Featured

One of the great challenges for me as an entrepreneurship educator is knowing whether the material I am teaching works. How do I know it works for others? How do I answer the logical and appropriate challenge of “prove it?”

When I first started as the managing director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship a decade ago, I thought my job was to help students create more and better startups. Fortunately, some wiser and more experienced faculty members reminded me that we were part of an educational institution. It made me think of the old adage that states, “It’s better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish.” We wanted to teach our students not just how to launch single businesses—we wanted to…

Teaching entrepreneurship well is really hard. I know this because when I first started teaching, I did a terrible job. As a former professional basketball player and an experienced entrepreneur, I fell back on convenient sports analogies: Work hard, be smart, stay up later, get up earlier. Be prepared.

Can entrepreneurship be taught? This question stirs quite the debate. Some will say entrepreneurs are born, not made. If I’m honest, I used to fall into this category. I believed entrepreneurship was all about hustle, tenacity and the relentless pursuit of your vision in the face and adversity and doubters...

When I heard the news that GE is considering breaking itself up into smaller units, I was overcome with sadness. I started my career at IBM in the early 1980s and saw that company brought low, and now a similar scenario is playing out with another venerable firm.

I have had the great honor and fortune to teach entrepreneurship for over a decade at MIT, and it has been a journey of continuous learning and improvement. While I could write books on what I have learned about how to teach entrepreneurship, here is a selection of 13 key lessons learned that I encourage you to consider incorporating into your teaching strategies.

Valuing a company is always a mix of science and art, especially for startups.  Historically the science has been pretty simple: Find comparable companies and do a multiple of earnings or revenue. However, three drivers of startup valuation have emerged that are changing the game. “Acquihire,” is the act of buying out a company for the skills and expertise of its staff. When Facebook buys a company like Hot Potato, it’s not for the revenue stream or products — it’s for the employees. Companies…

When I heard the news that GE is considering breaking itself up into smaller units, I was overcome with sadness. I started my career at IBM in the early 1980s and saw that company brought low, and now a similar scenario is playing out with another venerable firm.

To inspire today’s generation of company builders, entrepreneurship education needs a common language and apprenticeship opportunities. In my 20-plus years as an entrepreneur and seven years as an entrepreneurship educator, I have explored whether starting successful companies should be thought of as a science or an art. If entrepreneurship is a science, then I could easily teach my students that if they perform actions X and Y, they will get a result of Z. If it is an art, then it can be…

In the fall of 1977, the aspiring Harvard varsity basketball players used to play pickup games every afternoon. All of us were vying for the limited spots on the team. The competition was fierce. I remember one not particularly athletic guy, less of a thoroughbred and more of workhorse, a Clydesdale. I did not see him making the team, but Charlie Baker surprised us. He not only made the team, but turned out to be a terrific teammate.