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Why Some of the Most Groundbreaking Technologies Are a Bad Fit for the Silicon Valley Funding Model

Harvard Business Review

The myth of Silicon Valley is that venture-funded entrepreneurship is a generalizable model that can be applied to every problem, when in actuality it is a model that was built to commercialize mature technologies for certain markets. The Silicon Valley Model. The Hard Road of Hard Tech. ” An Alternative Path. .”

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Why Estonia Is Letting Entrepreneurs Become “E-Residents”

Harvard Business Review

in 2011 to 2.9% If the public sector is to realize the full potential of digital technology to transform public finances and even kickstart national economic growth, governments will have to move beyond streamlining services and cutting red-tape for entrepreneurs. The Singaporean economy’s growth rate went from 6.2%

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How Organic Wine Finally Caught On

Harvard Business Review

The paltry market for organic wine around the world belies the fact that over the past half century, countless organic winegrowers and vintners have dedicated great effort to creating a larger market for the category, without much success. While 6% of the wine sold at Systembolaget in 2011 was organic, by 2016 it was over 20%.

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How to Know If a Spin-Off Will Succeed

Harvard Business Review

The first category is exogenous factors over which the business has little control: the growth of the markets into which it sells; the competitive intensity and thus the average profitability of the industry in which it operates; or the fragmentation of its industry and thus the scope for a growth-by-acquisition approach.

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Private Equity Can Make Firms More Innovative

Harvard Business Review

If you ask someone who works in finance (as I had to) about PE and innovation, he or she will likely tell you that PE sponsors aren’t looking for the next big thing—they’re looking for companies that are dominant in a market, aren’t risky, and have a predictable and steady stream of cash to pay back debt.

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How Investors React When Companies Announce They’re Moving to a SaaS Business Model

Harvard Business Review

Due to the fast growth of the SaaS market and the high valuations of SaaS startups, a move toward SaaS seems very compelling for traditional software vendors. For example, in 2014 IDC estimated that more than one-quarter of enterprise applications would be offered with the SaaS model by 2018, up from one-sixth in 2013.

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Could a Four-Year-Old Do What Carl Icahn Does?

Harvard Business Review

He is no Jim Simons , using his mathematical genius to outsmart the market in (to an outsider) incomprehensible ways. In 2011 it was $2 billion , good for third place. stock markets over Icahn’s career, it’s a simple factual assertion — the total return on the S&P 500 has substantially outstripped economic growth.

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