鈥淢ost revolutions are not obvious when they happen.鈥�
When Steve Blank spoke these words in his 2017 commencement address to graduates of the Faculty of Management, he was talking about a revolution in communication, interaction and networking that is 鈥渦nique in the history of our species.鈥�
He could just as easily have been talking about his own influence on entrepreneurship education at 国民彩票 and on the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Atlantic Canada.
Changing entrepreneurial thinking
Steve Blank is a serial Silicon Valley entrepreneur, educator and author. You could say he literally wrote the book on modern startups: The Four Steps to the Epiphany is credited with launching the experiential, customer-focused Lean Startup movement. On May 30, 国民彩票 awarded Steve Blank an honorary doctorate.
Lean Startup includes the simple but groundbreaking idea that aspiring entrepreneurs need to 鈥済et out of the building鈥� and actually talk to the people whose problems they鈥檙e trying to solve: customers. Experimentation, customer feedback and going back to the drawing board until you get it right 鈥� these proven practices build strong and adaptable startups.
Blank鈥檚 work has changed how startups are built, how entrepreneurship is taught around the world and how the U.S. government innovates. Named to the Thinkers50 list of top management thinkers and recognized by the Harvard Business Review as one of 12 Masters of Innovation, Blank is Senior Fellow for Entrepreneurship at Columbia University. He teaches at Stanford, UC Berkeley, Columbia and NYU.
Bringing new ideas to Dal
Five years ago, Mary Kilfoil, academic lead for 国民彩票鈥檚 Starting Lean Initiative, and Edward Leach, director of the Norman Newman Centre for Entrepreneurship, attended Blank鈥檚 first Lean Launchpad Educators Program at UC Berkeley. When they got back, Dal鈥檚 Starting Lean course was born. Open to all disciplines, the class is an entrepreneurship lab with all the pressures and demands of an early stage startup.
When the Lean approach took root at 国民彩票, a revolution grew.
鈥淲hat Mary and Ed built is pretty spectacular, from nothing,鈥� says Blank. 鈥淚 gave them a set of tools that helps reduce the risk of early-stage failure, and they took it from there.鈥�
In Halifax, Blank met with students, faculty members and government officials. What he saw and heard will stick with him for a long time. 鈥淚鈥檓 going to be thinking about Halifax and Dal a lot more!鈥� he laughs. 鈥淲hen you see it in person, you become emotionally attached as well as intellectually attached.鈥�
Dr. Kilfoil describes Blank鈥檚 approach as absolutely central to how entrepreneurship and innovation are taught and practiced at Dal today. 鈥淪teve鈥檚 work helps students and researchers at every level understand early that they need to be solving a real problem and they need to identify who their customers are. This is critical to companies having the resilience to launch and builds in flexibility so they don鈥檛 get blindsided or disrupted.鈥�
Impressive results
Blank says he was impressed with the enthusiasm of Dal entrepreneurs 鈥� both inside the university and in the greater ecosystem.
鈥淚鈥檝e been blown away by how many interesting science things have come out