For decades now, Silicon Valley has been the home of the future. It’s the birthplace of the world’s most successful high-tech companies—including Apple, Yahoo!, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and many more. So what’s the secret? What is it about Silicon Valley that fosters entrepreneurship and innovation?
With Silicon Valley: Planet Startup, Peter Ester and Arne Maas argue that the answer lies in Silicon Valley’s culture—a corporate culture that values risk-taking, creativity, invention, and sharing. Through extensive interviews with Dutch entrepreneurs working in the area, Ester and Maas show that Silicon Valley is above all a mindset: a belief in thinking, with passion and ambition, far beyond the here and now. Scholars and business and budding entrepreneurs alike are sure to find both inspiration and illumination in the stories and analysis Ester and Maas have assembled here.
- Cover
- Contents
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- Business Focus of Participating Startup Founders & CEOs
- 1. Introduction: The Silicon Valley Saga
- Why Dutch startups?
- Target groups
- The way we worked
- Book overview
- 2. The Silicon Valley Innovation & Startup Model
- Path-dependency of transformational technologies
- A little history
- Global engine of innovation
- 3. Product: Innovation Silicon Valley Style
- Think big
- Think disruptive
- Think innovation
- Think different: Need seekers, market readers or technology drivers
- Entrepreneurs: Coming to Silicon Valley
- 4. Market: Pivot and Perseverance
- Key Success Factors
- Marketing redefined
- Entrepreneurs on pivot & perseverance
- Pivoting the startup
- Launch and sales
- 5. Team and Talent
- Startup founding teams: From pals to professionalization
- Talent: Excelling in hard & soft skills
- By way of example: Stanford University as talent pool
- Entrepreneurs on team & talent
- Great teams will win
- Talent is gold
- 6. Funding
- Angel investors & venture capitalists
- Pitching for money
- Entrepreneurs on startup funding
- Raising money
- Investment logic and exit
- The pitch
- 7. Culture
- The impact of culture
- Openness and sharing
- Passion and ethos
- Risk-taking and failure
- Cultural diversity and innovation
- Immigrant entrepreneurship
- Entrepreneurs on culture
- On risks and failure
- Cultural codes
- Work attitude, drive, and commitment
- 8. Universities and R&D Labs
- Higher education, innovation, and new ventures
- Berkeley
- Stanford University
- San Francisco State University and San Jose State University
- Santa Clara University
- Concerns
- Entrepreneurs on universities and R&D labs
- Higher education and startups
- Going for excellence
- 9. Government
- Demystifying the role of government
- New laws, new programs, new roles
- Entrepreneurs on government
- Government intervention: Contrasting paradigms
- Redefining the role of Dutch government
- Bankruptcy
- Visa, visa, visa
- 10. Network Support System
- The art of networking: Trust and social capital
- Law firms as business counselors
- Startup schools: Incubators & accelerators
- Entrepreneurs on network support system
- The need for networking
- 11. The Downside of the Valley
- Increasing social inequality
- Tech boom gentrification
- Entrepreneurs on social inequality and social problems
- 12. Silicon Valley’s Secret Sauce: (Ecosystem x Culture)2
- The Silicon Valley innovation puzzle
- The European context
- Entrepreneurs on lessons to be learned from Silicon Valley
- Boosting the European startup spirit
- Education
- Business
- Government
- 13. Go West, Young (Wo)Man, Go West?
- Notes
- Appendix 1: Interviewed Dutch Startup Founders & CEOs
- Appendix 2: Interviewed Silicon Valley & Dutch stakeholders
- Appendix 3: Questionnaire Personal Interviews Dutch startup Founders & CEOs in Silicon Valley
- Appendix 4: Questionnaire Group Interviews Dutch Startup Founders & CEOs in Silicon Valley
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