Steven Gary Blank
| Steve Blank | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 1953 (age 63–64) Lower East Side, New York City |
| Alma mater | University of Michigan (dropped out) |
| Occupation | Academic, Author, Entrepreneur |
| Known for | The Customer Development Methodology |
Steve Blank (born 1953) is a Silicon Valley serial-entrepreneur and academician who is based in Pescadero, California.
Blank is recognized for developing the Customer Development method that launched the Lean Startup movement, a methodology which recognized that startups are not smaller versions of large companies, but require their own set of processes and tools to be successful. His May 2013 cover story in the Harvard Business Review, “Why the Lean Startup Changes Everything,” defined the Lean Startup movement. His Lean Launchpad class (taught as the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps) has become the standard for commercialization for all federal research.
Blank has spent over 30 years within the high technology industry, founding or working within eight startup companies, four of which have gone public. He is the co-founder of E.piphany.
Retired since 1999, Blank writes and teaches about Customer Development and the Lean Startup method. He is an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at Stanford; lectures at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, and is a senior fellow at Columbia University, and New York University; is a prolific blogger and public speaker; and has written four books: The Four Steps to the Epiphany, Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost, The Startup Owner's Manual and Holding a Cat by the Tail.
Blank’s Google Tech talk, "The Secret History of Silicon Valley," offers a widely regarded insider's perspective on the emergence of Silicon Valley's startup ecosystem.
Blank was born to immigrant parents who ran a grocery in the Chelsea neighborhood in New York City. He grew up with a sister who was 12 years older than him and both siblings were raised by his mother after his father left home when he was aged 6. His parents had never been to college (his father dropped out in 8th grade) but hoped he would. He attended the University of Michigan, but dropped out after one semester.
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