The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses


Book Description

The nature of promising start-ups; The evolution of fledgling businesses; Societal implications.




The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses


Book Description

What is this mysterious activity we call entrepreneurship? Does success require special traits and skills or just luck? Can large companies follow their example? What role does venture capital play? In a field dominated by anecdote and folklore, this landmark study integrates more than ten years of intensive research and modern theories of business and economics. The result is a comprehensive framework for understanding entrepreneurship that provides new and penetrating insights. Examining hundreds of successful ventures, the author finds that the typical business has humble, improvised origins. Well-planned start-ups, backed by substantial venture capital, are exceptional. Entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and Sam Walton initially pursue small, uncertain opportunities, without much capital, market research, or breakthrough technologies. Coping with ambiguity and surprises, face-to-face selling, and making do with second-tier employees is more important than foresight, deal-making, or recruiting top-notch teams. Transforming improvised start-ups into noteworthy enterprises requires a radical shift, from "opportunistic adaptation" in niche markets to the pursuit of ambitious strategies. This requires traits such as ambition and risk-taking that are initially unimportant. Mature corporations have to pursue entrepreneurial activity in a much more disciplined way. Companies like Intel and Merck focus their resources on large-scale initiatives that scrappy entrepreneurs cannot undertake. Their success requires carefully chosen bets, meticulous planning, and the smooth coordination of many employees rather than the talents of a driven few. This clearly and concisely written book is essential for anyone who wants to start a business, for the entrepreneur or executive who wants to grow a company, and for the scholar who wants to understand this crucial economic activity.







Extraordinary Entrepreneurship


Book Description

The 21st Century brings all new rules. Entrepreneurs are challenging conventional wisdom and thinking outside the box. One of the first challenges involves challenging the assumption that a business has to be big to be successful. While most of the 20th century heralded big businesses, it is clear that businesses no longer have to be big to do big business. Now it is possible for a handful of people to operate a global business from virtually any place on the planet. Today, the keyboard has overtaken the boardroom. Financial markets, alliances, and joint ventures have eliminated the need for entrepreneurs to put up substantial capital investments. Today's businesses are driven by ideas, innovation, and execution. This book will show entrepreneurs and business leaders will provide CEOs and entrepreneurs with the tools that they will need to become leaders in their market.




The Origin of Wealth


Book Description

Beinhocker has written this work in order to introduce a broad audience to what he believes is a revolutionary new paradigm in economics and its implications for our understanding of the creation of wealth. He describes how the growing field of complexity theory allows for evolutionary understanding of wealth creation, in which business designs co-evolve with the evolution of technologies and organizational innovations. In addition to giving his audience a tour of this field of complexity economics, he discusses its implications for real-world issues of business.




VC


Book Description

“An incisive history of the venture-capital industry.” —New Yorker “An excellent and original economic history of venture capital.” —Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution “A detailed, fact-filled account of America’s most celebrated moneymen.” —New Republic “Extremely interesting, readable, and informative...Tom Nicholas tells you most everything you ever wanted to know about the history of venture capital, from the financing of the whaling industry to the present multibillion-dollar venture funds.” —Arthur Rock “In principle, venture capital is where the ordinarily conservative, cynical domain of big money touches dreamy, long-shot enterprise. In practice, it has become the distinguishing big-business engine of our time...[A] first-rate history.” —New Yorker VC tells the riveting story of how the venture capital industry arose from America’s longstanding identification with entrepreneurship and risk-taking. Whether the venture is a whaling voyage setting sail from New Bedford or the latest Silicon Valley startup, VC is a state of mind as much as a way of doing business, exemplified by an appetite for seeking extreme financial rewards, a tolerance for failure and experimentation, and a faith in the promise of innovation to generate new wealth. Tom Nicholas’s authoritative history takes us on a roller coaster of entrepreneurial successes and setbacks. It describes how iconic firms like Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia invested in Genentech and Apple even as it tells the larger story of VC’s birth and evolution, revealing along the way why venture capital is such a quintessentially American institution—one that has proven difficult to recreate elsewhere.




American Enterprise


Book Description

What does it mean to be an American? What are American ideas and values? American Enterprise, the companion book to a major exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, aims to answer these questions about the American experience through an exploration of its economic and commercial history. It argues that by looking at the intersection of capitalism and democracy, we can see where we as a nation have come from and where we might be going in the future. Richly illustrated with images of objects from the museum’s collections, American Enterprise includes a 1794 dollar coin, Alexander Graham Bell’s 1876 telephone, a brass cash register from Marshall Fields, Sam Walton’s cap, and many other goods and services that have shaped American culture. Historical and contemporary advertisements are also featured, emphasizing the evolution of the relationship between producers and consumers over time. Interspersed in the historical narrative are essays from today’s industry leaders—including Sheila Bair, Adam Davidson, Bill Ford, Sally Greenberg, Fisk Johnson, Hank Paulson, Richard Trumka, and Pat Woertz—that pose provocative questions about the state of contemporary American business and society. American Enterprise is a multi-faceted survey of the nation’s business heritage and corresponding social effects that is fundamental to an understanding of the lives of the American people, the history of the United States, and the nation’s role in global affairs.




Effectual Entrepreneurship


Book Description

What are you waiting for? Whether you’re dreaming about starting a business, learning about entrepreneurship or on the brink of creating a new opportunity right now, don’t wait. Open this updated bestseller. Inside you’ll find everything you need, including: a new and popular way to learn about and to practice entrepreneurship. new practical exercises, questions and activities for each step in your process. specific principles derived from the methods of expert entrepreneurs. over seventy updated case briefs of entrepreneurs across industries, locations and time. new applications to social entrepreneurship, technology and to large enterprises. plentiful connections to current and foundational research in the field (Research Roots) brand new chapter on "The Ask" - strategies for initiating the process of co-creating with partners data that will challenge conventional entrepreneurship wisdom a broader perspective on the science of entrepreneurship In this vibrant updated edition, you will find these ideas presented in the concise, modular, graphical form made popular in the first edition, perfect for those learning to be entrepreneurs or those already in the thick of things. If you want to learn about entrepreneurship in a way that emphasizes action, this new edition is vital reading. If you have already launched your entrepreneurial career and are looking for new perspectives, take the effectual entrepreneurship challenge! this book is for you. If you feel that you are no longer creating anything novel or valuable in your day job, and you’re wondering how to change things, this book is for you. Anyone using entrepreneurship to create the change they want to see in the world will find a wealth of thought-provoking material, expert advice and practical techniques in these pages and on the accompanying website: www.effectuation.org So, what are you waiting for?




Social Entrepreneurship


Book Description

Social entrepreneurship differs from traditional forms of entrepreneurship in that the primary goal of the social venture is to address social problems and needs that are as yet unmet. The driving force of such ventures is social value creation. This new textbook aims to provide a comprehensive, cutting edge resource for students, introducing them to the unique concerns and challenges that face social ventures through a comparison with the principles of traditional entrepreneurship. The book consists of fourteen chapters covering all aspects of venture creation and management—from writing a business plan, to financing, people management, marketing, and social impact measurement. Social Entrepreneurship uses real-life examples and sources to expose students to contemporary developments in the field, encouraging them to think critically about the issues faced by social ventures across the globe, and experiential exercises and assignments are included to provide students with hands-on experience in creating and managing their own social ventures. Also containing review and application questions, illustrative cases, definitions of key terms, and a comprehensive companion website, Social Entrepreneurship is the essential guide to this rapidly emerging field. Visit the companion website at www.routledge.com/cw/beugre to find: For Instructors PowerPoint slides Multiple-choice questions For Students Extra illustrative cases Web links Links to video