Entrepreneurial Negotiation: Understanding and Managing the Relationships that Determine Your Entrepreneurial Success
by Samuel Dinnar  (Author), Lawrence Susskind  (Author), Edward Roberts (Foreword)

About the Author
Samuel Dinnar is an instructor at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, with a 25-year track record as a global entrepreneur, hi-tech executive, board member, and venture capital investor. He is a strategic negotiation advisor and a mediator specializing in business conflicts involving founders, investors, and board members in early-stage, high-growth and distressed companies.
Lawrence Susskind has been an innovator and Professor at MIT for more than forty-five years. He is one of the founders and directors of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, and a founder of the Consensus Building Institute. He has trained tens of thousands of students and executives globally, and has published twenty books.

About this book
The great majority of startups fail, and most entrepreneurs who have succeeded have had to bounce back from serious mistakes. Entrepreneurs fumble key interactions because they don’t know how to handle the negotiation challenges that almost always arise. They mistakenly believe that deals are about money when they are much more complicated than that.
This book presents entrepreneurship as a series of interactions between founders, partners, potential partners, investors and others at various stages of the entrepreneurial process - from seed to exit. There are plenty of authors offering ‘tips’ on how to succeed as an entrepreneur, but no one else scrutinizes the negotiation mistakes that successful entrepreneurs talk about with the authors.
As Dinnar and Susskind show, learning to handle emotions, manage uncertainty, cope with technical complexity and build long-term relationships are equally or even more important. This book spotlights eight big mistakes that entrepreneurs often make and shows how most can be prevented with some forethought. It includes interviews with high-profile entrepreneurs about their own mistakes. It also covers gender biases, cultural challenges, and when to employ agents to negotiate on your behalf.
Aspiring and experienced entrepreneurs should pay attention to the negotiation errors that even the most successful entrepreneurs commonly make.

Table of contents
1 Entrepreneurship : The Good, the Bad, and the Terrible 1
    The Good: When Cofounders Get Started 1
    The Bad: When Angels Sing and Investors Dance 3
    The Terrible: When Dogs Eat Dogs 5
    How to Use This Book 7
    Something Better: An Alternative Good Ending 8
2 The Entrepreneurial World 13
    The Entrepreneurship Process in Stages: From Seed to Exit 13
    Entrepreneurs Who Can Negotiate Can Make Things Happen 14
    A Map of the Entrepreneurial Galaxy 18
    Create Disruption, Thrive on Change, and Adapt 26
    Innovation Does Not Mean Reinventing Every Wheel 28
    Negotiating Is a Vitally Important Entrepreneurial Skill 29
    Negotiation Includes Agreements and Milestones 38
    Bibliography 40
3 When Entrepreneurs Negotiate 41
    Entrepreneurs Must Take Risks 41
    What Made You Successful Can Get You in Big Trouble 43
    Entrepreneurial Negotiation Can Be Learned 43
    Negotiate Better to Become a Better Leader 46
    The Eight Most Common Mistakes that Entrepreneurs Make 50
    How to Use the Recorded Cases that Follow 59
    Bibliography 59
4 Real Entrepreneurs Describe Their Mistakes 61
    Case A: The Self-centered Seed Stage Pitch 64
    Case B: Overly Optimistic Seed Stage Non-investment 70
    Case C: Winning at Competing First Term Sheets 77
    Case D: Compromising for Quicker Growth 84
    Case E: Alone and Not Prepared to Sell the Company 90
    Case F: Haggling to Extend the Runway 97
    Case G: Intuitive Shift of the Revenue Growth 105
    Case H: The Nonemotional Sale of Their Company 112
    Reflections on the Eight Cases 120
    Bibliography 122
5 The Entrepreneurial Galaxy Reimagined: Prevent, Detect, and Respond to Your Mistakes 127
    Entrepreneurship as a Series of Negotiations 127
    Negotiating with Different Categories of Players 128
    Prevent Mistakes Before They Occur 133
    Detect Mistakes as You Make Them 138
    Reflect on Mistakes After Each Negotiation Is Over 151
    Overcoming Gender Biases and the Challenges of Culture 157
    Using Agents to Negotiate on Your Behalf 168
    Bibliography 175
6 Know Your Entrepreneurial Self 179
    Know Your Negotiating Self 179
    Dealing with the Most Common Mistakes 180
    Develop the Skills You Need 180
    Keep Reflecting on Your Personal Theory of Practice 183
    Continue to Improve 184
    Soar with Your Strengths 185
    Develop and Support Your Team 186
    Help Spread the Word! 186
    Bibliography 186
Appendix: Entrepreneurial Negotiation Worksheets 187
Bibliography 209
Index 217

Length: 225 pages
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; 1st ed. 2019 edition (October 8, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 3319925423
ISBN-13: 978-3319925424

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