New to Big: How Companies Can Create Like Entrepreneurs, Invest Like VCs, and Install a Permanent Operating System for Growth

In New to Big, serial entrepreneurs David Kidder and Christina Wallace reveal the Bionic blueprint for igniting growth revolutions inside established companies--funding portfolios of startups and monitoring their progress as they grow from new ideas into big businesses.

When David Kidder was invited to speak at GE’s annual leadership conference in 2012, he posed a rather unexpected question from the stage down to then-chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt, ＂How many ＄50 million companies did you launch last year?＂ The answer was zero. But Immelt, rather than being angry or offended by the radical candor, admitted to the 700 leaders in attendance, ＂That was the most important question in the thirty-seven years of this conference.＂

The fact is, as Kidder shows in New to Big, entrenched thinking and outdated bureaucracy is at war with new ideas. Established companies are skilled at growing big businesses into even bigger ones. Entrepreneurs and early-stage investors, on the other hand, are skilled at discovering new opportunities and turning them into big businesses. New to Big combines the best of both worlds, introducing established companies to the methodology, tools, and systems of entrepreneurship and venture capital. It’s creates a way of working that they call the Growth Operating System.

New to Big is designed to unpack the Growth Operating System that veteran venture capitalists and successful entrepreneurs use to discover the future in the face of the unknowable. Because even most bets placed by VC’s fail, more than 80 percent of the time. That is why you need a portfolio of investments and a growth board to measure the progress of each business, ensuring bad ideas die and good ideas grow.