Venture capitalists are partying as if it’s 1999—and we know how that went. Entrepreneurship 101 says startups should conserve cash, keep costs flexible, and operate with parsimony. Way too many founders in the 90’s laughed at that—the same way they’re laughing today. The Money Keeps Pouring In, But It Keeps Pouring Out, Too Investment in…
Business Start Ups / Entrepreneurship
Finding your arena – a new book and new toolkit
I was delighted to read Steve Blank’s great post featuring the work of my friend and colleague Marc Gruber. Marc and I have been colleagues since my days in the entrepreneurship program at Wharton and he continues with his research and teaching in this area at EPFL. Steve has recently discovered Marc’s 2017 book Where…
There is such a thing as a repeatable startup methodology
Among the many myths that corporate types have about startups (whether standalone or of the corporate variety) is that there is some kind of alchemy involved. Sort of “Steve Jobs arrives on a clamshell and the world is changed forever!”. They think growing new businesses requires some instinctive DNA that founders are born with and…
Forum for Dynamic Innovation at Columbia Event January 10
The last few years have seen a resurgence of what Steve Blank and other startups folks call ‘innovation theater‘. On January 10, I’ll be chatting with Steve and transformative CEO of HarperCollins, Brian Murray, about what comes next. You can read about the event details and register at this link. Under the heading the ‘Forum for…
Growth insights in a 45 minute Facebook live session!
No Powerpoints, no notes, just the team at Harvard Business Review, terrific and astute questions from viewers and a white board. Check out this free Facebook Live session that has already garnered over 132,000 views. In more news – For those with an interest, our Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship OnLine course is now in beta – let us know if…
Preparing for the 8th Annual Drucker Forum
A few years ago, I started attending the Global Peter Drucker Forum, which has become a real who’s who of management conferences. It takes place each November in Vienna and features luminaries and thought leaders from academia, business and consulting. This time out, I’ll be facilitating a panel discussion with Tim Brown of IDEO, Sarah…
What a startup can learn about customer needs from a medieval practice
In a recent article over at Fortune, I explore what Transferwise, a fast-growing new startup has rediscovered: an enduring customer need that is currently featuring in the migrant crisis, Hawala. The practice of Hawala originated centuries ago when traders were concerned that they would be waylaid by bandits along their routes of travel. So they worked out…
Now in development: Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship On-Line
What if you could take teams of people or individual contributors with an innovation mandate and have them go through a state of the art, hands-on and very applied journey through the essence of innovation in the convenience of an on-line format? Part executive development program, part coaching program and part real-time learning, the vision…
Corporate entrepreneurship’s latest incarnation-the virtual startup
In this insightful blog post, Steve Sokol runs through the pluses and minuses of being part of a startup within a large corporation, what he calls a “virtual startup.” The pluses are many – a salary, funding and office space among them. There are also some minuses – having to play nicely with corporate systems…
Workers of the World…upsides and downsides of the on-demand workforce
In an article that appeared the other day on CNBC, reporter Cadie Thompson mulls over the effects of all these on-demand companies that make their money by connecting people with tasks to be done or resources that in a previous era would not have been connected at all. While some enjoy the flexibility and control…