Steve Blank (born 1953) is an American entrepreneur, educator, author and speaker.[1] He created thecustomer development method that launched thelean startup movement. His work has influenced modern entrepreneurship through the creation of tools and processes for new ventures which differ from those used in large companies.[2]
Between 1978 and 2002, Blank worked at eight different technology startups, founding, or co-founding, four of them.[3]
Blank created theLean Launchpad class and I-Corps curriculum[4] which became the standard for science commercialization for the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Energy. As of 2023, more than 3,051 teams and 1,300 startups have employed Blank's methodologies.[5]
Blank is co-creator of theU.S. Department of Defense's[6] Hacking for Defense program,[7][8] and served on the Defense Business Board[9][10] and the U.S. Navy's Science and Technological Board.[11] He is co-creator of the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation at Stanford University.[12]
Blank was born to Jewish[13] immigrant parents in the Chelsea neighborhood inNew York City.[14] He attended theUniversity of Michigan for one semester.[14] Blank spent four years in the U.S. Air Force during theVietnam War.[14] While serving in the Air Force, Blank was stationed in three different bases in Thailand maintaining and repairing electronic warfare and electronic intelligence systems on F-105G,[15] F-4, and A-7 aircraft.[16] He then returned to the U.S. to work on B-52 bombers inOscoda, Michigan.[17]
Steve Blank giving a lecture at Stanford University in 2024.
In 2001, Blank was invited to lecture at U.C. Berkeley as part of theLester Center for Entrepreneurship at theHaas School of Business.[21] He went on to teach a class on Customer Development at the school from 2003 through 2017.[22] He began teaching at Stanford University's Engineering School in the Technology Ventures Program in 2004.[23]
In January 2011, Blank created theLean LaunchPad class atStanford University. The class combined experiential learning with the three building blocks of a successful lean startup:Alexander Osterwalder'sBusiness Model Canvas,[24] Blank'scustomer development model,[25] andAgile Engineering. Rather than relying on the traditional business school practice of teaching students how to write a standard business plan, or simply build a product,[26] the Lean Launchpad course assumed that all the students have a series of untested hypotheses about a venture and need to get out of the classroom to validate them.[27]
In 2012 Blank collaborated with theNational Science Foundation and Venturewell to create educator courses and training material for NSF and Lean LaunchPad Instructors.[28] From 2012 to 2021 he concurrently taught the Lean Launchpad class at Columbia University.[29]
Blank partnered with University of California at San Francisco and the National Science Foundation in 2013 to offer the Lean LaunchPad class for Life Science and Healthcare (therapeutics, diagnostics, devices and digital health.)[30] In 2014, in conjunction with the National Institute of Health,[31] Blank took the UCSF curriculum and developed theI-Corps@NIH program.[32]
Blank co-createdHacking for Defense andHacking for Diplomacy courses at Stanford University in 2016.[33] He went on to apply the same customer development approach to large social and environmental problems with courses includingHacking for Oceans, Climate[34] andHacking for Impact in 2022.[14] Both the Lean LaunchPad andHacking for Defense curricula uses the customer development methodology and lean startup methods developed by Blank during his career as a serial entrepreneur.[14]
Blank collaborated with the Common Mission Project in 2019 to host the Lean Innovation Educators Conference.[35] The event drew educators from universities around the world to share best practices for teaching entrepreneurship.[36]
In 2020, Blank co-created the "Technology, Innovation and Modern War" class at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC).[37] with Joe Felter and Raj Shah.[38] The class discusses how technology driven by commercial technology can create new military systems and concepts for future conflicts.[39] In 2021 the class was expanded and renamed "Technology, Innovation and Great Power Competition."[40] Later that year Blank co-founded the Stanford Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation.[41]
Blank co-created theWicked Problems, Systems Dynamics, and Entrepreneurial Innovation class as a summer course at Imperial College in London in 2023.[42]
Customer Development[44] assumes that early ventures have untestedhypotheses about theirbusiness model. Customer development starts with the insight that there are no facts inside your building so entrepreneurs need to get outside to find, test and validate them.[43]
