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Resources from Steve Blank’s talk to NorCal BMA on Wed

Steve Blank could almost be said to be my hero. It’s too bad I already did my MBA and that I’m no longer itching for an Econ PhD, because I’d otherwise go over to Haas to sit at his proverbial feet.

It sounds hyperbolic, but this guy has done more to address the mind-numbingly repetitive and crushingly destructive “common wisdom” around how startups start up than anyone else I can think of. He’s got a book, which he calls a pamphlet (my world won’t encompass pamphlets at 200 pgs), which you should own. It’s called Four Steps to the ePiphany - a “private joke” no doubt riffing on Steve’s experience co-founding enterprise sw company ePiphany. Get it at CafePress while you’re up there getting your Creative Communist stuff, or whatever geek wear you’re after. Get it and read it.

Here’s a story for you to illustrate how much sense this stuff makes:   I once gave a photocopy of the first two or so chapters to a salesguy. Now, that’s usually pretty foolish since, having been responsible for thousands of pages of content for sales guys, I know they hardly ever read stuff (not a slam, most of what marketing gives them is not immediately useful - a criteria I respect). Well, in this case, I came upon this salesguy reading this book — with — get this — a highlighter. I almost fell over. Note that this sales guy is now doing very well with happy startups.

So here are Steve’s materials from the NorCal BMA main event luncheon held on Wed: the presentation that he gave (not all of which he had time to go through, so I’m especially happy to have this), and an electronic copy of his booklist, which replaces the printout that I actually thought of scanning in.

Thanks to Steve for coming out!