• Identify which early decisions can cause problems for founders and their startups.
• Describe the tradeoffs of involving cofounders, hires, investors, and board members in startups and apply appropriate frameworks to analyze them systematically.
• Compare and contrast how different institutional environments shape the dilemmas founders are likely to face.
• Analyze the external and internal factors that heighten the chances that a founding team will splinter or that founders will lose their positions as CEOs of startups.
• Reflect on their own motivations for becoming involved in startups and understand how those should affect their founding decisions throughout the lifecycle of the startup.

Entrepreneurship is about navigating the complex human, ethical, and strategic choices that shape whether ventures thrive or fail. This course explores the fundamental dilemmas founders face across the lifecycle of high-potential ventures, focusing on the relationships and decisions that matter most: choosing cofounders and hires, splitting roles and equity, whether and how to involve investors, managing leadership transitions and technology responsibly, and planning thoughtful exits. We treat entrepreneurship as both a strategic and moral act that requires sound judgment, values-based leadership, and the ability to act under uncertainty.

Through experiential exercises, we will develop your skills at dealing with a variety of strategic choices and negotiations. From the discussion of case studies that focus on venture founders, their teams and investors, we will develop frameworks to guide your decision making.

To provide greater context and understanding of these dilemmas, we will tap statistics gleaned from a dataset on 15,000 founders over the last two decades and discuss how different national contexts and institutional environments affect founder’s choices. We will explore how strategies differ and which pitfalls emerge when startups move from one national environment to another. Guest sessions with startup founders and investors are an integral part of the course, offering firsthand insights into real-world decision-making and career planning. 

This course is for students who plan to become involved in new ventures as

1. Founders of a new venture, now or at mid-career
2. Early hires, early advisors, or board members in new ventures
3. Potential investors (e.g., angel, venture capitalists), customers, partners, or acquirers of new ventures

Whether you are building a venture or supporting others who do, this course helps you prepapre for the high-stakes decisions that define entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial success and shape the kind of responsible leader you aim to become. 

• Classic and basic theory
• New theory
• Teacher’s own research

• Development of research questions
• Discussion, critical reflection, modelling
• Activities that contribute to new or existing research projects

• HBSP coursepack: Students will be able to acquire the required cases from the Harvard Business School site through the link shared during class/posted on Canvas.

Foundational texts: 

• Sarasvathy, S. (2024). Effectuation: Rethinking Fundamental Concepts in the Social Sciences. Cambridge University Press.
• Wasserman, N. (2012). The Founder's Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup. Princeton University Press.
• Feld, B., & Mendelson, J. (2011). Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist. Wiley.
• Zankl, J., & Grimes, M. (2024). Taming Unicorns: Toward a New Normal of Responsible Entrepreneurship. Academy of Management Review, 49(4), 879-905.
• Ruef, M., Aldrich, H., & Carter, N. (2003). The Structure of Founding Teams: Homophily, Strong Ties and Isolation Among U.S. Entrepreneurs. American Sociological Review, 68(2), 195-222.