Private Equity
"I've decided to write a book," I told my wife over a year ago. She gave me that what-the-bleep-are-you-talking-about look. You may be familiar with your spouse. "You've what?" "I've decided to write a book," I repeated, slightly less confidently. "On what?" "Venture capital and entreneurship." "Why?" "Well, when I was an entrepreneur, I couldn't find any good books on how this mysterious capital-raising process worked and how to harness the resources and knowledge of the VC industry to help build my start-up. Now that I've seen it from the other side, I want to explain to entrepreneurs how it all works to help them be successful. There are good blogs out there, but no good books that pull it all together."
2 min read · 10 March 2010
Recently an entrepreneur extraordinaire I admire by the name of Chris Dixon touched on the two general paradigms people/institutions can adopt towards one another when conducting business. He first referenced the transactional/legalistic approach wherein labor is exchanged for money in the form of a contract that is enforced by organizations, (especially the legal system). The other approach is one based on trust, verbal agreements, reputation and is "enforced" (so to speak) by the community. As Dixon points out, the world of startups is overwhelmingly governed by the trust/reputation/community approach. Let's just juxtapose these very different paradigms against the backdrop of the modern American university. As we've established in earlier posts in this series, it has now become fashionable and accepted for universities and their tech transfer offices to engage in the practice of spinning-off companies based on their intellectual property and know-how. In fact, according to AUTM statistics, over 600 university startups are created every year based on federally funded R&D.
5 min read · 05 March 2010
I'll never forget my first marketing class at business school. Our professor peered at us with an intense glare as he pushed back on our standard, "chip shot" comments. At one point he asked the guy next to me to opine on the case we were discussing, which involved launching a new consumer product. "Well," my neighbor answered confidently, "I think it will be a hit because I can see my mother-in-law buying it." "I see," replied my professor dryly and then turned to the class with a withering look on his face, "Steve appears to have fallen into that fatal trap of 'Mother In Law Market Research' - believing this new product will be a hit just because his mother-in-law likes it. Instead, let's look at the data, shall we?"
3 min read · 26 February 2010
2 min read · 10 February 2010
If you’re in the mood for a really enjoyable film, I recommend Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes. In it he uses the latest movie-making technologies to animate 19th century London in all its dark immensity and brooding menace- from the elegant halls of parliament to the ornate rooms of masonic temples to the labyrinthine sewers beneath the city. The sets and staging in and of themselves are a masterpiece and are simply breathtaking. I think the production designer should be nominated for yet another Academy Award. I also came to this film with a sensibility that I did not have when I first encountered Holmes as a young boy reading Conan Doyle. I was of course neither an entrepreneur nor an early-stage investor. Not surprisingly, this time, soon after leaving the theater something I had never considered before really hit me. I was struck by the realization that Sherlock would have made an amazing venture capitalist! "What a perfectly silly notion my dear Watson!", he would no doubt have replied. But I would have to insist and say that VC's and Angel Investors young and old would do well to emulate some of Sherlock’s best qualities. Here they are as I see them:
5 min read · 10 February 2010
In his storied baseball career, Curt Schilling has rarely found himself at a loss for words. So it was great fun to watch him sit speechless for an hour as Harvard Business School students dissected his entrepreneurial venture and some of the choices he was making as a manager, leader and strategist. The setting was akin to sitting around the living room analyzing last night's World Series pitching performance. Judging from the rigor of their analysis, the students would have put a bevy of ESPN and newspaper sportscasters to shame. The two classes I taught this week at HBS, based on a case that I co-authored with Professor Noam Wasserman called "Curt Schilling's Next Pitch" (which you can order here from HBS Press), were energized to have Schilling in the classroom alongside his CEO Jen Maclean. Although none of the students can relate to his triumphs and tribulations as a professional athlete (save one student who was a professional soccer player before turning to a business career!), they could all relate to his struggles to launch his gaming start-up, 38 Studios, and his efforts to chart a course for success for the growing company, which now has over 130 employees.
3 min read · 10 February 2010
3 min read · 10 February 2010
1 min read · 10 February 2010
4 min read · 10 February 2010
3 min read · 10 February 2010
