• Nanogene Case Discussion • Culture
Evaluate the Nanogene founding team and the resources they bring to the venture.
Independent of the equity ownership issue, what are two risks associated with this founding team?
How would these risks be reduced if Paige Miller joined the team?
Susan Stone (the VC) seems concerned by the equity split among the founders. What consequences for NanoGene might she fear from the present even equity split?
Startups Don’t Last Forever
A Startup is the organization you use to search for your scalable business model
Startups Search For A Business Model
Management Strategy Changes
Development Team-centric
Mission-centric Process-centric
Customer Development in the High-Tech Enterprise
Fall 2008
8
Management Skills Changes
• Values • Norms • Rituals • Created by founders • Changed as new leaders are added • Tacit, implicit, often encoded • Sub-cultures emerge based on region,
country, job function, industry
• Individual Contributors are rarely founders
• Founding team typically has different skills
and temperaments
• Startups are about the team
• The 100x team – Not just competent
– Not just your roommates
• Sources – Stanford
– VC’s
– Professors
– Professional network
• Agile
• Resilient
• Tenacious
• Pattern Recognition
• Fearless
• Comfortable with Chaos
• Cash – Salary and bonus – Benefits
• Equity – Common Stock – Vesting Schedule – Stock “budget” for future hires – Tax Implications and Security Laws