Interview with Steve Blank in Moscow: “Do not confuse idea and business”
On September 15, Steve Blank flew to Moscow as part of his official visit to Russia. He held the first meeting in the office of PricewaterhouseCoopers and looked at the presentations of Russian start-up projects. After the event, the informal part began, where everyone could come up and talk to Steve Blank: ask for advice, ask a question or take an autograph.
We offer you an interview with the guru of entrepreneurship, a teacher and one of the most influential people in Silicon Valley. Steve Blank answered the main questions that interest any entrepreneur: what is important for a startup, how to learn entrepreneurship, what should be emphasized in presentations. You can watch the video version of the interview at the link .
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- What is your main advice for those who spoke today?
- My main advice is not to confuse the idea and business.
- And what is more important for business: people or technology and the idea?
- Different investors have different views and strategies, and this is good. As an entrepreneur, I started with the belief that the idea is important first of all, technology is important. But when I matured, I realized that it was not without reason that the phrase “goes to Silicon Valley:“ Average teams with first-class ideas always lose to first-class teams with average ideas ”(“ ideas "). Because the best teams subsequently still understand how they can improve the idea, but the lower level teams stay with their own, they can’t think of anything better. And my comment tonight was just about those people who present their idea in a general way, think that their business is only an idea and replaces these concepts. I can say that business is how quickly you learn from your customers and your market.
- You lead a course on entrepreneurship. Can anyone teach this art?
- Now, after 30 years of experience, I can say that entrepreneurship, and especially teaching it, is like learning art, like learning music or sculpture. Indeed, in modern society, we teach art and its correct perception of all, this is what, we believe, everyone should know. Therefore, the first thing I can say is that I think that not everyone will understand business well, but studying entrepreneurship should be a key subject in high school or university. Secondly, I teach the practical application of entrepreneurship, and now I have about 150 people in a class. And it is very similar to learning to draw or sculpture - I can’t tell you in advance who will be the best artist in the world only by his classroom results, and I can’t say who will become a world famous musician - anything is possible. And there is a difference between those who perform well and who compose well .... And even now, after hundreds of years of experience, we cannot say how to make a great composer out of a man. We can teach to speak, but how to teach to write? Therefore, I can say that I know how to teach company building methodologies, but I cannot predict who will leave my class and create a new Google, Facebook or Twitter. Because if I knew this, I would stop teaching and start investing!
- What is the most important thing in the process of teaching entrepreneurship?
- Build on practice. The balance between theory and practice should be 20% of theory, 80% of practice.
- What have you learned today?
- I often heard positive reviews about how smart Russian entrepreneurs are. And there is no doubt that you have a lot of talented people in the field of science and technology. But I still see problems in understanding what a start-up project is - that it’s not just a one or two slide show with a sketch of your future site and a request to allocate 100 thousand dollars for this. After all, in fact, I want to see how well your business can go, I want to see your understanding of all the risks associated with the market and customers - who they are, what they want, what channels they should use, etc. And these are typical mistakes of Russian entrepreneurs - not all, but some. Please do not make the same mistakes in Silicon Valley. And remember that we usually do not consider the presentation of projects like “Facebook and Groupon for pets”. We do not miss such ideas.
The final speech of Steve Blanc from this event you can read here .
We offer you an interview with the guru of entrepreneurship, a teacher and one of the most influential people in Silicon Valley. Steve Blank answered the main questions that interest any entrepreneur: what is important for a startup, how to learn entrepreneurship, what should be emphasized in presentations. You can watch the video version of the interview at the link .
')
- What is your main advice for those who spoke today?
- My main advice is not to confuse the idea and business.
- And what is more important for business: people or technology and the idea?
- Different investors have different views and strategies, and this is good. As an entrepreneur, I started with the belief that the idea is important first of all, technology is important. But when I matured, I realized that it was not without reason that the phrase “goes to Silicon Valley:“ Average teams with first-class ideas always lose to first-class teams with average ideas ”(“ ideas "). Because the best teams subsequently still understand how they can improve the idea, but the lower level teams stay with their own, they can’t think of anything better. And my comment tonight was just about those people who present their idea in a general way, think that their business is only an idea and replaces these concepts. I can say that business is how quickly you learn from your customers and your market.
- You lead a course on entrepreneurship. Can anyone teach this art?
- Now, after 30 years of experience, I can say that entrepreneurship, and especially teaching it, is like learning art, like learning music or sculpture. Indeed, in modern society, we teach art and its correct perception of all, this is what, we believe, everyone should know. Therefore, the first thing I can say is that I think that not everyone will understand business well, but studying entrepreneurship should be a key subject in high school or university. Secondly, I teach the practical application of entrepreneurship, and now I have about 150 people in a class. And it is very similar to learning to draw or sculpture - I can’t tell you in advance who will be the best artist in the world only by his classroom results, and I can’t say who will become a world famous musician - anything is possible. And there is a difference between those who perform well and who compose well .... And even now, after hundreds of years of experience, we cannot say how to make a great composer out of a man. We can teach to speak, but how to teach to write? Therefore, I can say that I know how to teach company building methodologies, but I cannot predict who will leave my class and create a new Google, Facebook or Twitter. Because if I knew this, I would stop teaching and start investing!
- What is the most important thing in the process of teaching entrepreneurship?
- Build on practice. The balance between theory and practice should be 20% of theory, 80% of practice.
- What have you learned today?
- I often heard positive reviews about how smart Russian entrepreneurs are. And there is no doubt that you have a lot of talented people in the field of science and technology. But I still see problems in understanding what a start-up project is - that it’s not just a one or two slide show with a sketch of your future site and a request to allocate 100 thousand dollars for this. After all, in fact, I want to see how well your business can go, I want to see your understanding of all the risks associated with the market and customers - who they are, what they want, what channels they should use, etc. And these are typical mistakes of Russian entrepreneurs - not all, but some. Please do not make the same mistakes in Silicon Valley. And remember that we usually do not consider the presentation of projects like “Facebook and Groupon for pets”. We do not miss such ideas.
The final speech of Steve Blanc from this event you can read here .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/128576/
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