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PREFACE

 

High-Tech Ventures is written primarily for those who are creating the future high-tech world by designing, building, and marketing innovative products. It is equally useful for board members, investors, attorneys, accountants, consultants, and others who are intimately involved in new ventures. These readers, plus students of the start-up process and other voyeurs, will find here a quantitative evaluation method, which includes a set of rules for examining a company and comparing it with an "ideal" organization.

The analytical approach presented in High-Tech Ventures differs considerably from the anecdotes, testimonials, and confessions so commonly found in today's autobiographies and case studies. Case studies are by no means ignored in this book, however, since the evaluation rules have been generated from actual cases and an entire chapter is devoted to case studies. But the diagnostic method described here is much broader than the approach employed in typical case studies, which focus on a particular discipline-such as marketing, finance, or management-to enable readers to under-stand a situation that aptly illustrates a flaw or an exemplary action. In contrast, the diagnostic method presented in this book enables users to examine all the critical dimensions that affect a new venture, which could very well reveal multiple flaws in the company. Furthermore, the diagnostic provides a consistent methodology for analyzing and comparing cases.

Although High-Tech Ventures is designed to serve embryonic entrepreneurial firms, theguidelinesgivenhereareequallyusefulforlarg~companyintrapreneurs (individuals within big, established organizations who are creating new businesses). These pioneers must deal with the same technologies, products, markets, and general environmental

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