Publications

April 2014 (Revised January 2015)
Background Note

Note on Mobile Healthcare

By: John A. Quelch and Margaret L. Rodriguez

Delivering health care to the global population was a challenge. Health care costs accounted for ten percent of world GDP by 2013. In the U.S., health care costs were expected to top $3.1 trillion in 2014. New technologies, shortages of trained personnel and... View Details

16 May 2023
In Practice

After Silicon Valley Bank's Flameout, What's Next for Entrepreneurs?

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in March left the startup world reeling. The biggest lender to fail since the 2008 financial crisis, SVB had become the preferred funder of the startup, tech, and venture capital worlds. Its quick and sudden fall, as higher... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman; Technology; Financial Services

30 Oct 2019
Research & Ideas

How to Recover Gracefully After Shutting Down Your Startup

“There are many things that entrepreneurs can do to position themselves to bounce back from a failure.” If new funds aren’t forthcoming, the founder will likely put the company up for sale, confronting prospective buyers who’ll play a... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

14 Dec 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Personality Traits of Entrepreneurs: A Review of Recent Literature

Keywords: by Sari Pekkala Kerr, William R. Kerr, and Tina Xu

04 Feb 2019
Book

Green Businesses Are Incredibly Difficult to Make Profitable. Try It Anyway

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Green Technology; Energy

12 Dec 2011
HBS Case

HBS Cases: Clocky, the Runaway Alarm Clock

any entrepreneur looking to build a business around an unconventional product that elicits multiple reactions: How do you balance fun and function in order to avoid the danger of your product becoming a flash-in-the-pan fad? Clocky... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Consumer Products

September 2021 (Revised February 2023)
Case

Harambe: Mobilizing Capital in Africa

By: Anywhere (Siko) Sikochi, Dilyana Karadzhova Botha and Francesco Tronci

Harambe was a non-profit organization whose mission was to build an ecosystem to identify promising young African entrepreneurs and provide them access to training, markets, capital, and support networks. From 2007 to 2021, Harambe had grown to a network of 367... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Nonprofit Organizations; Business Model; Strategy; Organizational Structure; Business Startups; Capital; Venture Capital; Social and Collaborative Networks; Networks; Developing Countries and Economies; Emerging Markets; Africa; South Africa

01 Nov 2022
What Do You Think?

Why Aren’t Business Leaders More Vocal About Immigration Policy?

(iStockphoto/Sundry Photography) Most people agree that US immigration policy is a mess. At times, it is hard to even know what it is. Immigration policy differences divide us as a nation and produce a great deal of misinformation. They have resulted in more than 10... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

Article

Diasporas and Domestic Entrepreneurs: Evidence from the Indian Software Industry

By: Ramana Nanda and Tarun Khanna

This study explores the importance of cross-border social networks for entrepreneurs in developing countries by examining ties between the Indian expatriate community and local entrepreneurs in India's software industry. We find that local entrepreneurs who have... View Details

Keywords: Diasporas; Entrepreneurship; Applications and Software; Information Technology Industry; India

2007
Working Paper

Diasporas and Domestic Entrepreneurs: Evidence from the Indian Software Industry

By: Ramana Nanda and Tarun Khanna

This study explores the importance of cross-border social networks for entrepreneurs in developing countries by examining ties between the Indian expatriate community and local entrepreneurs in India's software industry. We find that local entrepreneurs who have... View Details

Keywords: Diasporas; Developing Countries and Economies; Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Social and Collaborative Networks; Technology Industry; India

Research Summary

Overview

By: Brian L. Trelstad

The focus of my research is on the systems of social innovation. How small groups of individuals come up with new products and services targeting important problems; how they finance these initial efforts, and convert prototypes into viable organizational strategies;... View Details

2014
Article

Investors Prefer Entrepreneurial Ventures Pitched by Attractive Men

By: Alison Wood Brooks, Laura Huang, Sarah Kearney and Fiona Murray

Entrepreneurship is a central path to job creation, economic growth, and prosperity. In the earliest stages of start-up business creation, the matching of entrepreneurial ventures to investors is critically important. The entrepreneur's business proposition and... View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Gender

13 Oct 2017
HBS Seminar

Geoffrey Jones, Harvard Business School

January 2001 (Revised April 2004)
Case

Term Sheet Negotiations for Trendsetter, Inc.

Describes two aspiring entrepreneurs who have just received offering documents for venture funding (known as term sheets) from two venture capital firms. Neither of the entrepreneurs have experience in raising capital and they are wondering how to compare the two... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; Decision Making

Profile

Monica Dodi

return on investment. With more than 70 percent of consumer dollars worldwide being controlled by women, now is the time for them to explore business opportunities. “My advice to female entrepreneurs is to show up and speak up!” says... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital / Private Equity; Financial Services; Entertainment / Media

December 2021
Article

Entrepreneurial Learning and Strategic Foresight

By: Aticus Peterson and Andy Wu

We study how learning by experience across projects affects an entrepreneur's strategic foresight. In a quantitative study of 314 entrepreneurs across 722 crowdfunded projects supplemented with a program of qualitative interviews, we counterintuitively find that... View Details

Keywords: Crowdfunding; Experience; Prediction; Timeline; Complexity; Entrepreneurship; Learning; Experience and Expertise; Forecasting and Prediction

2021
Working Paper

Entrepreneurial Learning and Strategic Foresight

By: Aticus Peterson and Andy Wu

We study how learning by experience across projects affects an entrepreneur's strategic foresight. In a quantitative study of 314 entrepreneurs across 722 crowdfunded projects supplemented with a program of qualitative interviews, we counterintuitively find that... View Details

Keywords: Experience; Interdependency; Strategic Foresight; Crowdfunding; Timeline; Delay; Forecasting; Entrepreneurship; Learning; Complexity; Forecasting and Prediction; Product Development; Planning

April 2014
Case

Don Valentine and Sequoia Capital

By: Felda Hardymon, Tom Nicholas and Liz Kind

Don Valentine participated in the beginnings of two significant milestones: the birth of the silicon chip and the development of the venture capital industry. From humble beginnings, Valentine became a legendary salesman at Fairchild Semiconductor and National... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Personal Development and Career; Semiconductor Industry

March 2019
Article

When Does Advice Impact Startup Performance?

By: Aaron Chatterji, Solène Delecourt, Sharique Hasan and Rembrand Koning

Why do some entrepreneurs thrive while others fail? We explore whether the advice entrepreneurs receive about managing their employees influences their startup's performance. We conducted a randomized field experiment in India with 100 high-growth technology firms... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Field Experiment; Peer Effects; Entrepreneurial Ecosystems; Advice; Management Style; Management Practices and Processes; Knowledge Dissemination; Entrepreneurship; Performance; India