When The Customer Is King: Visionary Entrepreneur Shares Insights With Cate School Students

April 20, 2009 - PRLog -- Retired "serial" entrepreneur Steve Blank founded or helped to found eight startup companies in just over 20 years in California’s Silicon Valley. Not all of them succeeded, but those that did launched Blank into a pantheon of legendary businesspeople that includes name like Trump and Jobs.  

Today Blank volunteers for causes he cares about--he was appointed by the Governor to serve on California's Coastal Commission--and teaches at numerous universities, including UC Berkeley, Stanford and Columbia. He extended his teachings to a few lucky local high school students last week when he visited an economics class at Carpinteria's Cate School, a private boarding school serving students in grades 9-12.

In the course of his presentation, Blank opened students' eyes to the opportunities and pitfalls associated with starting up one's own business, including the common mistakes he believes hinder most young startups. Blank's "Customer Development Model" for early stage companies posits entrepreneurship as a practice that can be managed rather than just  an art form to be experienced, and is being adopted by many entrepreneurs and venture capitalists because of its high success rate. Key tenets of this model include low cash "burn" at the outset of a young company, constant contact with potential customers, and continual product iteration by shipping as early as possible for product refinement based on customer feedback.

Blank's lively discussion with Cate students surely left it's mark--these fortunate students gained valuable insight into successful entrepreneurship.

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Located one mile from the ocean, in the foothills of Santa Barbara County, Cate School is a coeducational college preparatory boarding school of 265 students. Founded in 1910, the School delivers a demanding academic program resulting in a breadth and depth of scholarly inquiry. In an intimate setting, students and teachers together pursue high ideals. Cate's mission statement reads: "Through commitment, scholarship, companionship, and service, each member of the Cate community contributes to what our founder called "the spirit of this place...all compounded of beauty and virtue, quiet study, vigorous play, and hard work."