Economist’s special report on entrepreneurship: Global Heroes

Howard Stevenson & Ramana Nanda in the Economist’s special report on entrepreneurship: Global Heroes

Check it out. Here.

Noam Wasserman - “Founders of CEO”

Today I attended a seminar by Noam Wasserman, who teaches a second-year MBA elective, entitled “Money and Power in Entrepreneurial Ventures,” that is based on his research over the last decade at Harvard.  From 2004-2007, he taught in HBS’s required first-year MBA course on Entrepreneurial Management, and he has also taught in Harvard’s Doctoral and Executive Education programs.  For three years in a row, Noam’s MBA students elected him to teach their “second-year reunion” classes (Capstone and EC Viewpoints).  He is one of three members of the core faculty of the Kauffman Foundation’s Global Scholars program, and has delivered numerous keynote addresses to meetings of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) and various entrepreneurship conferences.

The main points that came from the reading material were:

If, as an entrepreneur your batting for a home-run or your “swinging for the fences” in baseball terms you have a greater chance of “striking out” where if you went for  single or a double there would be more chance to succeed. Meaning, sometimes its better to aim for smaller more achievable targets rather than aim for something that ‘could’ be unattainable or at least of having a high risk of failure.

From the reading prep I took away a few interesting points, which I think any startup or entrepreneur should at least think about:

• Don’t try to build too much, too soon.
• Don’t create something that you wouldn’t use yourself and be excited by.
• Don’t raise too much money too soon.
• Do listen to your gut instinct.
• Do focus, not necessarily at first but at some point it will help to narrow to one area.
• Do be picky, don’t except any old deal, employee or advice.
• Do have balance. The old saying “work hard, play hard” - it will help you through the hard times and help to motivate.

Rich or King?

Whilst reading through a case study in prep for this weeks seminars I came across the paragraph below, I think its worth passing on.

Choosing between money and power allows entrepreneurs to come to grips with what success means to them. Founders who want to manage empires will not believe they are a success if they loose control, even if they end up rich. Conversely, founders who understand that their goal is to amass wealth will not view themselves as failures when they step down from their top job.

Once they realize why they are turning entrepreneur, founders must, as the old chinese proverb says, “decide on three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting game.”

(source : Harvard Business Review)