Preliminary and Subject to Change
Business 34220-81 Spring 2024
Advanced New Venture Strategy Workshop
Thursday Evenings - Full Remote
Clinical Professor James E. Schrager
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
- Leonardo DaVinci
The New Venture Strategy course is all about selecting a good idea for a start-up business. The Advanced NVS Workshop investigates what happens after the initial operating period where significant growth remains paramount to reaching a liquidity event. Think WeWork as it expanded, Rivian, Uber, Carvana, Tovala, among many others. Each moved well beyond a single market, technology, or product, yet the entrepreneurs needed to make spot-on strategy decisions--in some cases as a matter of life or death for their enterprise.
The material we will cover is relevant to start-ups which do well in their initial operating period, Unicorns blessed with vast amounts of capital for rapid expansion yet in need of ideas and data on how to best spend it, private businesses looking for growth, and turnaround opportunities which can make good acquisition targets for buy-out entrepreneurs.
As a workshop we will solve strategy puzzles in class together which means student groups presenting solutions in real time. This allows us to build the frameworks required to think strategically. Each student will be required to carefully analyze assigned cases, stay current in "The Wall Street Journal," together with a study group, present a well developed strategy proposal on how to solve real issues with an existing company, and write an individual term paper outlining strategy for a company or organization in trouble.
Because of the complexity of forever time, we do not build generic models of success as we do in New Venture Strategy. Instead we concentrate on taming the inherent challenges of operating without time limits. Cases used in New Venture Strategy will not be used in this course, nor will the NVS frameworks.The cognitive science underpinnings of New Venture Strategy will remain although we will look at the foundations of the Advanced NVS Workshop when possible with new examples to illustrate the central concepts.
By the end of the quarter, students should have an idea of how to formulate strategy for an existing business looking for growth, and how to realistically assess inherent risk in various options. We will practice how best to make all-important strategy presentations to board members of the enterprise or organization.
Our goal is to develop an unconscious common sense about strategy beyond a start-up's initial operating period.
