How to create a successful startup?

From magic to science: a paved road to success.

"Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem, in my opinion, to characterize our age”. Albert Einstein

Summary. Imagine an entrepreneur who creates/runs a startup. He has two possibilities to build his paved road to success: drive the magic car ???♂? or the scientific ones ?????. A magic car sometimes leads to success, the scientific one always! Unfortunately, too many entrepreneurs continue to drive the magic car, and that is why 11 out of 12 startups fail. In this article, you will learn some possible strategies to drive a scientific car. One of them is The Lean Startup.  

Reading time: 19 min

--------

"All of us, by nature, seek to reduce the risk of future events—an impulse that grows with the complexity of a project and the potential cost of failure" (Carl Schramm - It’s Not About the Framework - 2018). Each time entrepreneurs launch a new startup, they want to reduce the risk of some future unwanted events (a, or the number of fails), and increase the appearance of some future wanted events (b or the number of wins). The hard job for them will be to minimize a and maximize b. They will generally imagine a strategy, which will help them to make good decisions at the right time, their paved road to success.

Unfortunately, this paved road to success is more often a paved road to failure: 11 out of 12 startups (Startup Genome in their 2019 report) and 7.5 out of 10 venture-backed startups (Shikhar Ghosh) fail. That is a lot of failures, even for backed businesses. Why? Because their strategies were inadequate? Because execution was deficient? Maybe something else?

We will try in this article to understand if entrepreneurs need a strategy to create a successful startup, and if yes what kind works best according to current data and thoughts of some authors.

1. Do we need a strategy to create a successful startup?

a. What is a strategy?

The word strategy, derived from Greek stratēgia: the art of troop leader, is: "a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty" (Wikipedia).

The word strategy comes from the war vocabulary. It is easy to understand that the objective of a general in an army is to achieve victory with a minimum of deaths within his soldiers.

The word uncertainty refers to [...] situations involving imperfect or unknown information. In economics, an uncertain situation is different from a risky situation. There is a specific probability assigned to each outcome in a risky situation (as when flipping a fair coin), whereas an uncertain situation involves a situation with unknown probabilities (Frank Knight). Uncertainty is the world where all startups evolve.

As Eric Ries said in his book The Lean Startup: "In earlier eras, a good plan, a solid strategy, and thorough market research [= general management tools] were indicators of likely success. [...] This doesn't work [...] [for startups] because [they] operate with too much uncertainty".

Risky world vs. Uncertainty - General management tools - Cyprien CREPEAUX - 2021

A strategy is different from a plan. A strategy is flexible, a plan is not. A plan: "is an arrangement, a pattern, a program, or a scheme for a definite purpose. A plan is very concrete in nature and doesn’t allow for deviation" and a strategy: "is a blueprint, layout, design, or idea used to accomplish a specific goal. [It] is very flexible and open for adaptation and change when needed". (Plan vs Strategy: Is There a Difference? - Cherissa Newton).

Another definition of the word strategy is "the way in which a business, government, or other organization carefully plans its actions over a period of time to improve its position and achieve what it wants" (Cambridge Dictionary). We can feel the importance to be cautious when deciding on a strategy with the words carefully. Exactly like if we were walking on eggs. The entrepreneurs avoid breaking as few eggs as possible and leaving the metaphor, reduce as few as possible the risks of some future unwanted events (a) when deciding on a strategy for their startup. Besides, he wants to increase the appearance of some future wanted events (b).

The equation of success (x) in the magic world is a + b = x (when a < b) and the equation of failure (y) is: a + b = y (when a > b). It looks like easy said like that but how do we know exactly when b is higher than a or not? Is it sufficient to consider a successful business when b is higher than a? Put in another word, how an entrepreneur know if he has created a living dead, or a promising startup, a potential unicorn? It is impossible to know with this simple equation. So we need a more powerful one.

b. The Spectrum of Strategic Choices

To achieve x (success), each entrepreneur when creating a startup has a large spectrum of strategic choices illustrated with the drawing below: it ranges from planning and forecasting to the just do it strategies.

