New Venture Dynamics: Takeaways from The Roller Coaster Journeys of New Ventures

Business School Dean, Professor Leisa Sargent invites you to join us at the Business School CBD Campus for an exclusive lecture with Honorary Doctorate awardee, guest speaker Professor George Foster AM.

Professor Foster is a globally respected scholar and advisor whose teaching, research, and leadership have shaped generations. This presentation will draw from research based on feedback from entrepreneurs, encompassing over 3,000 examples of pivotal high and low points—both at the company and personal level.

Abstract

The norm at most new ventures is a roller coaster journey with multiple highs and lows. Based on ongoing research, the talk first illustrates the high frequency of revenue and headcount growth and then the decline of many new ventures. Then, the key learnings from research from 3,000 examples of high and low moments of new ventures will be discussed. The examples come from multiple sectors and from multiple countries. These examples came from a database built specifically for this research based on surveys followed up by in-person interviews by the researchers with a select number of survey respondents. Highs and lows at both the venture level 1 and the entrepreneur/management level will be discussed. Multiple areas of highs and lows will be illustrated, covering founders, market opportunity, people and culture, financing, product, marketing, scaling, and value realisation (or not). Some common themes across these multiple areas will be highlighted.

About Professor George Foster AM

The Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Management
Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

George Foster graduated from The University Sydney with a B. Ec (First Class Honours and University Medal) and M.Ec and then a Ph.D from Stanford University. His teaching appointments have include The University of Chicago, the Australian Graduate School of Management, and Stanford University.

His initial area of focus was accounting and finance, including authoring Financial Statement Analysis and co-authoring with Charles T Horngren five editions of Cost Accounting: A Managerial Analysis, His research in this area won multiple awards including Competitive Manuscript Award of the American Accounting Association (twice), the Notable Contribution to the Accounting Literature from the AICPA (twice), and Citation for Meritorious Contribution to Accounting Literature from the Australian Society of Accountants. In 2017, he was elected into the Australian Accounting Hall of Fame.

In the late 1990’s Foster broadened to teach and research entrepreneurship. Courses he has taught have included Managing to IPO, Startup Globalisation Strategies and Formation of New Ventures. In each of these classes, over 20 entrepreneurs and investors each year co-teach individual sessions. This active involvement with the Silicon Valley venture community expanded to include entrepreneurship in many parts of the globe. He has been actively involved with the World Economic Forum, including Chairing their Global Agenda Council on Entrepreneurship and leading two extensive reports in 2011 and 2014 that were showcased at Davos and multiple other WEF meetings. Over 100 case studies with extensive quotations from new venture founders and management were included in these reports.. Reports and presentations in this area were also prepared with colleagues for the Australian Treasury and ASX, and the NSW State Government. His research in this area has won multiple awards—such as the California Management Review Award in 2010 for the “Paper making the most important contribution to the practice of management” and the Australian Journal of Management Award in 2014 for the “Paper of exceptional quality and likely to have a substantial impact in the field of management research.” Foster has been on the Board or Advisory Board to two venture groups ( including Allen & Buckeridge in Australia) and multiple new venture boards. He has led Executive Programs for over 1,000 entrepreneurs from many parts of the globe at Stanford and programs for the Irish government seeking to scale Irish new ventures on a global scale.

Foster’s other research and teaching area is Sports Business Management. Here has co-authored two texts (The Business of Sports and Sports Business Management) . He interacts extensively with many sporting bodies around the globe. One area of focus here is new ventures on either the business side or the playing side of the sports ecosystem.