Why Startups Fail


Book Description

If you want your startup to succeed, you need to understand why startups fail. “Whether you’re a first-time founder or looking to bring innovation into a corporate environment, Why Startups Fail is essential reading.”—Eric Ries, founder and CEO, LTSE, and New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way Why do startups fail? That question caught Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann by surprise when he realized he couldn’t answer it. So he launched a multiyear research project to find out. In Why Startups Fail, Eisenmann reveals his findings: six distinct patterns that account for the vast majority of startup failures. • Bad Bedfellows. Startup success is thought to rest largely on the founder’s talents and instincts. But the wrong team, investors, or partners can sink a venture just as quickly. • False Starts. In following the oft-cited advice to “fail fast” and to “launch before you’re ready,” founders risk wasting time and capital on the wrong solutions. • False Promises. Success with early adopters can be misleading and give founders unwarranted confidence to expand. • Speed Traps. Despite the pressure to “get big fast,” hypergrowth can spell disaster for even the most promising ventures. • Help Wanted. Rapidly scaling startups need lots of capital and talent, but they can make mistakes that leave them suddenly in short supply of both. • Cascading Miracles. Silicon Valley exhorts entrepreneurs to dream big. But the bigger the vision, the more things that can go wrong. Drawing on fascinating stories of ventures that failed to fulfill their early promise—from a home-furnishings retailer to a concierge dog-walking service, from a dating app to the inventor of a sophisticated social robot, from a fashion brand to a startup deploying a vast network of charging stations for electric vehicles—Eisenmann offers frameworks for detecting when a venture is vulnerable to these patterns, along with a wealth of strategies and tactics for avoiding them. A must-read for founders at any stage of their entrepreneurial journey, Why Startups Fail is not merely a guide to preventing failure but also a roadmap charting the path to startup success.




Learning from Entrepreneurial Failure


Book Description

Provides an in-depth examination of the psychological obstacles to learning from entrepreneurial failure and how these can be overcome.




Entrepreneurial Cognition


Book Description

This open access book investigates the inter-relationship between the mind and a potential opportunity to explore the psychology of entrepreneurship. Building on recent research, this book offers a broad scope investigation of the different aspects of what goes on in the mind of the (potential) entrepreneur as he or she considers the pursuit of a potential opportunity, the creation of a new organization, and/or the selection of an entrepreneurial career. This book focuses on individuals as the level of analysis and explores the impact of the organization and the environment only inasmuch as they impact the individual’s cognitions. Readers will learn why some individuals and managers are able to able to identify and successfully act upon opportunities in uncertain environments while others are not. This book applies a cognitive lens to understand individuals’ knowledge, motivation, attention, identity, and emotions in the entrepreneurial process.




OB: The Essentials


Book Description

Robbins: Leading the way in OB Written as an alternative to Robbins’ larger Organisational Behaviour text, OB: The Essentials is an applied and focused text that will help your students to quickly grasp the essential elements of OB. In an engaging 13 chapter format, this book retains the fluid writing style, academic rigour and extensive use of examples that are trademark features of the Robbins texts. While there are less chapters, the book continues to provide cutting-edge content that is often missing in other OB books – this is not merely a subset of material from Robbin’s Organisational Behaviour text; it was written from the ground up to present all the essential content in a shorter format. This new text will have broad appeal; particularly to visual learners who will appreciate the lively design and extensive use of examples and photographs to aid comprehension and retention of concepts. New co-author Dr Michael Jones of the University of Wollongong brings his avid enthusiasm for student education as well as a solid research background in motivation, commitment and business operations to the new text. Reviewers and users of the Robbins texts regularly report that they are ‘conversational’, ‘interesting’, ‘student-friendly’ and ‘very clear and understandable’. Packed full of pedagogical features that will engage and stimulate your students, OB: The Essentials will ensure that they are getting a sound understanding of OB. Features such as the ‘Applying Knowledge’ and ‘Student Challenge’ boxes prompt students to apply and think strategically about what they have just learnt.




