About Venture Founders
Venture Founders— Startup for Good
Since 2006, Venture Founders has been helping aspiring creators of new ventures—using my many years of experience as an entrepreneur, as an MBA entrepreneurship teacher, from working in government and as a board member of nonprofits. Venture Founders is committed to the concept of stakeholder capitalism its many forms.
On the Venture Founders website, you’ll find how-to eBooks and huge amount of helpful guidance in the Venture Founders Resource Center. Follow my blog for knowledge and interest.
About Will Keyser
Will’s Background
Early years: My first entrepreneurial endeavor was at the age of 10, when I learned about unique value propositions and successful business models, though ignorant of the concepts for 30 years. I came to live in America at the age of 7 in 1946 and lived on Long Island. My ‘business’ was selling bunches of Lily of the Valley to weekenders returning to Manhattan on busy Route 25a. Returning to the UK a few years later, my secondary schooling was at a boarding school that now has entrepreneurship on the curriculum. During that time I started my enthusiasm for Outward Bound, which continues to this day. I did military service as an intelligence officer. My early working life included farm laboring and bookselling. I attended universities in UK and France.
Professional life: My professional life included working in small firms; a major French international management consultancy, where I reported to the UK managing director, previously Director of Le Monde, France’s premier newspaper; as an intrapreneur starting a new socio-economic consulting subsidiary (during which period I led a major project on public enterprise for the Commission of the EU of 9 members with more than dozen academics, subsequently published as a 7 volume set of books by Sijthoff & Noordhoff, a Dutch publisher) and I was a consultant to the Swedish Department of Industry, and wrote with a colleague a book called State Business, published by LiberFörlag. I was seconded as an industrial adviser to the UK National Economic Development Office (NEDO). NEDO provided staff for the National Economic Development Council, with a tri-partite structure of Government, Employers and Trade Unions, chaired by the Prime Minister.
Entrepreneurial Life: My own main business (in management culture change consulting), we started when I was 43—about the average age for all startups. Clients included banks, oil, food, engineering and other companies, as well as the UK and overseas Governments and institutional organizations. We sold the company to our 30 employees after 11 years (for one symbolic pound sterling), and I was able to retire for the first time at 52. Later I lived in Corsica (a French Mediterranean island) for 16 years, where various entrepreneurial endeavors, including serving on the Board of the regional Venture Capital company, Femu Qui.
Founding B Corporation: Back in America many years later my startup, Venture Founders, was one of the 82 Founding B Corporations in 2007 (despite no longer being certified, having long since ceased trading—hardly a surprise since I’m 86!). Now there are more than 10,000 BCorp companies worldwide. So it’s natural that I frequently refer to B Corporations on the Venture Founders website. I signed the BCorp original Declaration, to help create “the first ripples that what matters most is our interdependence.” The Declaration went on to say, “By acting individually and collectively, you launched a powerful movement for all of us to be the change we seek in the world and redefine success in business”.
Teaching: I taught new venture creation and sustainable strategy for seven years on an MBA program, and was able to retire a second time at 77.The MBA was at Marlboro College Graduate School, Marlboro Institute at Emerson College in Boston. My former boss, Kate Jellema, said of me, “I know you as a caring and encouraging colleague, always with a warm word for others. I appreciate you as a scholar-practitioner, and to understand how active you are in the creative re-imagination of the business world, and how generously you share your insights and ideas with the broader community of socially-invested entrepreneurs.”
Wider experience: I have started other businesses and some failed (an example: a business to provide technology for the early, non-invasive/inexpensive diagnosis of diseases of aging stemming from inflammation, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and AMD). I served on the boards of many nonprofits (employers’ organization, professional institutes, cultural & sports associations, retail food coop, local radio station and others), and have volunteered in community justice, homeless shelter…
Mentoring entrepreneurs: Over many years, I mentored entrepreneurs working on startups as well as students both before and after graduation (20+ firms and nonprofits started during my college teaching). My mentoring was on both sides of the Atlantic and one (Bonang Sealetsa) in Botswana in Sub-Saharan Africa. He founded the Institute of Entrepreneurial Development (IED). I coined the mantra for the IED, “Dream into Business—Transform Botswana”, a role that it has been playing successfully for many years.
Student Feedback
Will is brilliant and has so much to offer. He knows this material through and through, AND he wants YOU to figure out how to interact with it in your own way.
Will draws effectively on his many years of business experience to illustrate concepts with specific examples. He provides only loose structure, challenging students to step into the role of entrepreneur and tackle the hard work of prioritizing and project management.
Will has been doing strategy work longer than I’ve been alive. He loves sharing his wealth of knowledge and experience and isn’t afraid to call it like he sees it. He’s passionate about startups and the power for business to create change for good
Will demands a lot from his students – he expects us to not only learn the material and deliver on assignments, but to fully embody the trials and triumphs of entrepreneurship. His class fosters creativity which encourages us to stretch outside of our comfort zones for a dynamic learning environment. Will is a tough prof with a lot of heart.
