Steve Blank The Venture Mindset – Worth A Read

Ilya Strebulaev at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Director of the Stanford Venture Capital Initiative just came out with a book that should be on your reading list – The Venture Mindset.

The books premise is that Venture Capitalists (who were responsible for the launch of one-fifth of the 300 largest U.S. public companies) have a different mindset then that found in the rest of the business world (and I would add in government agencies.) All these startups could have come from inside an existing company—but they didn’t.

The book answers why that’s so. And why are venture firms good at finding start-ups that turn into unicorns – what are the skills that VC firms have that companies don’t? And most importantly, can you/your company learn those skills?

The Venture Mindset is built around 9 key ideas:

If you’re a founder looking to raise capital, this book will help you understand how VC’s are evaluating your company. (I wish I had read this book at the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey.)

If you’re in a large company or government agency this book will help you understand the difference between “fail-safe” bets needed in sustaining the core business, versus “safe-to-fail” bets, needed in creating new businesses and/or disruptive capabilities.

Definitely worth a read.

Filed under: Venture Capital |