"Winner of the 2014 Entrepreneurship Practice Award, Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management" "Winner of the 2013 Silver Medal Book Award in Entrepreneurship, Axiom Business" "Finalist for the 2013 George R. Terry Book Award, Academy of Management" Noam Wasserman is an associate professor at Harvard Business School.
A guide to the early decisions that can make or break startup ventures
Often downplayed in the excitement of starting up a new business venture is one of the most important decisions entrepreneurs will face: should they go it alone, or bring in cofounders, hires, and investors to help build the business? More than just financial rewards are at stake. Friendships and relationships can suffer. Bad decisions at the inception of a promising venture lay the foundations for its eventual ruin. The Founder's Dilemmas is the first book to examine the early decisions by entrepreneurs that can make or break a startup and its team.
Drawing on a decade of research, Noam Wasserman reveals the common pitfalls founders face and how to avoid them. He looks at whether it is a good idea to cofound with friends or relatives, how and when to split the equity within the founding team, and how to recognize when a successful founder-CEO should exit or be fired. Wasserman explains how to anticipate, avoid, or recover from disastrous mistakes that can splinter a founding team, strip founders of control, and leave founders without a financial payoff for their hard work and innovative ideas. He highlights the need at each step to strike a careful balance between controlling the startup and attracting the best resources to grow it, and demonstrates why the easy short-term choice is often the most perilous in the long term.
The Founder's Dilemmas draws on the inside stories of founders like Evan Williams of Twitter and Tim Westergren of Pandora, while mining quantitative data on almost ten thousand founders. People problems are the leading cause of failure in startups. This book offers solutions. "[A] first-aid manual to help resuscitate ailing start-ups."---Jessica Bruder, New York Times "Noam Wasserman is one of the writers and teachers who best captures the high stakes decisions that entrepreneurs face every day."---Scott Kirsner, Boston Globe "The single-most indispensible guide for founders of startups. Comingling research, straight talk, and a human voice-so often lacking in books with an academic bent-Dilemmas totally rocks as a business school required read and a founder's gripping, absolute must-read. Turning the last page, anyone with an entrepreneurial femur in their body will be fully armed with a battery of knowledge that can make or break a passionate first or even fifteenth venture. Do not start a startup without this book."---Ted Sturtz, New York Journal of Books "[A] seminal work. . . . Sure to be required reading in business school curricula, this illuminating and captivating read will also appeal to aspiring entrepreneurs or founders who want to make better decisions in existing ventures." "Wasserman's book is on track to take as lofty a position in the entrepreneurial literature as Clayton Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma did in the field of technological change."---Peter Cohan, Forbes "[A] uniquely valuable resource for any entrepreneur."---Terrence Murray, Financialist "The guru on this subject is Noam Wasserman . . . [an] insightful book."---Luke Johnson, BusinessDay "The definitive book on the topic. . . . If you are a founder or thinking about becoming one, you should read this book."---Dharmesh Shah, OnStartups.com "[A] must-read for anyone thinking of creating a startup, who is currently involved with one or who is an investor/advisor in the startup ecosystem."---Dilip James, Business Standard "Highly recommended for those who plan to embark or are already living the entrepreneurial lifestyle, it can serve as a guide to very tough situations for founders to evaluate the best possible w
