Entrepreneurship

With a keen eye and a flair for romantic copy, John Peterman created a successful catalog company. As an entrepreneur, he was in his element. As top manager of a fast-growing enterprise, he was ultimately much less successful. What happened?

The faster a company grows, the more dramatic the shift.

Will his philanthropy hurt Berkshire Hathaway?

The company and you have parted ways- now what? In an uncertain economy, one of the things you can predict is that there will be people who lose their corporate affiliation – either through downsizing, or because they elect to take early retirement, or for some other reason – and decide explore the self-employment instead […]

New research suggests that social entrepreneurs may benefit from short bursts of business exposure.

In the business world, "creativity" has become the latest buzzword. How to attract, nurture, and direct the extraordinarily talented people who will come...

Venture capital hasn’t worked for a decade and must be radically restructured if it’s going to influence innovation—and make solid returns to investors.

Smart entrepreneurs aren’t cowboys—they’re methodical managers of risk.

Researchers found educationally diverse teams perform better, but adding MBAs to the mix has both negative and positive effects.

If you want to be successful, you have to harness the talent. The top private equity firms have a genius for hiring superior talent. All organizations need great people, but PE measures talent with one test only: performance. It’s not that private equity firms are heartless. Rather, their three- to five-year time horizon doesn’t allow […]

Why big companies struggle to keep up with start-ups.

First, understand his or her motivations.

Instead of the extremes of strategy execution I criticized last week, many organizations would benefit from a blended approach that combines entrepreneurship...

Create a more memorable customer experience by focusing on the details.

A Peruvian apparel company struggles to position itself against a global brand.

Women fare better when they can meet with the bankers making funding decisions.

Joe Castle, cofounder of Socaba.com, pushed open the door to Dave Souza’s apartment with his shoulder. He was balancing two pizzas and a six-pack of local microbrew in his arms. Dave, meeting him just as the door swung open, took the pizzas from him. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” he said with mock […]

Owners of small private corporations have great financial freedom. They can lease assets to the business, put family members on the payroll, and award themselves lavish perks. And they don’t have to maximize the market value of their stock. They can put the long-term health of the business ahead of short-term earnings growth, and they […]

For generations, Procter & Gamble generated most of its phenomenal growth by innovating from within--building global research facilities and hiring the...

It focused on software.