How to Fail Less

by Amy Kwan
A few months ago, Steve Blank, our advisor at StartupMonthly, gave a presentation at an ARPA-E conference on the scientific method for getting technology to market, or, as he puts it, how to fail less.  In his presentation, Steve outlines ways to make startups successful.  He provides examples of startup ventures and how they utilized his tools for success.  He emphasizes that a startup’s goal must be to search for a repeatable and scalable business plan, utilizing agile engineering and a business model canvas.  

Here are some interesting things that I learned from his presentation.  

• Startups fail because they confuse the idea of searching for a business plan with executing a business plan – startups cannot utilize existing plans.  Instead, startups need to keep searching for the right business plan.

---

• No business plan survives its first contact with customers – keep talking to customers because they will help shape your business plan.
• Any business can be described in 9 building blocks, known as the business model canvas.
  
  
• Startup Monthly’s Startup Accelerator program follows the same guidelines that Steve presents in helping new ventures succeed.  If you’re interesting in learning more about our process, check out the program here.  Deadline to apply to our November Startup Accelerator program is 9/15/12.
  

Check out Steve’s blog post about his presentation here.