Steve Blank is a US serial-entrepreneur and academic. He has spent over thirty years working within the high technology industry and has founded or worked within eight startup companies, four of which have gone public.

Steve developed the Customer Development methodology, which is a cornerstone of the Lean Startup Movement- and is a consulting associate professor of entrepreneurship at Stanford University. He has published three books including most recently, The Startup Owner’s Manual.

You can find out more about Steve, and access a ton of excellent entrepreneurship resources, at www.steveblank.com

In this interview. Steve talks about:

• The key difference between startups and established companies
• How Steve developed the core Customer Development ideas
• Why the founder needs to take responsibility for the Customer Development process
• The importance of understanding the ecosystem
• The social discovery process
• The importance of testing idea on small scale