If you want your startup to succeed, you need to understand why startups fail. “Whether you’re a first-time founder or looking to bring innovation into a corporate environment, Why Startups Fail is essential reading.”—Eric Ries, founder and CEO, LTSE, and New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way Why do startups fail? That question caught Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann by surprise when he realized he couldn’t answer it. So he launched a multiyear research project to find out. In Why Startups Fail, Eisenmann reveals his findings: six distinct patterns that account for the vast majority of startup failures. • Bad Bedfellows. Startup success is thought to rest largely on the founder’s talents and instincts. But the wrong team, investors, or partners can sink a venture just as quickly. • False Starts. In following the oft-cited advice to “fail fast” and to “launch before you’re ready,” founders risk wasting time and capital on the wrong solutions. • False Promises. Success with early adopters can be misleading and give founders unwarranted confidence to expand. • Speed Traps. Despite the pressure to “get big fast,” hypergrowth can spell disaster for even the most promising ventures. • Help Wanted. Rapidly scaling startups need lots of capital and talent, but they can make mistakes that leave them suddenly in short supply of both. • Cascading Miracles. Silicon Valley exhorts entrepreneurs to dream big. But the bigger the vision, the more things that can go wrong. Drawing on fascinating stories of ventures that failed to fulfill their early promise—from a home-furnishings retailer to a concierge dog-walking service, from a dating app to the inventor of a sophisticated social robot, from a fashion brand to a startup deploying a vast network of charging stations for electric vehicles—Eisenmann offers frameworks for detecting when a venture is vulnerable to these patterns, along with a wealth of strategies and tactics for avoiding them. A must-read for founders at any stage of their entrepreneurial journey, Why Startups Fail is not merely a guide to preventing failure but also a roadmap charting the path to startup success.

This open access book focuses on explaining differences amongst organizations regarding various attributes, forms, and outcomes. By focusing on the “how” of new venture creation and management to produce well-established organizations, the authors aim to increase our understanding of the antecedents of most management research assumptions. New ventures are the source of most newly created jobs generated in an economy, new industries and markets, innovative products and services, and new solutions to economic, social, and environmental problems. However, most management research assumes a well-established organization as the starting point of their theorizing. Building on the notion of guided attention, it details how entrepreneurs can allocate their transient attention to identify potential opportunities from environmental change and how entrepreneurs allocate their sustained attention to form beliefs about radical and incremental opportunities requiring entrepreneurial action. The authors explain how entrepreneurs build such communities and engage community members over time to co-construct potential opportunities for new venture progress. Using the lean startup framework, they connect the dots between the theorizing on identifying and co-constructing potential opportunities and the startup of new ventures. This leads to a new overarching framework based on are (1) co-creating a startup, (2) organizing a startup, and (3) performing a startup to bring together the many disparate threads of research on new ventures. The authors then theorize on the importance of knowledge in organizational scaling. Based on cutting-edge research from the leading entrepreneurship journals, this book expands knowledge on the cognitive aspect of the new venture creation process.

Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched. Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business. The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on “validated learning,” rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute. Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs—in companies of all sizes—a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it’s too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever.

The emergence of start-up companies and new forms of entrepreneurship has become a significant challenge for entrepreneurs and decision-makers who shape the businesses and economies of the future. This book presents the results of international research, analyses, and experiences with start-ups, delving into their strengths and weaknesses as well as the challenges and attitudes that drive their quest for success. It identifies and analyzes various determinants that shape entrepreneurship, shedding light on new conditions that inspire and affect running a business in a new dynamically changing economic reality. It also presents strategies and concepts used by novice entrepreneurs to overcome market challenges and build thriving enterprises from scratch. Through an analysis of start-ups from various industries and countries, contributions showcase patterns and best practices that determine their growth, and the secrets of their extraordinary achievements are discovered. The power of cooperation between the academic environment and enterprises that jointly create innovations is also highlighted, as well as the impact of the educational systems and cultural norms that support networks on promoting ecology and an environment that encourages and supports entrepreneurial ventures. By analyzing the success of entrepreneurship in various regions and countries, this edited collection reveals the relationships among policy frameworks, access to resources, and the development of dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystems. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, and advanced students in the fields of entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic development.

