It was winter 2012 and I was in a business trip with the managing partner of a venture capital in Paris. While we were sitting in a restaurant and just after I ordered Foie gras and duck, our conversation got a little philosophical. We were talking about work and our topic got to the entrepreneur’s character when Mitchell said: “Amir, life is too short. Even if we live 200 years, it is still too short relative to the whole history…
All companies in our era, try to come up with innovative solutions to create competitive edge, but not all of them can even barely get close to any innovative product or service. The reasons behind the innovation asymmetry between firms lies behind several seasons. While there are some external factors such as financial constraints, environment, and infrastructure, the internal factor, which is the corporate culture weighs more. Individual creativity is the most crucial foundation of innovation. It is always those…
The book, “The Little Prince”, a masterpiece by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is renowned as a children’s book, and hence the title of this post might seem out of scope of entrepreneurship. In this post, however, I focus on the key concern of the little prince, which is grown-ups – who could not understand children- of the business world. Strategic Entrepreneurship (SE) is a well-known term among community of academic scholars and hence a suggested strategic tool for large enterprises…
The success stories of Silicon Valley startups and their growth made a big change in business paradigm worldwide. Tech savvies tend to start their own company and investors are more exit-oriented than before, giving up the dividend approach of traditional businesses. Mentors and startup consultants also lead them to negotiate on valuation. In this case, the potential investor seeks for less valuation, while the startup and previous investors fight for higher valuation of the company. Unfortunately, the scholars in entrepreneurship…
I am not surprised! Tesla just unveiled the new model 3, which is an affordable version of Tesla cars. Elon Musk finally introduced a Tesla for the average earners and that’s what I was expecting him to do, as he has been trying hard to make space travel available for everyone too. Yes! This is something unreachable for the time being, but Elon’s previous successful startups were all sort of unreachable dream-like ideas that came true. In the book, “…
Entrepreneur’s character is an axiomatic factor that fosters innovation and entrepreneurial activities. Entrepreneurship scholars have long been conducting research on entrepreneur’s character, contemplating it both as a major factor for entrepreneur’s success and a salient stimulus to entrepreneurial activities. Nonetheless, there has been less research on other players of entrepreneurship ecosystem such as venture capitalist.
Startup events are ubiquitous nowadays and many companies and individuals are inclined to entrepreneurial practices. As a result, large enterprises have outrageously commenced to play a role in the entrepreneurial ecosystem by starting their investment arm or Corporate Venture Capital (CVCs) firms. I have recently been consulting two of these large companies to start their own CVCs and comparing these CVCs to the regular venture capitalists I have worked with, I maintain that these two types of venture investments are not…
The trend in entrepreneurship and startup activities has been shifting in the last decades. Concepts such as lean startup, customer development, and business model canvas, were introduced to the world of entrepreneurship and shorter pitches replaced long business plans. The one-minute pitch has been increasingly used among investors and in business competition events, however, many technopreneurs have still problem presenting their business idea in such a short time. They believe that the innovation and the complexity of the business idea…
It is springtime and the mother of nature is showing its beauty again. I have been involved in such outdoor activities as hiking and fly fishing for years, and it is the time for more outdoor activities now. In this post, however, I am going to discuss fly fishing from its other perspective: the contingency planning.
I have been involved in business idea competitions since 2010 and more seriously in “Sharif Entrepreneurship and Business Development Festival” in the last two years as a judge, mentor, and lecturer on technology commercialization. In this post, I am going to discuss some facts that should be taken into consideration before submitting your idea to such competitions. Entering business idea competitions has some pros and cons for prospective entrepreneurs.