Harvard Business Review

MARCH 27, 2014

When investing in new growth businesses, corporate leaders are commonly advised to behave more like venture capitalists. So when they invest, they look for a business with the potential to hit it big (to cover the inevitable losses), and they take steps to learn quickly whether that possibility is remote or realistic.

Venture Capitalist 9

Venture Capitalist Discounted Cash Flow Parcell Project 9

Harvard Business Review

MAY 22, 2018

The problem is that many companies have the wrong “operating system” for organic growth. In our work with dozens of large companies on growth and transformation strategies, we’ve found a set of principles and practices that create an operating system for growth. That failure is not due to a lack of trying.

Organization 10

Organization Company Venture Capitalist B2B 10

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 24, 2011

Then Burda and Sulzberger leave the stage and are replaced by a panel featuring a couple of media executives plus Google's Nikesh Arora (who I guess is a media executive too), LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, and venture capitalist (and Facebook investor) Jim Breyer. How do you survive such a seemingly unending series of waves?

Disruptive Innovation 14

Disruptive Innovation Venture Capitalist Innovation Christensen 14

Harvard Business Review

MAY 24, 2012

To mitigate the investing risks associated with eroding market opportunities due to copycats, investors always look for companies with strong competitive resilience or those that are operating in markets with a high barrier to entry. So, from business books to business schools and corporate boards, everyone is talking about innovation.

Innovation 15

Innovation Incubator Venture Capitalist Entrepreneur 15

Harvard Business Review

JULY 30, 2013

As innovation thought leader Steve Blank notes, a startup is a temporary organization searching for a scalable business model. There are five ways to accelerate the search for a viable new-growth model: Form small, focused teams. But succeeding with disruption first requires developing a strategic plan that can be executed.

Innovation 11

Innovation Venture Capitalist Uncertainty Strategic Planning 11

Harvard Business Review

JULY 26, 2018

On March 25 mighty Uber bowed out of Southeast Asia by selling its operation in several countries to local rival Grab. In 2016 the company sold its China operation to Didi Chuxing because of the fierce competitiveness of the local player. A year later, Uber admitted defeat in another region, selling its operation in Russia to Yandex.

Transportation 10

Transportation Health Care Venture Capitalist Advertising 10

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 5, 2013

How long can a business model succeed that forces students to accumulate $200,000 or more in debt and cannot guarantee jobs — even years after graduation? But when it comes to core classes which don''t require labs or much in-person faculty interaction, does the current model justify the value-price equation?

Education 10

Education Venture Capitalist Business Model Technology 10

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 5, 2018

Real entrepreneurs often need to manage opinionated venture capitalists on their boards, or the chaos of a couple dozen individual investors. That is not to say people in a large company can’t successfully explore new business models, design remarkable products and experiences, or pursue new markets.

Entrepreneur 9

Entrepreneur Venture Capitalist Innovation Long-term 9

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 31, 2017

So much of the risks and challenges facing these companies involved whether their business models were legal. How could venture capitalists assess that risk to decide whether to invest? Is it a coincidence that two startups relying on business models that clashed so directly with regulators emerged at the same time?

CEO 8

CEO Hotels Venture Capitalist Storytelling 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

Venture capitalists are increasingly interested in emerging markets, and in working with local funds based in those markets (despite the fact that reverse innovation in venture capital seems counterintuitive). Editor's Note: This post was written with Justin Chakma, an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto (Canada).

Marketing 15

Marketing Venture Capitalist Biotechnology IPO 15

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 8, 2015

With its Emerging Businesses (EB) group (where one of us serves as President), Merck started a journey about three years ago with a core investment thesis: there are areas of growing unmet need in health care that intersect with its established competencies.

Health Care 8

Health Care Venture Capitalist Strategic Fit Pharmaceuticals 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 12, 2018

Companies are both operators and investors. Further, venture capitalists are jumping in with both feet. $4 Cloud-based hardware is also increasingly available to any business at low cost. Analytics are growing in every business function and industry. —are making substantial investments in AI as well.

Consultative 8

Consultative Strategy Advice McKinsey 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 13, 2014

The business model – where peers can offer and purchase goods and services from each other through an online platform – continues to be applied to new industries from car sharing to peer-to-peer fashion, among many others. Many sharing economy business models do raise legitimate concerns about user safety, privacy and access.

Business Model 9

Business Model Hotels Venture Capitalist Transportation 9

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 13, 2015

With the cost of starting digital companies low , local governments stimulating entrepreneurship , and venture capitalists expanding operations , graduates are seeking to become their own bosses right out of college. Come up with new ideas and business models to energize your team.

