Different Entrepreneurs Excel in Various Company Stages 
Different Entrepreneurs Excel in Various Company Stages
by Stanford / Randy Komisar
Video Lecture 9 of 11
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Date Added: December 31, 2009

Lecture Description


Komisar explains that there are different types of entrepreneurs for various stages in a company using an analogy from his book, The Monk and the Riddle. Early stage entrepreneurs, like a bloodhound, seek out resources to get the company off the ground. To grow the company, an operation leader is needed, like a husky that is willing to pull the sled and get the company to a public market liquidity. If the company ever faces difficult situations, a rescuer, like a St. Bernard, tries to save it.




Transcript



Yeah, you know, there is this machismo in the venture business, the entrepreneurship business about being able to take a company public and then growing into some huge public company ala Bill Gates. And those stories are wonderful stories when they happen. But the reality is that it takes different skills at different stages of a start-up to be successful. And individuals may have the skills to move from stage to stage, and they may not. And that's okay. I personally see the reinvestment of entrepreneurial skills back into start-ups as being much more valuable than seeing an entrepreneur has become a great manager in leading an operating business, because entrepreneurs are rare, and managers are trained at Harvard Business School. [Laughter] So the reality is that.. I think there are.. We all have our role, Randy. [Laughter] But I look at the stages in early stage companies. In the book, I used an example: three breeds of dogs. I looked at the notion of the early stage entrepreneur being a retriever. Somebody's got to go out and bring together all of the resources that are necessary to get that company off the ground, the people, the money, the partners, all the things that are necessary to try and get that idea going. If that's successful, if you end up with a good product or service, and it gets reinforced by the marketplace, you then have to become much more of a bloodhound. Now, you really have to find, you have to get the scent of the trail. You have to start building the plan, the execution plan that's going to drive that idea that you now have a demonstrable product or service into a real business against the market, with real customers. And then I looked at the notion of a husky, the idea that, "Now, okay, I've gone through those first two stages. I have a great product or service. I have demonstrated a real value proposition to the market, and I have ways to sell to customers and customers willing to buy my product or service. Now I need to grow the operation. I need somebody to pull the sled." And the notion here is that this husky is your operating leader, and somebody who can hopefully take that company to a public market liquidity, wherever the right destination is for it. And in the book, I allude to the fact that you hope you never really need a St. Bernard, somebody to come and save the company and bail it out from a tough situation. That's another sort of personality. And I didn't touch upon that as much.

Course Index

Course Description


Randy Komisar answer questions on Entrepreneurship for Stanford University students on March 3, 2007. Randy Komisar, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and author of the best-selling book The Monk and the Riddle, talks about how innovation occurs at Kleiner Perkins. Instead of giving projects a thumbs up or thumbs down, the firm uses a set of filters to review and improve these projects. Through this process of iteration, innovation and problem solving occurs between investors and entrepreneurs, he notes.

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