Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 22, 2016

When it comes to consumer-facing service industries like e-commerce, media, and ride- or apartment-sharing, it’s not new to suggest that “software is eating the world,” to use the phrase of venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. Second, a number of important inputs have gotten cheaper.

Entrepreneur 8

Entrepreneur Contract Manufacturing Incubator Venture Capitalist 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 9, 2014

The most successful, visionary entrepreneurs dream not of millions of dollars, but of a world where their products change culture. But in technology startups, particularly venture-backed technology startups, the current investment climate does not always support that vision. Entrepreneurship Finance'

Entrepreneur 8

Entrepreneur Venture Capitalist Mezzanine Short-term 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 27, 2014

Many people come to the Silicon Valley in search of nonconformist entrepreneurs, looking for the next big thing. The way to conform in the Silicon Valley is to act like an entrepreneur. To find a nonconformist entrepreneur, we should look to places where entrepreneurship is unpopular. Consider Tokyo.

Entrepreneur 8

Entrepreneur Venture Capitalist Business Incubator IPO 8

Strategy Driven

JULY 15, 2019

Starting a new business venture can be an incredibly exciting time, but you must also be careful and well-organized during this period, especially when it comes to your finances. This can be tricky with so many areas that need attention and particularly if this is your first business venture. Venture capitalists.

Entrepreneur 63

Entrepreneur Tips Venture Capitalist Insurance 63

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 5, 2018

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. Engineers became entrepreneurs and got rich. Engineers became entrepreneurs and got rich.

Technology 8

Technology Venture Funding Venture Capitalist Entrepreneur 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 7, 2012

Our research suggests that investors like us succumb time and again to narrative fallacies, a well-studied behavioral finance bias. Most of the funds in which Kauffman invested failed to beat public market indices, despite the higher-risk nature of their work. Many successful venture capitalists observe directional patterns.

Venture Capitalist 15

Venture Capitalist Christensen Incubator Porter 15

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. The net result is that many VCs now turn down promising companies that might contribute to transforming the way we produce energy.

Energy 10

Energy Finance IPO Biotechnology 10

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 7, 2018

More recently, it has gained attention as a way to finance new ventures, through what is known as an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). Less noticed, though, is ICOs appear almost antithetical to the standard approach to financing a risky venture. Blockbuster capital raises will always occur in unusual situations (e.g.,

Cost 8

Cost Decentralization Finance Entrepreneur 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 7, 2012

Our research suggests that investors like us succumb time and again to narrative fallacies, a well-studied behavioral finance bias. Most of the funds in which Kauffman invested failed to beat public market indices, despite the higher-risk nature of their work. Many successful venture capitalists observe directional patterns.

Venture Capitalist 12

Venture Capitalist Christensen Incubator Porter 12

Harvard Business Review

JULY 18, 2012

Many venture capitalists are up in the arms because their returns are down, their funds are drying up, and there appear to be a declining number of entrepreneurs pursuing big ideas. Unfortunately, venture capitalists have mixed up their causality. Unfortunately, venture capitalists have mixed up their causality.

Venture Capitalist 15

Venture Capitalist Software Entrepreneur Engineering 15

Harvard Business Review

JULY 18, 2012

Many venture capitalists are up in the arms because their returns are down, their funds are drying up, and there appear to be a declining number of entrepreneurs pursuing big ideas. Unfortunately, venture capitalists have mixed up their causality. Unfortunately, venture capitalists have mixed up their causality.

Venture Capitalist 15

Venture Capitalist Software Entrepreneur Engineering 15

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

Most great businesspeople I've met would correctly advise an entrepreneur to avoid raising money if possible. If your business has high velocity, high margins, and a huge market, venture may be a good road for you. The notes below are practical working tips on how to go about navigating venture capitalist conversations.

