I'd like to make it a regular part of this blog to share with you some of the more useful entrepreneurship and investment-related links I come across in the course of my research and surfing. Without further ado, here are three links that are worth checking out.

1. The May 2013 issue of Harvard Business Review is worth a read. It is an issue devoted to "The New Rules of Entrepreneurship". Useful article on the concept of "Lean Startup" by one of it's founders Steven Blank. Also articles on how the Venture Capital landscape is changing and how to negotiate with Venture Capitalists.

   Harvard Business Review - May 2013

2. Free online course at Udacity on "How to Build a Startup" by Steven Blank and Kathleen Mullaney. Many entrepreneurs throughout the world are taking this course. In his Harvard Business Review article, Steven Blank made the provocative claim that an entrepreneur's chances of success are better if they adopt lean startup principles. He cites a recent study claiming a 75% failure rate for startups so there is definite room for improvement here. If Blank's claim is true, investors might start quizzing entrepreneur's on their awareness and adoption of lean startup principles as a way to assess whether they are likely to be successful or not.

   Udacity course on "How to Build a Startup"

3. What is your tolerance for risk? Dr. Ruth Lytton at Virginia Tech and Dr. John Grable at Kansas State University have developed an Investment Risk Tolerance Quiz that is worth checking out if you want to better understand your tolerance for risk. The role of risk taking in entrepreneurship is debatable. On the one hand, there are lots of stories about entrepreneurs who risked it all but prevailed in the end. Egon Musk of Tesla Motors is one example (watch Revenge of the Electric Car to appreciate the gut-wrenching level of risk Egon was willing to accept). On the other hand, there are management theorists who claim that successful entrepreneurs are not reckless risk takers, but calculated risk takers. Perhaps that means that unsuccessful entrepreneurs are reckless risk takers? The quiz might be useful as a means to stimulate thinking about the nature of risk and risk taking behavior.

   Investment Risk Tolerance Quiz