Themes for Study and Learning in May

Here were the April themes, together with April results:

So my project for April is to fan out from here and see what research can tell us (me) about the “success factors” for entrepreneurs.

At least some of them are:

  1. Effectual thinking and opportunities  I read maybe ten papers from the literature on effectual thinking, and I continue my strong suspicion that it’s a fundamental requirement for successful entrepreneurs
  2. Purpose and greed  Didn’t read much here.
  3. Always replace yourself at every step of the enterprise Didn’t read much here
  4. I’m almost through Schumpeter’s book on “Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy”  As one of my sources said, most of his wisdom is contained in a couple of very catchy quotes and a lot of the material in CSD is dated.
  5. Started to read “Ecce Homo” by Nietschze
  6. Finished “Burn the Business Plan,” by Carl Schramm (longtime head of the Kauffman Foundation).  Lots of ideas about what does and does not make for a good entrepreneur (he does not like business plans, ecosystems, or incubators, for example), but there is almost no pointers to substantiation for any of his points.  I’ve got a query in to him about research backing his conclusions, but haven’t heard back for a couple of weeks.
  7. Halfway through Herbert Simon’s “Sciences of the Artificial”
  8. Not for “study and learning”, but I read Ta Nahisi Coates’ “We Were Eight Years in Power” with great interest.  In particular, I was quite interested in the case he makes for the centrality of white supremacy and slavery in U.S. history.

I think the plan for May is

  1. Continue with the entrepreneurship readings: Finish Simon,  read “Built to Last” by Collins and Porras, and “Grow”, by Jim Stengel.
  2. I’m going to try to read “Origin of Species” by Darwin, because I really should before I die.
  3. I’m trying to do a raft of DIY projects around the house in May, so I’ll do plenty of task-oriented reading (or maybe mostly YouTube viewing) in pursuit of that.

Always welcome your thoughts and comments.