Startups’ Roads to Failure

Startups and requirements (keynote)

Tech startups typically approach requirements gathering differently from the process that is used to develop requirements in existing businesses and for existing products. Many of these startups operate in "stealth mode", taking care to minimize the number of people with whom they share their innovative ideas. It’s common for these startups to create a succession of early releases, and apply us...

Dilemmas of Platform Startups

This paper explores the strategic problems of platform startups on the Internet: their identification and discovery of linkages between them form its contribution to the platform literature. The author argues that the chicken-and-egg problem cannot be solved solely with pricing in the online context – in fact, setting the price zero will result in a monetization dilemma, whereas drawing users f...

The Cyclical Composition of Startups

This paper proposes a new theory of business cycles based on the idea that financial uncertainty shocks change the nature of innovation. When investors become more risk tolerant, they fund riskier startups with greater growth potential. As these ambitious startups grow, the initial shock propagates and generates a boom in output and employment. I develop a heterogeneous firm industry model of t...

Roads to Institutionalization*

From Keiretsu to Startups: Japan’s Push for High Tech Entrepreneurship

2 The Asia/Pacific Research Center (A/PARC) is an important Stanford venue, where faculty and students, visiting scholars, and distinguished business and government leaders meet and exchange views on contemporary Asia and U.S. involvement in the region. A/PARC research results in seminars and conferences, published studies, occasional and discussion papers, special reports, and books. A/PARC ma...