WTF is appropriate one has to also look at the other side of the equation.What percentage of readers of this blog do you suppose are similar to you in terms of wealth and business acumen.
I was complaining about the purchase process more than anything. I hate waiting for physical books to be delivered (even though Amazon fulfilment is great). I love my Kindle and the instantaneous nature of the delivery. Although it has to be said I wouldn’t pay the Amazon UK price.
I have a PDF I could email you. Don’t forget to hand Steve a twenty spot at the event.
Mark, is that a photocopy PDF or a text one? If it’s a text, I’d ask to email it to me. ThanksP.S. my gmail is kbolgarov
Nah, it’s a PDF. I couldn’t find an ebook friendly format (kindle/ibooks), and this was the closest facsimile.
dm’d you, cheers
Alongside Clay Christensen, Steve Blank has been my premier source of startup strategy and insights.Steve’s work and the ecosystem his thinking has spawned is a huge asset to entrepreneurs and startups everywhere. Especially great about him, and his heir apparent Eric Ries is that they happily share their thoughts freely and widely and don’t hide their insights behind $3,000 conferences.Other great proponents of Steve’s customer development and lean startup work are:Brant Cooper – http://market-by-numbers.com/Sean Ellis – http://startup-marketing.com/Ash Maurya – http://www.ashmaurya.com/Their blogs are well worth reading. Prime fodder for all whether in the pre or post product/market fit stages of company building
This is the sound of my schedule shuffling to try and make this.
His blog is a great resource. Since we’re on that topic, I would also recommend April Dunford’s Rocket Watcher http://www.rocketwatcher.com/
thanks for sharing the link to April’s blog. Really great content
Darn, I would love to go, I too am tied up Friday and I won’t be able to rearrange plans…Did you know that Mark Suster will also be at Columbia the night before? I plan to be at that one:http://marksuster-columbia….It appears to be sold out now though….
had no idea that Suster was doing thathe’s great
Mark is also speaking at Meetup on Nov 10http://www.meetup.com/lean-…
Crap wish I knew, would love to high five him for his blog. Great resource, Columbia’s rocking the lectures.
You turned me on to his blog a year ago Mark. I’m a reader and I thank you for this.
my pleasure
Interesting perspectives on customer service just going to go youtube some videos from Steve Blank instead. A substitute but better than nothing.
So, “lean startup” is really trendy right now (as it should be, IMO).How about “lean VC” ?What are some ways a VC firm can run leanly or adapt some of the lessons of customer development and/or the broader “lean startup” movement?thx!
VCs already have plenty of OPM and are profitable from the vig off of that, so they don’t need to be monastically lean. That said, I think Fred’s firm is relatively lean considering (3 partners + 3 staff members?).
“Lean” isn’t really about how much money you spend as much as not wasting effort. Wasted effort is anything that doesn’t lead to a minimum viable product that finds customer acceptance.
a very narrow investment strategy so that you are experts in what you do and don’t do anything elsea small team that makes quick decisionssmall fund sizes and low management feesno gulfstreams
fred, we know you have a gulfstream that you keep parked behind your brownstone. it’s cool.
neveri fly commercial
Free registration sign-up linkhttps://sites.google.com/si…
Register for a ticket to Steve’s talk on eventbrite here:http://www.eventbrite.com/e…
Thanks. Looks like the AVC community has crashed eventbrite — I’m getting a 503 Service Unavailable error when I try to sign up. If it’s any sign of Steve’s popularity, get there early next Friday!
the new slashdot 🙂
Boy I wish I lived in NYC. So much going on. Maybe someday.
Please RSVP athttps://sites.google.com/si…
NYC: 1, SF: 0.
I wonder how much a signed first edition of 4 steps is worth? Could be a good seed fund…
He’s very smart- I always wondered how he would explain the differences between a consumer focused startup and a b2b focused startup.
The sign up is available through Eventbrite link on page:https://sites.google.com/si…(this is from response from mpc2139 at columbia…)
Hello,I’m in Steve’s class and I’m looking for an entrepreneur to interview for an assignment. Are you able to recommend someone I could interview?It would be great to speak to someone based in NYC that has gone through the lean startup process and is now in the Customer Creation phase. My questions would be around the Customer Development process that the startup has gone through, specifically covering the startup’s customer creation activities.Thanks for contacting my via LinkedIn (linkedin.com/in/cfong) or responding to this post if you can help.Cheers,Chris