The spectrum of strategic choices - Cyprien CREPEAUX - (From The Swedish Investor - 2019)

When looking at this spectrum, there are a lot of possible strategies between the two ends. Is one strategy more suitable to create a successful startup, and at least do we need one? According to Carl Schramm, an innovation professor at the Syracuse University: "launching and managing a start-up will never be reducible to a strategic framework, let alone run smoothly according to a pre-established plan" (It’s Not About the Framework - 2018). It is doxa to say that and not knowledge. He explains in the same article: "for any new company, there is only one thing to do: devise a new product and just put it out there. Then you can answer the only two questions that count: Are there customers? How much will they pay?". It is already a strategy (learning by doing approach) if we consider the Wikipedia definition: "a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty"?

Behind the Carl Schramm conception of strategy, there is this common belief, because it is hard to predict the success of a startup, let's just consider it as magic. The problem is that magic is a difficult strategy to follow for an entrepreneur, and it is necessary to try to pave a little bit the road to success. Carl Schramm acts this way. Even if he does not think that a startup can be reducible to a strategy, he tries to create a kind of basic paved road to success, a light strategy. Why? Because even for basic things, we always need (and want) to create a strategy to accomplish something. As Carl Schramm said: "All of us, by nature, seek to reduce the risk of future events". When we want to cook a new dish, we look for a strategy, a recipe; We want to avoid cooking an uneatable dish. We think about numerous possibilities before riding a bike for the first time, and try to make a strategy to keep our balance; We want to avoid falling. When entrepreneurs create a business, they want to reduce the risk of future (unwanted) events, avoid firing employees, or be seen as unsuccessful entrepreneurs, etc. 

We always need a strategy to create a startup. We always need a framework! The difficulty is where to put the cursor on the Spectrum of Strategic Choices.

c. Where startups should put the cursor on the Spectrum of Strategic Choices?

In the Spectrum of Strategic Choices, entrepreneurs have a large number of possible strategies. The question is: where to put the cursor? Is there a better way than chance or magic to choose where to put the cursor?

Where to put the cursor on the spectrum of strategic choices? - Cyprien CREPEAUX - 2021

There are not bad strategies or good strategies but whether adapted strategies to specific situations or not. As we can see in the drawing below, some organizations are using different but adapted strategies. When the engineers of NASA want to land a new rover on Mars, their strategy is very close to a plan because there is no plan B if the rover crashes on the planet, all the possible risks need to be anticipated. There is no place for chance or magic. A little error and the mission is over.

The spectrum of strategic choices - Cyprien CREPEAUX - 2021

At the other end of the spectrum, Nike crafted a well-known motto: Just do it which is probably part of its success. Nike sends this message to its customers: if you want to run, don't ask yourself too many questions, just put your shoes on and run, who will see what will happen. There is almost no need for a plan, just to avoid cars. Startups that choose this strategy avoid all forms of management, process, and discipline, which leads to chaos. The strategy is just let's see what happens and the goal is always reached. You always see what happens: "if you cannot fail, you cannot learn" (Eric Ries)!

The more you go on the left part of the spectrum, and the more your strategy is related to a plan. On the contrary, the more you go to the right part of the spectrum and the less your strategy is related to a plan, the plan will be almost inexistent. According to a previous definition, a strategy is flexible and a plan is not, it means that the more you go to the left (planning and forecasting) and the less flexibility is present and vice versa.

Following this hypothesis, we can say that most big companies' strategies tend to put the cursor on the left of our Spectrum, where most of the startups' strategies tend to put it on the right part.

The spectrum of strategic choices - Cyprien CREPEAUX - 2021

2. What kind of strategy works best to create a successful startup in an uncertain world?

a. The Lean startup

Startups evolve in an uncertain world, not in a risky world. Previously we said that 11 out of 12 startups failed and it looks like there is more of a paved road to failure than a paved road to success. Let's be clear, in an uncertain world there will always be a (lot of) place for failure! However, a scientific method exists to follow the right direction, a paved road to success called the Build-Measure-Learn loop. The serial-entrepreneur Eric Ries crafted this strategy in his book The Lean Startup: How constant innovation creates radically successful businesses in 2011.

"Startup success is not a consequence of good genes or being in the right place at the right time. Startup success can be engineered by following the right process, which means it can be learned which means it can be taught." Eric Ries.

The Lean Startup mission is to: "eliminate the tremendous waste [...] startups that built products nobody wanted, new products pulled from the shelves, countless dreams unrealized", which means: "improve the success rate of new innovative products" or: "not waste time, passion and skills of [startups] people" (Eric Ries). The mission is critical and necessary regarding the startup rate of failure. 