Inside the Mind of the Entrepreneur


Book Description

This book connects entrepreneurship and psychology research by focusing on the personality dimensions of entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial cognition, entrepreneurial leadership, and gender behavior. It features state of the art interdisciplinary research offering a unified perspective on entrepreneurial psychology. Individual chapters address advances related to entrepreneurial intentions, complexity management, personality psychology, intrapreneurial behavior, entrepreneurial communities and demographic changes, among others. Laboratory experiments that study entrepreneurial behavior round out the coverage.




Entrepreneurial Failure


Book Description

Entrepreneurs act in environments of great risk and high uncertainty, and as a result, failure is a common occurrence. For this volume, Professor Shepherd has made a judicious selection of published articles, which explore the antecedents to and potential outcomes of entrepreneurial failure. By understanding these causes and consequences, entrepreneurs may become better able to manage failure, to reduce its costs and to capitalize on its benefits. With an insightful original introduction by the editor, the book provides an authoritative guide to current scholarly debate in this topical area and lays a foundation for future study.




Innovation and Entrepreneurship


Book Description

This book presents a new model, the competency framework, for students, innovators, entrepreneurs, managers, and anyone who wants to better understand the dynamic world of innovation and entrepreneurship. Focused on both the individual and strategic organizational level, this book is about people and the competencies each person needs to learn to be successful in creating a more dynamic future. Matthews and Brueggemann’s framework for innovation and entrepreneurship competencies empowers individuals to excel at innovation and new venture creation. It provides a practical guide and clear and concise understanding of the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and experiences that are needed to increase imagination, creativity, innovation and new venture creation capability. Innovation and Entrepreneurship will be attractive for students of entrepreneurship, innovation, management and cross-disciplinary classes, such as design thinking. Presented in a modular format, Innovation & Entrepreneurship informs the future direction of people and technology, as well as the educational systems producing the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs. Based on extensive academic research, this book is organized into two sections: Twelve innovation elements and twelve competency categories. The elements are the foundation and the competency categories are the building blocks that inform our path toward a more precise understanding of how innovation and entrepreneurship plays an important role in economic development and our daily lives.




Entrepreneurial Action


Book Description

Volume 14 addresses the central issue of entrepreneurial action: while many factors are important to the phenomenon of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship does not happen until someone takes action!




The Fearless Organization


Book Description

Conquer the most essential adaptation to the knowledge economy The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth offers practical guidance for teams and organizations who are serious about success in the modern economy. With so much riding on innovation, creativity, and spark, it is essential to attract and retain quality talent—but what good does this talent do if no one is able to speak their mind? The traditional culture of "fitting in" and "going along" spells doom in the knowledge economy. Success requires a continuous influx of new ideas, new challenges, and critical thought, and the interpersonal climate must not suppress, silence, ridicule or intimidate. Not every idea is good, and yes there are stupid questions, and yes dissent can slow things down, but talking through these things is an essential part of the creative process. People must be allowed to voice half-finished thoughts, ask questions from left field, and brainstorm out loud; it creates a culture in which a minor flub or momentary lapse is no big deal, and where actual mistakes are owned and corrected, and where the next left-field idea could be the next big thing. This book explores this culture of psychological safety, and provides a blueprint for bringing it to life. The road is sometimes bumpy, but succinct and informative scenario-based explanations provide a clear path forward to constant learning and healthy innovation. Explore the link between psychological safety and high performance Create a culture where it’s “safe” to express ideas, ask questions, and admit mistakes Nurture the level of engagement and candor required in today’s knowledge economy Follow a step-by-step framework for establishing psychological safety in your team or organization Shed the "yes-men" approach and step into real performance. Fertilize creativity, clarify goals, achieve accountability, redefine leadership, and much more. The Fearless Organization helps you bring about this most critical transformation.