Podcast S3E67: Steve Blank - History and lessons of the Lean Startup method

In today’s episode of the Idea to Value podcast, we talk with Steve Blank, senior innovation fellow at Columbia University, serial entrepreneur and the founder of the Lean Startup movement.

We speak about what makes a successful startup, what large companies get wrong about innovation and how he has seen Lean Startup evolve and change over the past few years.

Topics covered in today’s episode:

00:01:15 – How Steve started 8 startups in 21 years, and what this taught him about how innovation works
00:03:00 – How his Customer Development methodology morphed into the Lean Startup method (including insights from Alex Osterwalder and the Business Model development)
00:07:30 – How the meaning of “Startup” has changed over the past few decades
00:12:00 – The moment he realised “there are no facts inside your building”, you need to go out and understand what customers think
00:15:00 – How to test hypotheses. Lean startup is just the scientific method, using minimum viable products
00:18:00 – What a “pivot” really is (and is not), a fundamental change to one or more components of the Business Model Canvas
00:22:00 – His problem with innovation theatre
00:25:30 – The need for an innovation doctrine in large companies, and startups going back to basics

Links mentioned in today’s episode:

Steve’s website: https://steveblank.com/

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Nick Skillicorn

Chief Editor, Founder & CEO at Improvides Innovation Consulting

Creativity & Innovation expert: I help individuals and companies build their creativity and innovation capabilities, so you can develop the next breakthrough idea which customers love. Chief Editor of Ideatovalue.com and Founder / CEO of Improvides Innovation Consulting. Coach / Speaker / Author / TEDx Speaker / Voted as one of the most influential innovation bloggers.