To achieve that strategy: "the only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else" (Eric Ries). The build-measure-learn loop (combines with the validated learning and the innovation accounting tools) gives entrepreneurs a scientific method to learn faster and discover how to build a sustainable business around the vision they have. This method helps them to avoid falling into two traps: just do it and planning and forecasting strategies that are not suitable for a startup evolving in an uncertain world.

This strategy put the cursor right in the middle of the spectrum of strategic choices.

The spectrum of strategic choices - Cyprien CREPEAUX - 2021

• Vision, strategy, and product

Entrepreneurs need first to have a clear understanding of their vision, strategy, and product. The vision is true north, creating a thriving and world-changing business, and entrepreneurs will employ a strategy to achieve that vision. The result of this strategy will be a product. For Eric Ries, a product is "any source of value for the people who become customers. Anything those customers experience from their interaction with a company." A product can also be a service for example in his definition.

The vision changes rarely and a strategy less frequently (it is called a pivot). On the contrary, the product changes constantly (it is called optimization).

Vision, strategy, product. Eric Ries - The Lean Startup - 2011

Vision, strategy, and product logic looks close to what Simon Sinek calls the Why, How, What patterns, or the way he considers great leaders inspire action, where Why equals to Vision, How equals to Strategy and Product equals to What.

WHY Great Leaders Inspire Action — What If We Can Measure It? Kristín Grímsdóttir - 2016

• The 5 Principles of the Lean Startup method

Second, when an entrepreneur creates a startup, he should understand two principles (1. and 2.) and use three other ones (3., 4. and 5.), the five principles of the Lean Startup :

1. Entrepreneurs are everywhere;
2. Entrepreneurship is management;
3. Validated learning;
4. Build-measure-learn;
5. Innovation accounting;

According to Eric Ries, entrepreneurs are everywhere where: "a human institution [is] designed to create new products and services under conditions of extreme uncertainty", his definition of a startup. Following this definition, it is not related to any size company, any sector, or industry. Like any human institution, it needs a new form of management [the administration of an organization]. This new kind of management is entrepreneurship, the way you run a startup: "specifically geared to [a] context of extreme uncertainty".

A startup is: "a human institution designed to create new products and services under conditions of extreme uncertainty." Eric Ries.

The goal of a startup is to learn how to build a sustainable business around a vision and: "this learning can be validated scientifically by running frequent experiments [...] to test each element of [this] vision" (validated learning). Because according to Eric Ries, the Lean Startup's mission is to eliminate waste (and then help create value) by learning faster than anyone else, he defines waste as anything that was done that does not contribute to a [validated] learning. On the contrary, value is anything that contributes to a [validated] learning and productivity can be measured by how much validated learning entrepreneurs are getting for their efforts which means: "systematically figuring out the right things to build".

A way to test each idea/element of a vision is to turn it into products and measure how customers respond. The actions (or inactions) of the customers help entrepreneurs and teams to learn and to know when to persevere or pivot and the build-measure-learn loop allows them to accelerate this process.

Build-Measure-Learn Feedback Loop - Eric Ries - The Lean Startup - 2011

Following the build-measure-learn loop, as an accountant is responsible for keeping and interpreting financial records in a company, the entrepreneurs and innovators within a startup will introduce an innovation accounting, a tool to measure progress, set up milestones, and prioritize work.

Eric Ries summarized in these words the Lean Startup method: "although we write the feedback loop as Build-Measure-Learn because the activities happen in that order, our planning really works in the reverse order: we figure out what we need to learn, use innovation accounting to figure out what we need to measure to know if we are gaining validated learning, and then figure out what product we need to build to run that experiment and get that measurement."

b. The scientific method in entrepreneurship

The Lean Startup introduced the scientific method (c) in entrepreneurship in 2011 with the Build-Measure-Learn loop, where it was only magic before (the BC/AD for startups). The equation of success (x) for a startup could be written like this now: a + b + c = x [with a (unwanted events = number of fails) and b (wanted events = number of wins), and a < b or a > b insignificant]. Whatever a or b are, entrepreneurs who apply the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop (or another scientific method) will always obtain validated learning (= success ["the achievement of a desired result" (Wikipedia)]), and they will always succeed: knowing if they are following the right path (win) or not (fail). The only strategy for entrepreneurs to create a successful startup in an uncertain world is to use a scientific method that allows them to know when they win and when they fail. When a scientist's theory is proved incorrect, the scientist has failed to demonstrate something. He closed a door. Other scientists will learn from this failure, and concentrate their energy to open new promising doors. We need the same spirit now in entrepreneurship. 

