INTRODUCTION: THE STARTUP OF START-UP COMMUNITIES; THE POWER OF CLONES IN RUSSIA—& BEYOND

What are the elements of a start-up community?  What can you do to startup a start-up community in your city, or help it do more—faster? Venture investor Brad Feld (Foundry Group, Boulder, Colorado, co-founder of Tech Stars, blogger Feld Thoughts) writes about these subjects in his other blog StartUp Communities with his new book titled ‘Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City,’ to be published in the fall of 2012.  You can read his first draft, outline here.…

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Insider View, Twists & Turns in International Venture Capital

In January I delivered a lecture to MBA students, Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. David Brophy, Director of the Office for the Study of Private Equity Finance & Associate Professor of Finance invited me to speak at his private equity class about my experiences in doing VC since 1986, with what he calls “Tom is 3 feet deep into VC, with mud on his boots.” If you don’t know David you should, as he was the…

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The Valley of Death. Market Failure? Or Rational Behavior of Investors to Risk?

Governments, development banks and investors poured billions of dollars to finance entrepreneurs in the ‘Valley of Death.’ Add in the millions of hours of human energy and thought devoted to creating solutions too, and the investment is truly staggering. Yet the Valley of Death still exists. Conventional thought defines the ‘Valley of Death’ as a market failure. But is it? Or is the Valley simply the rational behavior of investors to risk? If the Valley is a reaction to risk,…

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