Introducing Effectual Entrepreneurship

On Tuesday Jan 25, 2011, we will officially announce the release of "Effectual Entrepreneurship". Aside from any obligatory congratulations, one of the obvious questions you might ask is "Why"? With so much great literature on the topic of entrepreneurship, why write another textbook? When we sat down to think about it, we had at least three reasons why we took the time to create this project.

1. Breaking Barriers. When we walk into the classroom, one of the first questions we ask is why people are there instead of out in the wild, starting a venture. Consistently, the reasons we get are:

> I don’t have a good idea
> I don’t have enough money
> I don’t know how to take the plunge
> I’m afraid of failing

We wanted to be able to address these barriers to entrepreneurship directly with data and cases that could illustrate to people how they could manage these issues.

2. Building Perspective. Effectuation provides a theoretical foundation...a perspective grounded in more than 30 peer-reviewed academic articles. That perspective provides readers with the logic of expert entrepreneurs. Heuristic learned in the uncertain context of creating new ventures, and (we think) teachable in this book.

3. Illustrating Color. We have accumulated more than 70 entrepreneur stories across time, industry and geography and share these stories in "Effectual Entrepreneurship".

We have tried to make this all accessible with clear takeaways, actions and materials for the entrepreneurship instructor to bring these elements to life in the reading and in the entrepreneurship classroom. We hope you agree.

Stuart, for the Effectual Entrepreneurship team