Posted by: Jeff Bussgang on August 27
All corporations have the challenge of trying to infuse an entrepreneurial spirit into their workforce. As the theory goes, when employees act like entrepreneurs, they put themselves in the mind-set of business owners with a bias for action, which results in good decisions and good outcomes.
To get employees to act like entrepreneurs, then, companies have often taken a structural approach. For example, Google and Microsoft organize into small units of 50 to 100 employees to maintain a sense of entrepreneurial spirit and eliminate bureaucracy. The trade-off is that small groups can create silos across units, leading to duplication of efforts and squelching synergy. But if a company chooses to organize to achieve maxim efficiency and scale, it risks creating behemoth departments that crush the natural entrepreneurial spirit that lies within its employees.
Continue reading "Think Like a VC, Act Like An Entrepreneur"
Posted by: Steven Berglas on August 04
Last week, John Mack, Chairman & CEO of Morgan Stanley, announced that he was undertaking a strategic move worthy of serial entrepreneur Sam Zell. Using up to $1 billion saved from the 4,800 job cuts authorized this year, Mr. Mack –often called Mack The Knife for his slash-and-burn tactics—plans to hire top-level executives currently unemployed owing to the 75,000 jobs lost in the financial sector this year. As Mack sees it, the turbulence in the market Morgan Stanley occupies is an opportunity to recruit bankers, traders, and risk managers.
Continue reading "Successful Entrepreneurs Are Naturally Combative"
Posted by: Steven Berglas on July 24
Since debuting on this blog a number of entrepreneurs I coach have called to say how pleased they were to see me “doing something useful.” While I appreciated the thought, I ultimately focused on what a number of them suggested with regard to future blogs: “Why not just tell your readers what makes a serial entrepreneur tick and be done with it?”
My initial response was, “Explain what makes these guys tick? I’d rather grapple with the Gordian knot or Proteus.”
Continue reading "What Makes Serial Entrepreneurs Tick?"
Posted by: Jeff Bussgang on July 16
There is a controversy brewing in the world of government grant money to start-ups that is trickling into the VC community. The Small Business Association (SBA) of the US government administers Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) provides grants to small businesses (defined as fewer than 500 employees) to the tune of $2 billion per year. This compares to $20-30 billion per year in VC money that flows to start-ups, a meaningful figure in the entrepreneurial economy.
But the two worlds of VC-backed start-ups and SBIR grants have mixed like oil and water historically due to a key restriction in grant eligibility: start-ups that are 51% or more owned by VCs do not qualify for SBIR or SBTR grants. Thus, a young start-up in a field relevant to the government grant world has a conundrum when it considers taking VC money - it no longer will be eligible to receive non-dilutive government grants.
Continue reading "Should VCs Hold the Key to Access Government Money?"
Posted by: Jeff Bussgang on July 08
Anyone following the open source phenomenon can’t help but be amazed at what appears to be volunteerism on a massive scale for corporate gain. Almost every company in the world has some strands of open source code floating around their company. Whether it is the Linux operating system, Apache web server, the IP protocol or database programs such as MySQL, open source software has permeated corporations around the globe. According to one estimate from start-up Ohloh, there are 11,000 open source software projects going on right now in the world and 70,000 devleopers contributing to those projects for free.
Further, the impact and reach of open source extends far beyond businesses alone. Mainstream consumers are participants in the open source phenomenon. Wikipedia is the most obvious example, which attracts 683 million visitors annually to its over 2 million articles (source: Wikipedia, of course) – all written by volunteers throughout the world.
Continue reading "For Entrepreneurs, Recognition is the Reward: Lessons From the Open Source Community and the NBA"
