Entrepreneurial Management
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- October 2024
- Case
a16z: Governance in Decentralized Protocols (A)
By: Shai Benjamin Bernstein and Liang Wu- October 2024
- Case
a16z: Governance in Decentralized Protocols (A)
By: Shai Benjamin Bernstein and Liang Wu -
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- October 2024
- Case
Grain Management
By: Archie Jones, Michael Norris, Alliyah Gary and Chelsea Grain-JeffersonDavid Grain, Founder and CEO of Grain Management is nearing the end of his career and thinking about how to transition control of his firm to his managing directors.
- October 2024
- Case
Grain Management
By: Archie Jones, Michael Norris, Alliyah Gary and Chelsea Grain-JeffersonDavid Grain, Founder and CEO of Grain Management is nearing the end of his career and thinking about how to transition control of his firm to his managing directors.
About the Unit
The Entrepreneurial Management Unit strives to raise the level of academic work in the field of entrepreneurship, in methodological rigor, conceptual depth, and managerial applicability. We also strive to improve the odds of entrepreneurial success for our students and for practitioners worldwide.
Because it is such a complex phenomenon, entrepreneurship must be studied through multiple lenses. We use three.
- The process of entrepreneurship - We seek to understand the processes of entrepreneurial activity in start-ups and established firms by examining the antecedents and consequences of various forms of entrepreneurial opportunity identification and opportunity pursuit for individuals, organizations, and industries. We see experimentation and innovation in products, services, processes, and business models as central to entrepreneurial activity.
- The finance of entrepreneurship - We seek to understand the financing of entrepreneurial ventures by studying the antecedents and consequences of entrepreneurial funding decisions both domestically and internationally.
- The context of entrepreneurship - We seek to understand the ways in which entrepreneurs both respond to and shape the context in which they operate, by examining the history of entrepreneurship across time and national borders and by analyzing the legal and cultural contexts for managerial action.
Please also visit the Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship.
Recent Publications
Teamworks: Tackling a Forecasting Fumble
By: Lou Shipley and Stacy Straaberg
- October 2024 |
- Teaching Plan |
- Faculty Research
In late March 2018, Teamworks CEO Zach Maurides learned Q1 2018 sales were at risk for a large forecasting miss. Founded in 2004, Teamworks’s software application assisted support staff in messaging, scheduling, and sharing documents with collegiate and professional athletes. The company served 550 customers (made up of 2,000 teams), first signing collegiate sports teams and athletic departments before branching out to sports governing bodies and professional sports teams and leagues. The size of the Q1 forecasting miss was related to a still-pending contract with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the largest deal in Teamworks’s history. Teamworks Vice President of Sales Corey Richardson was working on a backup plan, but with little time left in the quarter, it was possible Teamworks would close Q1 with sales of $303,714 (33%) out of a $910,000 forecast. The forecasting issue was especially worrisome since Teamworks had recently earned a premium valuation during its Series B funding round and Maurides was preparing for a board of directors meeting that included Teamworks’s new lead investor. Before this point, Teamworks’s forecasts had been close to target. What had happened? And how would Maurides share the news with the board?
Keywords: Acquisition; Business Growth and Maturation; Communication Strategy; Decisions; Forecasting and Prediction; Business Cycles; Technological Innovation; Sports; Growth and Development Strategy; Resource Allocation; Marketing; Sales; Business Strategy; Expansion; Sports Industry; Technology Industry; United States; North Carolina
a16z: Governance in Decentralized Protocols (B)
By: Shai Bernstein and Liang Wu
- October 2024 |
- Supplement |
- Faculty Research
a16z: Governance in Decentralized Protocols (A)
By: Shai Benjamin Bernstein and Liang Wu
- October 2024 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Monetizing Duolingo: The Multi-Million Dollar Question
- October 2024 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Grain Management
By: Archie Jones, Michael Norris, Alliyah Gary and Chelsea Grain-Jefferson
- October 2024 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
David Grain, Founder and CEO of Grain Management is nearing the end of his career and thinking about how to transition control of his firm to his managing directors.
Case Studies of the Emulation of Chinese Entrepreneurial Business Models
By: Josh Lerner, Junxi Liu, Jacob Moscona and David Yang
- 2024 |
- Working Paper |
- Faculty Research
This working paper presents four short case studies of emerging market businesses whose founders emulated Chinese firms. These examples are part of a more systematic pattern, documented extensively in Lerner et al. (2024), in which businesses developed in China were more applicable to the demands, constraints, and characteristics of other emerging markets than were businesses developed in and for the U.S. or other high-income countries.
Priors, Experiments, Learning and Persuasion in (Bayesian) Entrepreneurial Finance
By: Ramana Nanda
- 2024 |
- Working Paper |
- Faculty Research
At the heart of entrepreneurial finance lies a persuasion challenge: regardless of the strength of an entrepreneur’s belief in the potential of their idea, they typically need to convince investors to provide the financial capital required for its commercialization. How should entrepreneurs approach this challenge in order to maximize the chance of raising the required external finance? Why does it appear harder to persuade venture capital investors to finance startups in certain industries and regions and in certain periods of time? Are there systematic frictions preventing entrepreneurs from effectively persuading investors in certain settings and if so, what can be done to reduce them? In this chapter, I discuss answers to these and other questions through a conceptual framework in which investors update their beliefs about a startup’s prospects through a sequence of investments over time.
Pitfalls of Demographic Forecasts of U.S. Elections
By: Richard Calvo, Vincent Pons and Jesse M. Shapiro
- 2024 |
- Working Paper |
- Faculty Research
Many observers have forecast large partisan shifts in the US electorate based on demographic trends. Such forecasts are appealing because demographic trends are often predictable even over long horizons. We backtest demographic forecasts using data on US elections since 1952. We envision a forecaster who fits a model using data from a given election and uses that model, in tandem with a projection of demographic trends, to predict future elections. Even a forecaster with perfect knowledge of future demographic trends would have performed poorly over this period—worse even than one who simply guesses that each election will have a 50-50 partisan split. Enriching the set of demographics available does not change this conclusion. We discuss both mechanical and economic reasons for this finding, and show suggestive evidence that parties adjust their platforms in accordance with changes in the electorate.