Jeffrey J. Bussgang

Launching Technology Ventures (LTV) is an MBA elective designed for students who will join startups, launch their own companies, or work in established firms launching information technology products, in particular, new ventures in the Internet, mobile, and enterprise software sectors. Professor Bussgang has taught the course for thirteen years and it has enrolled 2000 students.

Scaling Minority Businesses (SMB) is an MBA elective that focuses on the unique challenges that Black and Latinx business owners face as they scale. The course was created by Professor Bussgang and his colleagues Professors Archie Jones and Henry McGee.

Venture Capital Journey (VCJ) is an MBA elective field course for students who plan to embark on a career in venture capital. The focus of the course is to provide students with frameworks, tools, a network, and hands on experience in preparation for a career in venture capital (VC), ranging from seed to growth stage.

Many professionals aspire to work for a start-up. Executives from large companies view them as models to help them adapt to today’s dynamic innovation economy. Yes, start-ups look magical, but they can also be chaotic and inaccessible. Many books are written for those who aspire to be founders, but a company only has one or two of those. What’s needed are hundreds of employees to do the day-to-day work required to operate a fledgling company and grow it into something of value.

This practical, step-by-step guide provides an insider’s analysis of various start-up roles and responsibilities, including product development, marketing, growth strategy, and sales, to help you figure out if you want to join a start-up and what to expect if you do. You’ll gain insight into how successful start-ups operate and learn to assess which of them you might want to join―or emulate. Inside this book you’ll find:

• A tour of typical start-up roles to help you determine which one might be the best fit for you
• Profiles of start-up executives in many different functions who share their stories and describe their responsibilities
• A practical approach to your job search that will help you position yourself to find the start-up opportunity that’s right for you

  Written by an experienced venture capitalist, entrepreneur, and Harvard Business School professor, Entering StartUpLand will guide you as you seek your ideal entry point into this popular, cutting-edge organizational paradigm.

Entrepreneurs who dream of building the next Amazon, Facebook or Google have the opportunity to take advantage of one of the most powerful economic engines the world has ever known: venture capital. To do so, you need to woo, impress, and persuade venture capitalists to take a risk on an unproven endeavor. Getting funding is challenge enough, but choosing the right investor and creating a good working relationship can be harder still. You want your VC to act as a partner and adviser, not as an adversary who cares more about a quick return than about realizing the vision of your company.

Jeffrey Bussgang is one of the few people who have played on both sides of this high-stakes game. By his early thirties, he had helped build two successful start-ups—one went public, the other was acquired. Now he uses his experience and unique perspective on "the other side" as a venture capitalist helping entrepreneurs bring their dreams to fruition.

Bussgang offers detailed insights, colorful stories, and practical advice gathered from his own experience as well as from interviews with dozens of the most successful players on both sides of the game, including Twitter's Jack Dorsey and LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman. He reveals how to get noticed, perfect a pitch, and negotiate a partnership that
works for everyone.

An insider's guide to the secrets of the world of venture capital, Mastering the VC Game will prove invaluable for entrepreneurs seeking capital and successful partnerships.

Jeff’s involvement with Open Market and Upromise has been the subject of the following cases.

UPromise 2002:  Describes a set of decisions confronting the senior management of a company that has established a loyalty rewards program allocating cash to tax-advantaged college savings accounts for participants. The company has recruited a new CEO and needs to raise additional capital in the post-Internet bubble period.

Citation:  Sahlman, William A. “Upromise 2002.” Harvard Business School Case 804-058, September 2003.


UPromise:  Describes the development of UPromise, a company that has developed a loyalty program through which corporate partners can contribute to funds that finance the education of consumers' children. Presents the accomplishments prior to the company's second round of financing and asks students to consider how the recent NASDAQ drop could or should affect the company's ability to raise money.

Citation: Sahlman, William A.,  Michael J. Roberts. “UPromise.” Harvard Business School Case 801-321, November 2000.


