Business plans

Shortly after Jim Hackett became CEO of Steelcase in 1994, the office furniture manufacturer introduced two products. The Leap chair was a great success....

The business plan admits the entrepreneur to the investment process. Without a plan furnished in advance, many investor groups won’t even grant an interview. And the plan must be outstanding if it is to win investment funds. Too many entrepreneurs, though, continue to believe that if they build a better mousetrap, the world will beat […]

It’s particularly important if you plan to raise money.

Before launching or investing in one, ask these critical questions.

It's not all about experience and industry knowledge.

People make business plans for all sorts of reasons — to attract funding, evaluate future growth, build partnerships, or guide development. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these plans are usually out of date by the time the printer ink dries. Business moves fast: the product’s features morph, new competitors emerge, or the economic climate shifts. […]

Advice from people who've made it work.

Tony Tjan, managing partner of Cue Ball, outlines the key components on which entrepreneurial executives must focus.

Why the compensation plan and pricing plan trump everything else.

It's a better long-term strategy.

Organizations need to understand how the pandemic is changing behaviors and habits.

To succeed, a new company must rally investors, staff, customers, and the media around a good story. But often that narrative turns out to be wrong, and...

When Roger Brown and Linda Mason decided to start a child care and early-education company 15 years ago, they knew about the challenges inherent in the...

When a mature company fails to endure over the long term, it's often due to the "Horizon 2 vacuum," argues Geoffrey Moore, author of "Crossing the Chasm"...

There are more-productive ways to build relationships.

The high failure rate among new business ventures is usually chalked up to the fundamental uncertainty of the process. In actuality, say McGrath and Keil,...

Be clear about your intentions.

Don't write a plan before you understand your customer.

Entrepreneurs can play a central role in finding solutions to the world's toughest social problems. The failure rate for start-ups, however, is high....

As a 100-year-old cooperative of dairy farms with shared production and distribution resources, Cabot has long championed a different kind of capitalism:...