Nurturing Science-based Ventures – An International Case Perspective by Seifert, Ralf W., Leleux, Benoît F., Tucci, Christopher L.

A new book about start-ups has recently been published and it is mainly centered on Swiss (including EPFL) ventures. The authors do indeed have a strong knowledge of this environment as they are faculties from IMD or EPFL. What is unique with this book is that it does not describe success stories only, but also failures or not famous firms. Indeed failures are often better lessons than successes. You do not always know why you succeed and it may be easier to understand a failure. The authors have built their book as a process and describe in detail the development of start-ups; they begin with the opportunity recognition (chapter 1), they follow with writing a business plan (chapter2), financing a start-up (chapter 3), growing a company (chapter 4) to finally harvesting value creation (chapter 5). The final chapter is dedicated to corporate entrepreneurship (“Intra-preneurship”). I have not read it yet (it is more than 700 pages!) but the numerous case studies (more than 20) look rich and detailed. It is not the first book on the subject but it might be the first one with such a focus on European start-ups.