Business Capital

Since its initial publication, The Business of Venture Capital has been hailed as the definitive, most comprehensive book on the subject. Now in its third edition, this market-leading guide explains the multiple facets of the business of venture capital, from raising venture funds, to structuring investments, to generating consistent returns, to evaluating exit strategies.

The founders and driving force behind the Foundry Group - a venture capital firm focused on investing in early-stage information technology companies - Brad and Jason have been involved in hundreds of venture capital financings. Their investments range from small startups to large Series A venture financing rounds. The new edition of Venture Deals continues to show fledgling entrepreneurs the inner-workings of the VC process, from the venture capital term sheet and effective negotiating strategies to the initial seed and the later stages of development.

In The Masters of Private Equity and Venture Capital, the pioneers of the industry share the investing and management wisdom they have gained by investing in and transforming their portfolio companies. Based on original interviews conducted by the authors, this book is filled with colorful stories on the subjects that most matter to the high-level investor, such as selecting and working with management, pioneering new markets, adding value through operational improvements, applying private equity principles to non-profits, and much more.

You know who your competitors are. You keep tabs on them regularly, and can list them calmly, along with their strengths and weaknesses. But your enemies are a whole other matter. They’re the haters and the doubters who said you’d never make it, the ones who stomped on your dreams. When you think about your enemies, you get emotional. You feel like you won’t let anything—or anyone—stop you.

Learn how to compete against large competitors and structure your pricing for maximum growth. Discover the four SaaS Cheat Codes that can dramatically accelerate your business's success. Learn how to avoid common mistakes that SaaS founders make and identify the right marketing approaches for your business.

From two pioneers in business analytics, an update of the classic book on how analytics and business intelligence are transforming competition and how leading organizations build and compete on an analytical capability. Leading companies are doing more than just collecting and storing data in large quantities - they're now driving their competitive strategies based on data-driven insights. In Competing on Analytics, Davenport and Harris explain how analytics are transforming the basis of competition in industry after industry.

The financial establishment---banks and investment bankers, such as Citigroup, Bear Stearns, Lehman, UBS, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley---were the cowboys, recklessly assuming risks, leveraging up to astronomical levels, and driving the economy to the brink of disaster.

In simple terms, venture capitalists are usually comprised of a group of investors with a lot of funds, ready to invest in any business venture that might present good possibilities of success. Get all the info you need here.

Whether you're imagining your new business to be the next big thing in Silicon Valley, a pivotal B2B provider, or an anchor in your local community, the Harvard Business Review Entrepreneur's Handbook is your essential resource for getting your company off the ground. Starting an independent new business is rife with both opportunity and risk. And as an entrepreneur, you're the one in charge: Your actions can make or break your business. You need to know the tried-and-true fundamentals - from writing a business plan to getting your first loan.

Early in the 21st century, a quiet revolution occurred. For the first time, the major developed economies began to invest more in intangible assets, like design, branding, R&D, or software, than in tangible assets, like machinery, buildings, and computers. For all sorts of businesses, from tech firms and pharma companies to coffee shops and gyms, the ability to deploy assets that one can neither see nor touch is increasingly the main source of long-term success.

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.

Although software has become easier to build, launching and scaling new products and services remains difficult. Start-ups face daunting challenges entering the technology ecosystem, including stiff competition, copycats, and ineffective marketing channels. Teams launching new products must consider the advantages of “the network effect”, where a product or service’s value increases as more users engage with it. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other tech giants utilize network effects, and most tech products incorporate them.

Whether you're trying to get a new company off the ground or scale an existing business to the next level, you need to understand how VCs think. In Secrets of Sand Hill Road, Kupor explains exactly how VCs decide where and how much to invest, and how entrepreneurs can get the best possible deal and make the most of their relationships with VCs. Filled with Kupor's firsthand experiences, insider advice, and practical takeaways, Secrets of Sand Hill Road is the guide every entrepreneur needs to turn their startup into the next unicorn.

The first thing Sophia Amoruso sold online wasn’t fashion - it was a stolen book. She spent her teens hitchhiking, committing petty theft, and dumpster diving. By twenty-two, she had resigned herself to employment, but was still broke, directionless, and working a mediocre day job she’d taken for the health insurance. It was there that Sophia decided to start selling vintage clothes on eBay. Eight years later, she is the founder, CEO, and creative director of Nasty Gal, a $100 million plus online fashion retailer with more than 350 employees.

In Cash is King, working capital and cash strategist Peter W. Kingma delivers an insightful and practical discussion of why your company's cash position should be on an equal footing with sales, cost, and service, and how to make that happen. You'll learn why cash is the fuel in your corporate engine and discover the attributes of an organizational cash culture and how to adopt them within your own firm.

Veteran Morgan Stanley banker Alok Sama thought he'd seen it all. Then he found himself chief dealmaker at the most influential technology investor in the world—SoftBank, the backer of Arm Holdings, Yahoo, Nvidia, TikTok, Uber, T-Mobile, Alibaba and WeWork. The Money Trap is Sama’s thrilling, stranger-than-fiction personal odyssey featuring his experiences alongside SoftBank’s iconic founder, Masayoshi Son, a visionary maverick who wants to be remembered as “the crazy guy who bet on the future” and whose mission is “happiness for everyone.”

Finding the right venture capitalist to back your start-up is a challenge. Even if you manage to get backing, you want your VC to be a partner, not some dictator who will undermine your vision and take control of your life's work. Jeffrey Bussgang is one of a very few people who have played on both sides of this high-stakes game. Now he draws on his unique perspective to offer high-level insights, colorful stories, and practical advice. He reveals how to get noticed, perfect a pitch, and negotiate a partnership that works for everyone.

Fisher organizes the capital-raising process into six clear steps, and then breaks through the myths to reveal the triggers for success. For example, entrepreneurs are told that great business ideas get funded. Not true - great business stories get funded, and those stories all have a similar construction and shape, which can be learned. And yes, you need investors, but investors come with their own personality issues.

Wouldn't life be better if you were free of the daily grind - the conventional job and boss - and instead, succeeded or failed purely on the merits of your own investment choices? Free Capital is a window into this world. Based on a series of interviews, it outlines the investing strategies, wisdom, and lifestyles of 12 highly successful private investors. Each of them has accumulated £1 million or more - in most cases, considerably more - mainly from stock market investment.

In two decades as a television reporter, T. J. Winick covered many scandals. The biggest mistake he saw brands make was to try to “make it go away” by refusing to apologize, declining to comment, or going on the attack—anything to deflect attention. Often that kind of response becomes a scandal of its own. In his book, Winick argues instead for transparency, honesty, authenticity, and empathy. Handled correctly, the way you address an egregious violation of your standards can increase your reputation capital.