The equation of success in a startup: a + b + c = x 

compared with the doxa: 

a + b = x (when b > a).

"This is one of the most important lessons of the scientific method: if you cannot fail, you cannot learn." Eric Ries

According to Ethan Mollick, an entrepreneurship professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the Lean Startup method: "was an instant hit in Silicon Valley, as startups embraced this new experimental ethos" (What the Lean Startup Method Gets Right and Wrong - 2019). When reading the book, the way Eric Ries writes and he indeed explains his method are very appealing and easy to read. Nevertheless, we live in a scientific world, it is not sufficient to take for granted some successful case studies or the fact that the book was a hit and that all entrepreneurs should follow the Lean Startup method to create a successful business.

Hopefully, Italian academics proved that startups that use a scientific approach such as the one explained in the Lean Startup method: "perform better [and] pivot to a greater extent to a different idea" (A Scientific Approach to Entrepreneurial Decision Making: Evidence From a Randomized Control Trial - 2018). The results confirm the theory of the authors: "a scientific approach improves precision [...] [and] reduces the odds of pursuing projects with false-negative returns" (Gambardella, Camuffo, Cordova, Spina). That is great to know that The Lean Startup book is not only an appealing scientific theory for entrepreneurship, but it also offers to entrepreneurs a fascinating strategy and method to create successful startups.

By the way, as Ethan Mollick recalled it, data give us more and more, year after year, beneficial insights. For example: "solo founders are twice as likely to succeed in business as co-founders" (2 founders are not always better than 1 - 2018), or the best age to create a successful startup is 45 (Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship - 2019). These data help us to build the paved road to success to help startups enter the 21st century. 

The Lean Startup is a strong base to elaborate a paved road to success. It can be compared with Taylorism which proposed a scientific approach of management at the beginning of the 20th century, whereas the Lean Startup proposes a scientific approach to entrepreneurial decision making. Because it is probably a revolution for the 21st century, it should be enhanced/confronted/proved otherwise with other points of view, exactly like it was the case for Einstein and his theory of general relativity in 1915. That is what we are going to do now.

The Lean Startup method: "pushed entrepreneurial activity to be more scientific and experimentation oriented" but it has some limitations according to the authors of the article Lean startup and the business model: Experimentation revisited (Felin, Gambardella, Stern, Zenger) published in 2020:

• The emphasis placed on lean tools from manufacturing (Toyota production system especially), encourages incremental innovation rather than radically discontinuous innovation.
• Some unknowns exist within the Lean Startup equation such as: can the method be applied for every technology, industry, or sector? When to use a MVP? When does engaging with customers make sense? For what types of products? etc.
• Overall the Lean Startup approach offers a lack of guidance in the entrepreneurial strategy because the link between theories, commitment, problem-solving, and experimentation, is unclear and hypothesis considered as a fancy word for a guess. Einstein said: “whether you can observe a thing or not depends on the theory which you use. It is the theory which decides what can be observed." It means that if your starting theory/strategy is unclear, you will miss what you are looking for and the Lean Startup looks like a: "metaphorical equivalent of a prompt to look for your keys under the streetlight" whereas it should be for startups: "using a flashlight [...] to look for solutions to problems, guided by a theory, in places that are hidden and not obvious to others" (Lean startup and the business model: Experimentation revisited - 2020). According to Felin, Gambardella, Stern, and Zenger, the Lean Startup should attach more importance to the theory in its objective to apply a scientific method to entrepreneurship.

c. The Entrepreneurial Strategy Compass

As we have seen previously, the mistake to avoid is to jump on the just do it or the planning & forecasting strategies. Both are not suitable for startups because they evolve in an uncertain world. Before diving into the swimming pool, Eric Ries recommends to entrepreneurs in The Lean Startup to ask themselves two questions:

• Should our product be built?
• Can we build a sustainable business around this set of products and services?