Open Market, Inc.: The E-Commerce Wars: Continues the story of Open Market, Inc., a company founded in 1994 to support electronic commerce on the Internet. Despite a very successful initial public offering, the firm had reached a growth plateau, and the management team was considering several strategic options. Should it focus on building market share of its simple "storefront" product shop site (which was targeted at small e-merchants) or develop new channels for their high-end order-processing software, Transact? The 1999 holiday season was rapidly approaching, and Open Market's management team hoped to benefit from a predicted surge in online sales.

Citation: Cash, James I., Janis Gogan, Micahel Haselkorn, and Mani Subramani. “Open Market, Inc.: The E-Commerce Wars.” Harvard Business School Case 800-255, October 2000. (Revised from original February 2000 version.)


Open Market, Inc.: Managing in a Turbulent Environment: Presents the story of Open Market, Inc., one of numerous companies formed in 1994 to engage in electronic commerce over the Internet. This case examines the company's development--its business strategy and organization evolution--as the company increased in size and gained a firm foothold in the uncertain electronic commerce.

Citation: Applegate, Lynda M., Janis L. Gogan. “Open Market, Inc.: Managing in a Turbulent Environment.” Harvard Business School Case 196-097. August 1996. (Revised from original March 1996 version.)

Start Up Strategy and Management
Bussgang’s research focuses on applying Lean Startup principles to early-stage technology companies as well as the challenges and opportunities when scaling startups. His work led to the creation of the MBA elective course Launching Technology Ventures and dozens of case studies, teaching notes and HBR articles on startups, startup management and scaling startups. Bussgang’s research on deconstructing startup management and best practices led to the writing of his book, Entering StartUpLand, published by Harvard Business Review Press.

Venture Capital
Bussgang’s work on how to raise venture capital culminated in a book, Mastering the VC Game, published by Penguin’s Portfolio. He wrote a chapter on VC financing in the book Entrepreneur Readings: Partnering With Venture Capitalists. He also researches how to achieve alignment between entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.

Minority Entrepreneurs
Bussgang’s work on studying the unique challenges and opportunities for minority entrepreneurs has resulted in numerous cases (e.g., Black New Venture Competition, Collab Capital) and the course Scaling Minority Businesses.

Boston Start Up Ecosystem
Jeff's work on characterizing the start up ecosystem in Boston is part of an annual review presented to the Harvard community at the iLab and can be found at www.slideshare.net/bussgang.

Launching Technology Ventures
Launching Technology Ventures (LTV) is designed for students who are actively working on their own startups or who will work at early-stage startups. The course material is, in particular, focused on new businesses in the Internet, mobile, and enterprise software sectors, although the lessons from these sectors are quite generalized.

Extending concepts introduced in the MBA Required Curriculum course, The Entrepreneurial Manager, LTV explores in greater depth "lean startup" management practices and series of experiments that startups run to hone their value proposition, go to market strategy, and business model. LTV emphasizes implementation rather than strategy issues, including financing strategy and ethical issues facing founders.

Scaling Minority Businesses
Scaling Minority Businesses (SMB) is a field course designed to leverage the intellectual power and community of Harvard Business School to address the vital needs of Black-owned enterprises as they face the twin tasks of surviving and growing. The course utilizes three approaches to learning—traditional case-based classes, talks by subject experts, and hands-on consulting assignments with Black-owned businesses in the greater Boston-area. It will provide students with the opportunity to draw upon and strengthen their learnings from a range of RC courses including, but not limited to, TEM, Marketing, Strategy, and TOM. Students will receive hands-on experience wrestling with key issues in scaling a small business and will gain an understanding of the historic and systemic barriers to growth faced by Black businesses.

The arc of the course covers three modules: (1) Challenges of Systemic Racism and Inequities; (2) Challenges of Access to Capita; and (3) Challenges of Access to Customers.

Venture Capital Journey
Venture Capital Journey (VCJ) is a field course designed for students who are serious about pursuing a career in venture capital. This course provides students with frameworks, tools, a network, and hands-on experience, ranging from seed to growth stage. The course will help students more deeply understand the conceptual underpinnings of venture capital investing and startup company financing, with a particular focus on their personal and professional growth and fulfillment. Further, this course provides a “systems thinking” lens to the industry and prepares students to join the global VC / startup ecosystem as future investors and entrepreneurs.