The hypotheses testing emulates thescientific method – pose a business model hypothesis, design an experiment, get out of the building and test it. Take the data and derive some insight to either (1) Validate the hypothesis, (2) Invalidate the Hypothesis, or (3) Modify the hypothesis.[2][45]
Blank's Customer Development methodology has been popularized byEric Ries.[46] Blank refined the ideas around 2004 when he was an investor and advisor toIMVU, a company co-founded by Ries. Ries had observed that Customer Development was a natural pair to theAgile Development method that engineers were employing.[2]
The lean startup has been adopted by entrepreneurs worldwide[47] as an efficient and repeatable way to search forproduct/market fit.[2] Reis has integrated the customer development methodology into the lean startup practices and considers it to be one of the lean startup movement's pillars.[48] Blank's version of the Lean Methodology includes Customer Development, Agile Engineering and added theBusiness Model Canvas developed byAlexander Osterwalder.[49]
In July 2011 theNational Science Foundation (NSF) asked Blank to adapt his Lean LaunchPad class to help scientists who were applying for anSBIR grant learn how to commercialize their academic inventions.[50] The NSF later adopted Blank's Stanford class and renamed it the Innovation Corps (I-Corps).[51] The course became the standard for science commercialization, serving as the syllabus of I-Corps at the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps, National Institutes of Health (NIH),[52] and the United States Department of Energy (DOE). The methodology is taught at 100 universities and has been employed to drive innovation within agencies of the United States government.[53]
As of 2023, the I-Corps program has been used to train more than 9,330 scientists and engineers within the NSF, NIH, and the DOE.[54] Nearly 1400 I-Corps teams at the NSF have launched startups raising more than $3.166 billion. Over 300 I-Corps teams at NIH have collectively raised $634 million. DOE I-Corps teams have raised roughly $151 million in additional funding.[54]
In 2016, Blank along with Peter Newell, and Joe Felter co-created a series of mission-driven entrepreneurship classes at Stanford based on Blank's Lean Launchpad class.[55][56] The course, "Hacking for Defense," teaches students to work with Defense and Intelligence communities on national security problems and develop solutions using the Lean Startup method.[57] The course allows students to serve their country in a nontraditional way.[58] As of 2021 the course was offered in 47 universities in the U.S. including the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the U.S. Air Force Academy, Defense Acquisition University and the Naval Postgraduate School.[58] The course has also been adopted by the U.S. Department of Defense and is offered through theNational Security Innovation Network[59] as well as in Australia[60] and the UK.[61]
In response to a request from the U.S. Department of State, Blank, along with Stanford professor Jeremy Weinstein and U.S. State Department representative to Silicon Valley Zvika Krieger, co-created "Hacking For Diplomacy."[62][63]
Other mission-driven courses followed including "Hacking for Oceans,"[64] and "Hacking for Local."[65] In the midst of the 2020COVID-19 pandemic Blank created a series of classes called "Hacking for Recovery"[6] to help business adapt their business models in the crisis.[66] The class was subsequently adopted by the State of Hawaii.[67]
In 2009, Blank began delivering a lecture titled “The Secret History of Silicon Valley”[68] to explain how the U.S. Department of Defense and the broader intelligence community accidentally created the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Silicon Valley. [[69][70]
Blank, along with Joe Felter and Raj Shah,[71] founded the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation at Stanford University in 2021.[72] Funded by the U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Research (ONR), the center connects defense, commercial, and academic organizations.[73]
Blank served as a member of theDefense Business Board[80] in 2020.[10] In 2023 he was appointed to the United States Department of the Navy's Science and Technology Advisory board, heading the Innovation Group.[11]
Blank has given commencement addresses at Philadelphia University (2011),[81] University of Minnesota (2013),[82] ESADE Business School in Barcelona (2014),[83] New York University Engineering School (2016),[84] Dalhousie University (2017)[85] and UC Santa Cruz (2019).[86]
Blank hosted the SiriusXM radio show “Entrepreneurs are Everywhere'' in 2015.[87]
.jpg)