Entrepreneur and bestselling author of The Lean Startup, Eric Ries reveals how entrepreneurial principles can be used by businesses of all kinds, ranging from established companies to early-stage startups, to grow revenues, drive innovation, and transform themselves into truly modern organizations, poised to take advantage of the enormous opportunities of the twenty-first century. In The Lean Startup, Eric Ries laid out the practices of successful startups – building a minimal viable product, customer-focused and scientific testing based on a build-measure-learn method of continuous innovation, and deciding whether to persevere or pivot. In The Startup Way, he turns his attention to an entirely new group of organizations: established enterprises like iconic multinationals GE and Toyota, tech titans like Amazon and Facebook, and the next generation of Silicon Valley upstarts like Airbnb and Twilio. Drawing on his experiences over the past five years working with these organizations, as well as nonprofits, NGOs, and governments, Ries lays out a system of entrepreneurial management that leads organizations of all sizes and from every industry to sustainable growth and long-term impact. Filled with in-the-field stories, insights, and tools, The Startup Way is an essential road map for any organization navigating the uncertain waters of the century ahead.

24 Steps to Success! Disciplined Entrepreneurship will change the way you think about starting a company. Many believe that entrepreneurship cannot be taught, but great entrepreneurs aren’t born with something special – they simply make great products. This book will show you how to create a successful startup through developing an innovative product. It breaks down the necessary processes into an integrated, comprehensive, and proven 24-step framework that any industrious person can learn and apply. You will learn: Why the “F” word – focus – is crucial to a startup’s success Common obstacles that entrepreneurs face – and how to overcome them How to use innovation to stand out in the crowd – it’s not just about technology Whether you’re a first-time or repeat entrepreneur, Disciplined Entrepreneurship gives you the tools you need to improve your odds of making a product people want. Author Bill Aulet is the managing director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship as well as a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. For more please visit http://disciplinedentrepreneurship.com/

25 Steps to Found and Scale a High-Growth Business The Startup Checklist is the entrepreneur's essential companion. While most entrepreneurship books focus on strategy, this invaluable guide provides the concrete steps that will get your new business off to a strong start. You'll learn the ins and outs of startup execution, management, legal issues, and practical processes throughout the launch and growth phases, and how to avoid the critical missteps that threaten the foundation of your business. Instead of simply referring you to experts, this discussion shows you exactly which experts you need, what exactly you need them to do, and which tools you will use to support them—and you'll gain enough insight to ask smart questions that help you get your money's worth. If you're ready to do big things, this book has you covered from the first business card to the eventual exit. Over two thirds of startups are built on creaky foundations, and over two thirds of startup costs go directly toward cleaning up legal and practical problems caused by an incomplete or improper start. This book helps you sidestep the messy and expensive clean up process by giving you the specific actions you need to take right from the very beginning. Understand the critical intricacies of legally incorporating and running a startup Learn which experts you need, and what exactly you need from them Make more intelligent decisions independent of your advisors Avoid the challenges that threaten to derail great young companies The typical American startup costs over $30,000 and requires working with over two dozen professionals and service providers before it even opens for business—and the process is so complex that few founders do it correctly. Their startups errors often go unnoticed until the founder tries to seek outside capital, at which point they can cost thousands of dollars to fix. . . or even completely derail an investment. The Startup Checklist helps you avoid these problems and lay a strong foundation, so you can focus on building your business.

This book is useful for B.Com., M.Com., and MBA students of all Indian Universities. Presentation of various aspects of entrepreneurship is the most salient features of this book. Clarity of all topics has been given throughout. Description of the most difficult topics, in a simple and easy to follow style, has been the authors main attempt. At the end of the each chapter Assessment Questions are included in this book. Glossary, Bibliography, Author Index, Subject Index and Abbreviations are incoporated at the end of the book.

This textbook is intended for use in introductory Entrepreneurship classes at the undergraduate level. Due to the wide range of audiences and course approaches, the book is designed to be as flexible as possible. Theoretical and practical aspects are presented in a balanced manner, and specific components such as the business plan are provided in multiple formats. Entrepreneurship aims to drive students toward active participation in entrepreneurial roles, and exposes them to a wide range of companies and scenarios.

Second Stage Entrepreneurship shows the aspiring entrepreneur how to create significant growth as their company scales its way to the top through the development of organizational structure; from setting up an effective company culture; to structuring an effective sales team; to helping create stand out customer interactions.