The Lean Startup helps entrepreneurs to answer these questions but as some authors said, the method should attach more importance to the theory in its wish to apply a scientific approach to entrepreneurship. "It is the theory which decides what can be observed" as Albert Einstein said. The Entrepreneurial Strategy Compass provides a more robust theory about why a startup is going to succeed. The compass helps answer the question: "Is there a way [for entrepreneurs] to think through strategic options without slowing down their process too much?" (Strategy for Start-ups - 2018).

The Compass will take place at the left of the Build-Measure-Learn loop in the Spectrum of Strategic Choices because it provides a stronger framework to explore possible business strategies than the Lean Startup. The reflection proposed goes more to the left part of the spectrum (forecasting). The Entrepreneurial Strategy Compass framework: "is designed to help entrepreneurs make [strategic] choices successfully and channel imagination and commitment toward the realization of their ideas" (Gans, Scott, Stern). It can be a handy first move for founders before using the Lean Startup strategy.

The spectrum of strategic choices - Cyprien CREPEAUX - 2021

To make these [strategic] choices, entrepreneurs should:

1.Answer two questions:

• Collaborate or compete? Do you want to collaborate with established players on the market or not?
• Build a moat or storm a hill? Or how long do you want to delay your go-to-market?

2.Explore four possible strategies:

• Disruption.
• Intellectual Property.
• Value Chain.
• Architectural.

Fill all the quadrants (see drawing below) with as much information as possible (customers to target, technologies to focus on, identity to assume, whom to compete with and how, etc.).

The four quadrants of the Entrepreneurial Strategy Compass - From "Strategy for startups" - Gans, Scott, Stern - 2018

As Gans, Scott, and Stern explain, there is no need for a significant commitment in this exercise until a choice is made and: "if only one viable vision of the future exists, the entrepreneur probably doesn’t have much of a business, to begin with".

3.Choose a strategy, the one most aligned with the motivations and values of the founders.

In this framework, the Disruption strategy is the polar opposite of an IP strategy, and the Value Chain strategy, the polar opposite of an Architectural strategy. Based on the choices founders make, the strategy will suggest precise experiments to conduct. "Whatever framework is chosen [...], it should involve an explicit process of hypothesis building and testing" (Gans, Scott, Stern), and the Lean Startup provides an interesting scientific method to do so with the validated learning and the Build-Measure-Learn loop.

4.Live the strategy (and pivot if necessary). An accurate strategy helps entrepreneurs consider the appropriate future pivots. Here the innovation accounting can be advantageous.

Below is an example of how the framework works for the startup RapidSOS, an emergency technology company.

Eric Ries explains in The Lean Startup that: "the only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else", which is only possible with a scientific approach. In the Entrepreneurial Strategy Compass, the focus is made on the environment because: "the winner is usually the company that understands the environment better" (Gans, Scott, Stern). The Compass allows entrepreneurs to learn faster by exploring less obvious possible environments to grow their business.

The Compass is not a Business Model Canvas (or any business plan/model) because it is a compass to explore some new territories where the Canvas is a map of discovered lands. A piece of great news because some academics demonstrated that a: "detailed business plan" is not necessary "before opening a new business". (Do Business Plans Make No Difference in the Real World? A Study of 117 New Ventures - 2005).

As we have seen previously, there are only adapted strategies to a specific situation or not. Entrepreneurs should choose a strategy close to the middle of the Spectrum of Strategic Choices (such as the one encouraged by the Lean Startup). Other strategies can fluctuate at the left (expect the expected strategies) or at the right (learning by doing strategies) of the spectrum middle, they should stay as close as possible still. This fluctuation is what we called the "expect the unexpected" approach (see drawing below).

The spectrum of strategic choices - Cyprien CREPEAUX - 2021

Entrepreneurs should avoid planning & forecasting or just do it strategies for their startups because they are not suitable when applied in an uncertain world.

Conclusion

How to create a successful startup? We formulated two hypotheses:

• We need a strategy to create a successful startup;
• A scientific approach to entrepreneurship is the best strategy to thrive in an uncertain world.

