Venture capital

In this article, Bob Zider, president of the Beta Group, a California-based firm that invests in commercializing new technologies, presents an analysis...

For decades now, venture capitalists have played a crucial role in the economy by financing high-growth start-ups. While the companies they've backed--Amazon,...

Most entrepreneurs understand that if the fundamentals of a business idea—the management team, the market opportunities, the operating systems and controls—are sound, chances are there’s money out there. The challenge of landing that capital to grow a company can be exhilarating. But as exciting as the money search may be, it is equally threatening. Built […]

Three lessons, based on a study of more than 200 senior-level executives.

The deck is stacked against entrepreneurs who aren't in San Francisco Bay, New York, or Boston.

There are billions of potential customers, but can you reach them?

In Silicon Valley, exciting new business ideas rapidly attract capital and talent away from less worthy ventures. But in big companies, ideas, capital, and talent are stagnant—prisoners of traditional bureaucratic ways of allocating resources. To capture the Valley’s entrepreneurial magic, your company needs to move from resource allocation to resource attraction.

Recent research suggests that how new business ideas are presented may matter more than the quality of the ideas themselves.

It's more global, more urban, and more winner-take-all.

There are two views on entrepreneurship in America: the first (largely feigned), that it is a pure virtue like freedom of speech or religion, and the second (real) attitude that it is largely a game for the naïve. Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Michael Dell make fine fodder for commencement speeches, but when parents and […]

And for hiring more female investors.

How investors can start seeing more opportunities.

Findings from a language analysis study in Sweden.

Most successful entrepreneurs never take any venture capital.

While a few cities dominate, more are getting in on the game.

In one of my posts last year, I shared a framework for more effective negotiations. The first step of the framework described the need for pre-negotiation homework with an emphasis on understanding the specific interests and positions of the opposing side. Making a list of these points is the right starting place as it helps […]

An analysis of more than 4,000 firms, their founders, and their funders.

Mark Twain is supposed to have said that “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” It’s apparently a belief shared by many stock market analysts, who often extrapolate future earnings on the basis of historical results. But rhyming is different from predicting and the analysts’ forecasts remain vulnerable to exogenous shocks and the disruptive […]

Jack Brandon’s initial idea has not panned out, and the cash is nearly gone. But he’s got a new plan. Will you back him a second time?

Lose sight of that and you lose the company.