Entrepreneurship: An Innovator?s Guide to Startups and Corporate Ventures

This exciting new text helps student entrepreneurs succeed in the modern arena, in which new technology-intensive products and services are the engines of venture creation and economic growth. It shows students how to understand their industry dynamics and customer needs, test their venture idea in the market and with target customers, and write a successful business plan for a startup or a corporate venture. The authors use clear frameworks and systematic methods that are based on the decades of experience, not just in the classroom, but from starting, advising, and helping to manage successful ventures.

This text is also available bundled with Business Plan Pro (Academic Version), the leading software for writing a business plan (see ISBN 9781412999847 above).

Marc H. Meyer is the Robert J. Shillman Professor of Entrepreneurship and the Matthews Distinguished University Professor at Northeastern University. Northeastern is ranked the #1 Cooperative Education academic institution in the United States, where student internships are closely integrated with academic programs. Dr. Meyer is the founder of the Northeastern's Entrepreneurship and Innovation Group in the College of Business, where he has helped numerous alumni, graduate students, and alumni start their own companies. He is also the Director of the High Technology MBA, a program focused on entrepreneurial innovation within established corporations. In addition, Dr. Meyer current leads Northeastern's executive education programs in innovation and corporate venturing, including the Smarter Planet internal training program for IBM. The focus of all this work is innovation, entrepreneurship, and enterprise growth.

In research, Dr. Meyer is an internationally recognized scholar in the field of innovation. The Power of Product Platforms (written with Alvin P. Lehnerd, The Free Press, NY, NY, 1997), continues to be a leading work in the management of architecture for products, systems, and services. The Fast Path to Corporate Growth: Leveraging Knowledge and Technologies to New Market Applications (Oxford University Press, 2007), links innovation with enterprise growth and is used by industry leaders such as IBM to develop and operationalize growth strategies.

In this new book, Entrepreneurship: An Innovator's Guide to Startups and Corporate Ventures, Dr. Meyer returns to his roots as a technology entrepreneur. He has been part of the start-up teams of software companies that include VenturCom (acquired by Citrix) and Acustream (Great Falls, VA). He has also designed next generation products and business strategies in the consumer, industrial, healthcare, and financial sectors for corporations that include Proctor and Gamble (diapers and shaving systems), Mars, Inc. (chocolate and pet food), Caterpillar (equipment for mining and construction), McKesson (drug distribution systems), and Lincoln Financial Group (new insurance products.) It is the richness of these diverse experiences that Dr. Meyer brings to his teaching and research.

Dr. Meyer is a graduate of Harvard College and holds masters and doctoral degrees from M.I.T. While a PhD student in his mid-20s, Marc left MIT for five years to build his first software company before returning to complete his PhD. Marc remains a Visiting Scientist in the Engineering Systems Division at M.I.T. Throughout, Dr. Meyer has relished working with the next generation of technology entrepreneurs in their startups and corporate ventures.

Frederick G. Crane is an Executive Professor of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the College of Business at Northeastern University, Editor of the Journal of the Academy of Business Education, and a Research Fellow at the Institute for Enterprise Growth. He was formerly a professor of marketing and entrepreneurship at the University of New Hampshire and a chair and full professor at Dalhousie University. He currently teaches courses in entrepreneurship, innovation, and entrepreneurial marketing.

Dr. Crane grew up in a family business and also founded and operated several of his own businesses. In addition to being a serial entrepreneur, he has also been an investor in several startups, served on the advisory boards of entrepreneurial firms, and worked as a consultant for angel investors, venture capitalists, and government agencies on venture funding projects. In addition, he has developed and delivered numerous training programs and workshops for entrepreneurs and small business owners.

His academic research activities have resulted in more than 100 publications, including eleven books, and he currently sits on the editorial boards of several academic journals. His current research stream intersects the domains of marketing, entrepreneurship, corporate venturing, and innovation and he is conducting ongoing research on the psychology of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial education, entrepreneurial branding, and innovation readiness. Dr. Crane is also an award-winning educator who has received numerous honors for teaching excellence over the past twenty years.