Startups That Work: Surprising Research on What Makes or Breaks a New Company [Hardcover]

Joel Kurtzman (Author), Glenn Rifkin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 6, 2005

Every large company was once a startup struggling to survive, yet only a small percentage of all startups are able to thrive in the long run. Entrepreneurs and investors have gut instincts about what startups need to do to beat the odds, but until now there hasn’t been any hard research on what separates winners and losers.

Joel Kurtzman and a research team from Price-waterhouseCoopers studied 350 companies and interviewed hundreds of venture capitalists, CEOs, boards of directors, and angel investors over four years. This unprecedented research has led to some very surprising findings about nine key factors, such as market size, competitive position, business model, and cash flow. For instance:

• Speed usually trumps perfection.
• Advanced technology shouldn’t be the highest priority, even in tech companies.
• Not all growth is smart growth.

Startups That Work can help small-business people create value while giving venture capitalists and investors the essential information they need to figure out which startups are worth the investment risk.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Kurtzman (MBA in a Box) offers a meticulous and instructive analysis of 350 startup companies, which he and a PriceWaterhouseCoopers research team tracked from 2001 to 2003. In an effort to determine how investors and entrepreneurs can improve a startup's chance of success (300 of these companies succeeded), he synthesizes data from that study, as well as interviews with high-level players and anecdotes from some well-known success stories, such as the Web services provider Akamai and the online job site Monster.com. Kurtzman (formerly editor of the Harvard Business Review) discusses the importance of selecting a talented management team, assembling a board that offers strategic guidance, managing cash flow, estimating market size, protecting competitive position and establishing a strategic business model, among other points. He sets out with 10 rules of thumb, from putting a marketing or salesperson on the founding team, to starting with an existing market rather than a revolutionary product, to creating an unforgettable brand for your product or service. (Comprehensive appendixes include company assessment charts as well as organizational role- and industry-specific data.) The research is not quite as "surprising" as the subtitle suggests, but Kurtzman's thorough volume will arm entrepreneurs with more than just common sense. (Oct. 10)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Joel Kurtzman is Global Lead Partner for Thought Leadership and Innovation at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Formerly the editor of the Harvard Business Review and a business editor and columnist for The New York Times, he is currently the on-air business book reviewer on CNN.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover (October 6, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159184102X
• ISBN-13: 978-1591841029
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,412,044 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joel Kurtzman is one of the top experts on management and leadership in the world. A thought leader, Kurtzman is also a consultant, speaker and writer. His resume includes stints as editor, reporter, and columnist for The New York Times; editor-in-chief, Harvard Business Review; founder of the magazine Strategy + Business; columnist at Fortune and Chief Executive Magazine. An advisor to the World Economic Forum (Davos), Wharton's SEI Center, on the board of MIT's Sloan Management Review. He is a Senior Fellow at the Milken Institute, a trustee of Sierra Nevada College, a consultant to Korn/Ferry International and other companies.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A solid book but poor editing, July 1, 2006

By 

John M. Grohol "docjohng" (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Startups That Work: Surprising Research on What Makes or Breaks a New Company (Hardcover)

The book's unique approach of using what they call "Star Charts" is interesting and innovative. The authors give their advice backed by solid, almost painstaking research of 350 startups they followed over many years.

One of the most aggravating aspects of this book, however, was the sheer repetition -- of stories, of advice, of summarizing other company's history. There are numerous instances of where virtually the same passage is repeated in 3 or 4 different places in the book -- a quote, a snippet of advice, 3 paragraphs of background of a particular startup (really, do we need to be constantly reminded of what company did what? I get it!), of conclusions even.

I felt this was done basically to pad the book. That the book, had it been well-written and properly edited by someone who actually ready it from front-cover to back-cover, it would've been about half its 293 page length (100+ pages of which is an Appendix). So you basically have a 193 page book that should've been about 100 pages.

Is it worth the hefty price? Probably not.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing..., April 11, 2006

By 

A. S. Wei (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Startups That Work: Surprising Research on What Makes or Breaks a New Company (Hardcover)

I really had to push myself into finishing the book instead of throwing the book against the wall in frustration.

Why? Because the book offered gems like "Manage your cash. Startups in the bubble years burned through money, but companies today have to be run much more tightly."

I got the sense that the authors were just trying to fill the pages when same quotes were used 2 or 3 times across different chapters like a high school student trying to pad a book report.

Intriguing title but ultimately the authors just served up rehashed conventional wisdom.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars decent info, a bit long winded, July 30, 2007

By 

Uri Gofman "Uri Gofman" (Cleveland, OH USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Startups That Work: Surprising Research on What Makes or Breaks a New Company (Hardcover)

author conducted a study of successful startup companies and the factors that they share. good overall information. a bit boring.