Category Archives: Startups

Innovation and IPO

Posted on December 15, 2017 by Eugene Ivanov

Of all business processes, innovation is arguably the riskiest and most unpredictable; the rate of failure of innovation projects is shockingly high compared to other corporate programs and initiatives. Identifying factors that would make innovation more sustainable is therefore critical. … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation, Startups | Tagged Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Innovation Management, IPO, Startups | 2 Comments

Balancing startup success and failure: how VC investors can tip the scales

Posted on September 10, 2017 by Eugene Ivanov

Recently, I’ve come across an interesting paper, “Tolerance for Failure and Corporate Innovation,” published in 2011 by Xuan Tian of Indiana University and Tracy Yue Wang of University of Minnesota. Tian and Wang studied the relationship between venture capital (VC) … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation, Startups | Tagged Corporate Venture Capital Groups, Drug Development, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, innovation ecosystems, Startups | Leave a comment

What can crowds do?

Posted on February 22, 2017 by Eugene Ivanov

Since the publication, in 2004, of James Surowiecki’s highly influential book, “The Wisdom of Crowds,” the idea that large groups of people are smarter than a few individuals, however brilliant, has been gradually gaining prominence in academic circles, business communities … Continue reading →

Posted in Crowdsourcing, Innovation, Startups | Tagged Crowdfunding, Crowdraising, CrowdRaising.co, Crowdsourcing, Indiegogo, Innovation, Innovation Management, innovation tools, James Surowiecki, Kickstarter, Open Innovation, open innovation services providers, Open Innovation Tools, Startups, The Wisdom of Crowds | Leave a comment

The Game of Acceleration

Posted on March 15, 2016 by Eugene Ivanov

What helps startups succeed? One of a few factors identified so far is providing startups with mentoring. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration–and a 2014 similar study in the U.K.–small businesses receiving mentoring services survive longer than non-mentored enterprises. This fact points … Continue reading →

Posted in Startups | Tagged angel investors, Brookings Institution, Entrepreneurship, Harvard Business Review, Innovation, Innovation Management, startup accelerators, startup incubators, Startups, U.S. News & World Report, U.S. News & World Report of Best Colleges Rankings, U.S. Small Business Administration | 1 Comment

Get it right: how to help startups succeed

Posted on February 22, 2016 by Eugene Ivanov

Given the increasingly important role startups and other small businesses play in today’s economy, supporting them should be considered a policy that will have a profound positive effect on the global economy. From this perspective, pinpointing factors casing startups fail is … Continue reading →

Posted in Startups | Tagged Clinical Trials, corporate VCs, Culture of Innovation, Drug Development, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Innovation Management, R&D processes, startup accelerators, startup incubators, Startups, U.S. Small Business Administration, Wharton’s Mack Institute for Innovation Management | 1 Comment

When it comes to (some) startups, ideas do matter

Posted on January 25, 2016 by Eugene Ivanov

The rate of startup failure remains depressingly high: 55% of startups close before raising $1M in funding, and almost 70% of them die having raised less than $5M. So the question “Why do startups fail?”–or succeed, if you prefer a … Continue reading →

Posted in Startups | Tagged corporate VCs, Innovation, Innovation Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Venture Mentoring Service, mentorship, startup accelerators, Startup failure, startup incubators, Startups, U.S. Small Business Administration, VC | 2 Comments

Big Brother Loves You

Posted on January 11, 2016 by Eugene Ivanov

By contributing to economic growth and creating jobs, small businesses play an important, perhaps, increasingly important, role in the global economy. Moreover, as the cradle for novel technologies and business models, small companies serve as the engine of the innovation … Continue reading →

Posted in Startups | Tagged Big Brother, CB Insight, Corporate Venture Capital Groups, CVC, Entrepreneurship, Harvard Business Review, Innovation, innovation ecosystems, Innovation Management, innovation tools, Ralph Earle, Startups, VC | Leave a comment

The dawn of the “craft economy”?

Posted on December 16, 2015 by Eugene Ivanov

In a 2012 Harvard Business Review article, Maxwell Wessel made an interesting point. He argued that the corporate scale had ceased providing large companies with the same competitive advantage as it used to in the past. Being bigger doesn’t guarantee … Continue reading →

Posted in Global Innovation, Innovation, Startups | Tagged Alibaba.com, Collaborative Innovation, Collaborative Innovation Transforming Business, competitive advantage, Craft Economy, David, Disruptive Innovation, Driving Growth, Goliath, Harvard Business Review, Innovation, Innovation Management, innovation tools, Job security, Maxwell Wessel, Nicco Mele, Radical Innovation, Small Businesses, Startups, World Economic Forum | 3 Comments

Want the correct answer (and perhaps to be a millionaire too)?

Posted on November 9, 2015 by Eugene Ivanov

Over the past few months, I’ve been preaching the virtues of crowdsourcing to young entrepreneurs and startup (co)-founders. Perhaps, I’m not a good preacher, but very often, my message is being met with a visible skepticism. Why would I approach … Continue reading →

Posted in Crowdsourcing, Startups | Tagged Crowdsourcing, Donald N. Thompson, Innovation, Innovation Management, innovation tools, Open Innovation, Open Innovation Tools, Oracles, Startups, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire | Leave a comment

Can we make crowdsourcing available to small companies?

Posted on October 23, 2015 by Eugene Ivanov

Crowdsourcing is a powerful open innovation tool allowing organizations to tap on the collective wisdom of their own employees (internal crowdsourcing) or pools of external talent around the world (external crowdsourcing). Internal crowdsourcing (usually managed through Internal Innovation Networks) can be … Continue reading →

Posted in Crowdsourcing, Innovation, Internal Innovation Networks, Startups | Tagged 7(a) Loan program, Crowdsourcing, HeroX, IdeaConnection, InnoCentive, Innovation, Innovation Management, innovation tools, internal innovation networks, NineSigma, OISP, Open Innovation, open innovation services providers, Open Innovation Tools, U.S. Small Business Administration | 1 Comment