Venture Capitalist 15

Venture Capitalist Advice Venture Funding Incubator 15

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 24, 2013

Research by Harvard Business School senior lecturer Shikhar Ghosh, in fact, has found that fully 75% of venture capital-backed startups — presumably the crème de la crème of the startup world — failed to return the capital invested in them to their investors (let alone generate positive returns). Entrepreneurship Strategy'

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist Supply Chain Long-term Christensen 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 23, 2013

There’s a sense that it’s up to us to get the country back to work, and that’s driving entrepreneurs to Detroit, Baltimore, Providence, and any number of cities that have struggled with unemployment. Raising venture capital isn’t the be all and end all of entrepreneurial success. Against this backdrop, venture capital is aggregating.

IPO 8

IPO Venture Capitalist Entrepreneur Competitive Advantage 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 10, 2013

I met Slovenian entrepreneur, Sandi Cesko, in 2007 when his Ljubljana -based multi-channel retail operation, Studio Moderna , had about $70 million in sales. That dialog includes all stakeholders, from the entrepreneurs themselves to investors to government policymakers. Even better. Not" is not a typo.

Entrepreneur 8

Entrepreneur IPO Incentives Venture Capitalist 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 20, 2016

He embarked on a networking campaign that forced him to meet each week with people outside the company, including executive recruiters, venture capitalists, startup entrepreneurs, and more. 85% of your closest contacts are fellow marketers), it’s time to think consciously about how to diversify.

Industry 8

Industry Venture Capitalist Bond Groupthink 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 8, 2013

It also received its early stage finance from the U.S. Venture capitalists entered only after government funding had gotten the company to the critical proof of concept. Even development banks in emerging economies, like China and Brazil, are doing more than Silicon Valley-type "entrepreneurs.".

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist Biotechnology Fashion Innovation 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 26, 2012

Over the years, venture capitalists have been some of the most ardent students of disruptive innovation. Large pools of capital have been funding risky ventures since antiquity (for example, when the wealthy Marcus Crassus backed an upstart Roman general named Julius Caesar). He was right.

Disruptive Innovation 14

Disruptive Innovation Hedge Venture Capitalist Venture Funding 14

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

With interest rates at historic lows, market volatility, political uncertainty, the European crisis, severe commodity price fluctuations, and other unpredictable market conditions, corporate brands and executives have been understandably inclined to sit on the sidelines. But history shows that cash cannot sit idle indefinitely.

Intangible Assets 8

Intangible Assets Venture Capitalist White Paper Real Estate 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 6, 2014

At the time, though, we were just in search of a new approach to building a sustainable business in that critical but often difficult market. In fact, you could say (and many did) that our previous attempts had failed, in that we hadn’t established a sustained market position. Things hadn’t gone well up until that point.

Chief Financial Officer 8

Chief Financial Officer Operations Learning-by-Doing IPO 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 24, 2017

The venture capital industry is beginning to take a good, hard look at a new financial instrument coming out of the bitcoin community — Initial Coin Offerings , or ICOs. ICOs present both benefits and disadvantages, as well as threats and opportunities, to the traditional venture capital business model. Insight Center.

Venture Capitalist 9

Venture Capitalist Due Diligence Finance Long-term 9

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 26, 2013

First-time entrepreneurs lack the seasoning to captain a steady ship through turbulent waters. Inexperienced friends and family (and, increasingly, crowdsourced investors) lack the ability to gauge the viability of a business, or to mentor naïve entrepreneurs. For them the goal is to achieve customer validation, not financing.

Incubator 14

Incubator Business Incubator Real Estate Venture Capitalist 14

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 26, 2016

Executives and entrepreneurs from all over the world have traveled to Silicon Valley to learn the secrets of its success. We met with leaders at private equity funds, venture capitalists, and incubators, including Andreessen Horowitz and Playground. The kind of innovation that creates new markets always goes against the grain.

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist Company Succession Long-term 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 17, 2012

In fact, one of the social entrepreneurs in Fast Company's League of Extraordinary Women shared with me that she chose to designate her business a non-profit because women were willing to make donations hand-over-fist, but they wouldn't invest. Some of the dreams I finance are close to home. Investing is about taking stock in you.

Finance 8

Finance P&L Due Diligence Hedge 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 2, 2011

Bravo entrepreneurs. Bravo venture capitalists. Obama has placed real entrepreneurs at the heart of the dialogue, and you appear to be listening to them. As a leader, Obama makes entrepreneurship a top priority, and has consistently promoted entrepreneurs as central economic actors and key to economic recovery.

