Like so much else in the U.S. economy, the forecast for startups and entrepreneurs is anything but stable. There are indicators of a bleak road ahead, but look closely and you’ll see that nothing is certain.
With nothing guaranteed about the future, a resilient and thoughtful strategy matters. Four newish books from MIT Sloan faculty members introduce frameworks and models that can aid founders, innovators, and leaders as they navigate the uncertainty ahead.
Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup, Expanded & Updated
Professor of the practice Bill Aulet
Disciplined Entrepreneurship: Startup Tactics
Senior lecturer Paul Cheek
Eleven years ago, entrepreneur and MIT Sloan educator introduced the concept of disciplined entrepreneurship in his book of the same name. Aulet assured readers that not only could entrepreneurship be taught, but his 24-step framework could help them learn it.
“Some people tell me that entrepreneurship should not be disciplined, but chaotic and unpredictable — and it is,” Aulet wrote. “But it is just in such situations where a framework to attack the problem in a systematic manner will be the most valuable.”
Last year, Aulet released an expanded and updated version of the book. Accompanying it was “Disciplined Entrepreneurship Startup Tactics,” which addresses questions like how and when to hire technical talent. Aulet is the managing director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship. Cheek is the center’s executive director.
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Accelerating Innovation: Competitive Advantage Through Ecosystem Engagement
Senior lecturer Phil Budden and associate dean for Innovation Fiona Murray
“Accelerating Innovation,” which will be released by MIT Press on April 29, guides leaders through engagement with innovation ecosystems so they can better derive value from both external actors and internal resources. and discuss five stakeholder types in these ecosystems that they identified in their research: research institutions, entrepreneurs, corporations, investors, and governments.
While Silicon Valley and Greater Boston garner a lot of attention as innovation hubs in the U.S., innovation ecosystems can develop anywhere, Budden and Murray show, as they examine sectors like quantum computing in Copenhagen, mining in Perth, and fintech in Cairo and Dubai, among many other examples. The frameworks and models they describe are applicable around the world, in organizations and ecosystems of every type and size.
Entrepreneurship: Choice and Strategy
Senior lecturer Erin Scott and professor Scott Stern, with University of Toronto professor Joshua Gans
Building on more than two decades of academic research with thousands of companies and MIT students, and Joshua Gans, who is a visiting scholar at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, have developed a systematic approach for startup leadership that is now laid out in this new textbook.
The underlying theme of their work: A good idea may have multiple paths to value, but pursuing too many paths at the same time often does more harm than good.
After navigating the four domains of entrepreneurial choice — customers, technology, organization, and competition — entrepreneurs are ready to explore the authors’ Entrepreneurial Strategy Compass. This framework describes four strategic routes to commercialization categorized along two dimensions: orientation toward incumbents (collaborate versus compete) and focus of investment (execution versus control).
