Lending Club’s IPO preparations mark an important milestone for Peer to Peer (P2P) lending. Since its inception in 2007, Lending Club has facilitated billions of dollars in personal loans with about $2 billion of those loans originating in 2013 alone. In essence, P2P lending websites (Prosper and Zopa are other examples) have disintermediated the banking […]
Entrepreneurship with “obvious” business ideas
Obvious business ideas – of the kind that makes you say, “How come no one ever thought of that before?” – may not sound very exciting, but it’s an area where entrepreneurs can do wonderful things. A good example of an “obvious” business idea is when an entrepreneur spots an interesting product or service in […]
The Startup Corporation: Taking Breakthrough Entrepreneurship to New Heights
High growth startups – and in some cases, new industries like social networks and internet content marketing – rely on breakthrough ideas to create new products. Established firms can benefit from the management ideas that guide these startups, and leverage them further due to an important advantage: their access to resources and networks that startups […]
Which is more important – the car or the driver? Ask Fernando Alonso…
The “father of Venture Capital” George Doriot once said: “An A-team with a B-plan …
Business Opportunities: Discovered or Created?
Nearly every core aspect of the entrepreneurial process is subject to paradox. When thinking about entrepreneurs, are they born or made? And what about the emergence of opportunities: discovered or created? Then there is the evaluation process of an opportunity: instrumental or legitimate? In organizations, is the process of pursuing an opportunity based on planning or […]