Entrepreneurship is moving from magic to science (as management during the 20th century). Entrepreneurs have more and more tools (The Spectrum of Strategic Choices, The Lean Startup, the Entrepreneurial Strategy Compass, etc.) and data at their disposal to crack the startup success code/to create a paved road to success. Create a startup is like driving a car (rather than launching a rocket). Entrepreneurs need to avoid two common traps when choosing a strategy: the planning and forecasting one and the just do it one. Both of them lead only to a dead-end.

The Lean Startup (scientific) method is designed to teach entrepreneurs how to drive a startup. "Instead of making complex plans that are based on a lot of [false] assumptions, [entrepreneurs] can make constant adjustments with a steering wheel called the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop. Through this process of steering, they can learn when and if it's time to make [a pivot] or [...] persevere along [the] current path" (Eric Ries)." Once the engine of growth is operating, the Lean Startup: "offers methods to scale and grow [a] business with maximum acceleration" (Eric Ries).

The Lean Startup is the steering wheel and the engine of our scientific car, the Entrepreneurial Strategy Compass is the windscreen, and the Spectrum of Strategic Choices the wheel alignment. Nowadays, entrepreneurs have two choices when creating a startup: drive the magic car or the scientific one on the road to success. The magic car sometimes leads to success, the scientific one always! The more we will improve this scientific car with new tools and data, the more we will find together a paved road to success. 

Thank you so much for reading my article ?? I hope you learned insightful pieces of information.

--------

To infinity and beyond?

If you want to know more about the Lean Startup method, I plan to write an article to dig into the book's details because it is very captivating.

I think out also to write an article to discover what kind of strategy works best to create a successful organization in a complex world. I will talk about the expect the unexpected approach. This strategy takes advantage of both expect the expected and learning by doing approaches, and we need to invent it to thrive in a complex world (we do not live anymore in a complicated one ;). I will probably talk about Frederic Laloux's book: Reinventing Organizations and the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow.

--------

Please feel free to comment:

• If you liked the article ?? or not ?? and why?
• If as an entrepreneur/employee, you think you are currently driving the magic car ???♂? or the scientific one ????? in your startup, and why? 
• If you want me to write the articles I talked about before (To infinity and beyond? part) or if you have other ideas!
• "I ?? Lean Startup" or "??" if you want, I will know who read until the end ;)

--------

Table of contents

1. Do we need a strategy to create a successful startup?

a. What is a strategy?

b. The Spectrum of Strategic Choices

c. Where startups should put the cursor on the Spectrum of Strategic Choices?

2. What kind of strategy works best to create a successful startup in an uncertain world?

a. The Lean startup

b. The scientific method in entrepreneurship

c. The Entrepreneurial Strategy Compass

--------

References

- It’s Not About the Framework - Carl Schramm - 2018

- Startup Genome 2019 report

- The Venture Capital Secret: 3 Out of 4 Start-Ups Fail - Shikhar Ghosh - 2012

- Knightian uncertainty - Frank Knight (Wikipedia)

- Plan vs Strategy: Is There a Difference? - Cherissa Newton (no date)

- The Lean Startup - Eric Ries - 2011 (book)

- How great leaders inspire action - Simon Sinek - 2009 (video)

- WHY Great Leaders Inspire Action — What If We Can Measure It? - Kristín Grímsdóttir - 2016

- THE LEAN STARTUP SUMMARY (BY ERIC RIES) - The Swedish Investor - 2019 (video)

- What the Lean Startup Method Gets Right and Wrong - Ethan Mollick - 2019

- A Scientific Approach to Entrepreneurial Decision Making: Evidence From a Randomized Control Trial - Alfonso Gambardella, Arnaldo Camuffo, Alessandro Cordova, Chiara Spina - 2018

- 2 founders are not always better than 1 - Meredith Somers - 2018

- Age and High-Growth Entrepreneurship - Pierre Azoulay, Benjamin F. Jones, J. Daniel Kim, Javier Miranda - 2019

- Lean startup and the business model: Experimentation revisited - Teppo Felin, Alfonso Gambardella, Scott Stern, Todd Zengerd - 2019

- Strategy for Start-ups - Joshua Gans, Erin L. Scott, Scott Stern - 2018

- Do Business Plans Make No Difference in the Real World? A Study of 117 New Ventures - Julian Lange, William D. Bygrave, Aleksandar Mollov, Michael Pearlmutter, Sunil Singh - 2005