Venture Capitalist 14

Venture Capitalist Entrepreneur Microfinance Finance 14

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 1, 2013

Social entrepreneurs often grapple with the decision of whether to establish their organizations as nonprofit or for-profit in order to reach their goals. I've stood at this crossroads myself, and share my own experience here in the hopes that it will help inform other social entrepreneurs facing the same decision.

NGO 8

NGO Venture Capitalist Entrepreneur Short-term 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 17, 2013

Social entrepreneurs are stultified by traditional forms of financing. They have virtually no access to capital markets and little flexibility to experiment at various stages of growth. Too often donors starve organizations and entrepreneurs by refusing to cover overhead. Compare that to the world of venture capital.

Venture Capitalist 9

Venture Capitalist Entrepreneur Bond Finance 9

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. It worked with a local partner to create India's first financing plan for medical devices.

Innovation 8

Innovation Company Venture Capitalist Health Care 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 7, 2015

Tip 2: Talk to all the actors, not just entrepreneurs. Thinking that entrepreneurs alone reflect the entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem is a common mistake by even esteemed experts. Don’t just make a beeline to the entrepreneurs and venture capitalists; get a broad multi-disciplinary cross section.

Innovation 8

Innovation Planning Tourism Venture Capitalist 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 10, 2015

Only a handful of so-called unicorns — companies that have achieved a valuation of over $1 billion in the last 10 years — come from Israel, and only one Israeli firm, Teva, ranks in the world’s 500 largest companies by market capitalization. That’s disappointing for a country with so much potential. We think so.

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist Entrepreneur Marketing IPO 8

The Horizons Tracker

SEPTEMBER 15, 2020

Over the last few decades, innovation activity has become concentrated in clusters or ecosystems, where finance, academia, industry and entrepreneurs rub shoulders to allow the free flow of ideas. Under such conditions, entrepreneurs must be creators who build industries rather than disrupters who change them.”.

Innovation 86

Innovation Venture Capitalist Entrepreneur Crisis 86

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 7, 2014

Ford still may have produced the best car for the money, but Sloan’s GM trounced Ford Motors by producing the best product lines for the market. Alfred Sloan’s dream took in what Ford missed in his single-minded pursuit of value for money: the importance of marketing. My Years does not tell the story of improved efficiency, for sure.

Decentralization 8

Decentralization Venture Capitalist Price Engineering 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 25, 2018

How has technology changed which deals venture capitalists (VCs) fund and how they fund them? Venture capitalists essentially invest in startup ‘experiments’, and subsequently provide more funding to the experiments that work, so that they can run more experiments. Atomic Imagery/Getty Images.

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist Finance Venture Funding Cost 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 23, 2012

But the crowdfunding jewel is fool's gold, and is inherently incapable of harnessing "people-to-people power" and the "wisdom of crowds" to "democratize access to capital for entrepreneurs" in order to "create wealth and make things happen," as crowdfunding sites publicly proclaim. I know it is not good for the investors."

Due Diligence 12

Due Diligence Venture Capitalist Entrepreneur Short-term 12

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 21, 2016

In connecting creators and entrepreneurs directly with customers and funders, it transforms the opaque and oligarchical market for early-stage fundraising into a more democratic, open one. Crowdfunding acts as a platform, matching innovators with those who need innovation, and thus is reshaping which ideas come to market.

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist Project Diversity Technology 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 1, 2017

After all, how do you cut cost from a business or market whose structure has fundamentally changed? For example, consider how new business ventures access growth capital. If the world of venture capital can change radically in one year, what else can we transform? Here, blockchain is a real game changer.

Finance 8

Finance IPO Banking Venture Capitalist 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 25, 2016

These misunderstandings have allowed the wrong narratives to drive policy making, with individual entrepreneurs and companies as the central characters of the story. Entrepreneurs then see growth opportunities, and business investment follows. Yozma in Israel, and Sitra and Tekes in Finland have actively shaped and created markets.

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist Cost-Benefit Analysis Policies Drucker 8