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist IPO Entrepreneur Banking 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 24, 2016

Specifically, the study found that S&P 500 companies where the founder is still CEO are more innovative, generate 31% more patents, create patents that are more valuable, and are more likely to make bold investments to renew and adapt the business model — demonstrating a willingness to take risk to invent the future.

Company 8

Company Venture Capitalist Long-term Hotels 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 17, 2014

Identifying this so-called “growth gap” is critical, because the bigger the gap, the more a company needs to look beyond its current offerings, markets, and business models to find growth opportunities. To assess such risks to your business, consider the following six questions: Is customer loyalty decreasing?

Innovation 9

Innovation Company Venture Capitalist Business Model 9

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 26, 2016

Venture capitalists have their radar out for and provide ample resources for the catalysts to scale up very quickly. The new game is to think about the business model and strategy for not just the company but the entire ecosystem. Radically reduce people dedicated to the old business.

Short-term 8

Short-term How To Venture Capitalist CFO 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 26, 2011

Many venture capitalists are limiting their investments to the "demand-side" — aimed at reducing energy use — rather than investing in startups trying to change the way we produce energy. Since energy startups operate in an ecosystem dominated by incumbents, they can benefit dramatically from use of incumbent resources.

Energy 10

Energy Finance IPO Biotechnology 10

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 6, 2014

With the ad market under $70 million, many of our local competitors were rapidly experimenting with new types of revenue and business models and were far ahead of us. By mid-2004, however, the operation was mired in conflict over control and differences in management style. search engine company Inktomi in 2002.

Chief Financial Officer 10

Chief Financial Officer Operations Learning-by-Doing IPO 10

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 24, 2016

Venture capitalists are head-over-heels in love with platform markets these days. Getting booted out of the fair would be the equivalent of being blacklisted from Amazon in a world where that was the only way of reaching your customers, which isn’t that far from the circumstances businesses operate in today.

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist Long-term Marketing Travel 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 27, 2018

All three factors have become more common over time, which we argue stems from firms’ increasing reliance on intangible and knowledge inputs in their business models. Emerging digital firms compete with knowledge, strategy, and expert human capital, attacking even the largest established firms.

IPO 11

IPO Company First-mover Advantage Intangible Assets 11

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 24, 2017

ICOs present both benefits and disadvantages, as well as threats and opportunities, to the traditional venture capital business model. Business in the Era of Blockchain. Venture capitalists, who generally have been standoffish to the ICO phenomenon, are now becoming more interested in it for a number of reasons.

Venture Capitalist 11

Venture Capitalist Due Diligence Finance Long-term 11

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 24, 2012

Here's why: the innovation revolution spurred by venture capitalists decades ago has created the conditions in which scale allows big companies to shift from shackling innovation to unleashing it. Innovation increasingly involves creating business models that tap big companies' unique strengths. This was Keyne Monson.

Innovation 8

Innovation Company Venture Capitalist Health Care 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 20, 2017

Much of corporate venturing today is fragmented and ad hoc. We often observe a wide-ranging set of initiatives and investments operating independently, and in some cases, even competitively. Startups inject new technical expertise, and venture capitalists offer funding and access to new talent.

Innovation 13

Innovation Productivity Products Venture Capitalist 13

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 19, 2018

In 2011, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen declared that “software is eating the world.” Walmart is the country’s largest employer and largest company by revenue and it reached that position through an operating model made possible by proprietary logistics software.

Software 8

Software Company Competitive Advantage Henderson 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 23, 2012

As a result, first time entrepreneurs frequently feel that they have been taken to the cleaners by venture capitalists. This exemplifies the famous golden rule of venture capital: "Whoever has the gold sets the rules." One of them claims, for example, to screen ventures using the "same criteria as venture capitalists."

Due Diligence 13

Due Diligence Venture Capitalist Entrepreneur Short-term 13

Harvard Business Review

MAY 3, 2018

By default, the two gold coasts have a self-sustaining edge: They have accumulated massive value, wealth, and power through the winner-take-all economics that govern many digital business models. In many cases, as with Skype, the size of the European operation shrank after the acquisition.

Company 8

Company Venture Capitalist GDP Retail 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 1, 2017

After all, most financial intermediaries themselves rely on a dizzying, complex, and costly array of intermediaries to run their own operations. This industry supports a number of intermediaries, such as investment bankers, exchange operators, auditors, lawyers, and crowd-funding platforms (such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo).

Finance 8

Finance IPO Banking Venture Capitalist 8