Sunday, August 18, 2019
Who Owns That Unicorn?
Photo by Kaboompics .com from Pexels
I recently read an interesting article in the Economist about how, for many start-ups, it gets hard to know who actually owns it.
The average successful start-up goes through 7 rounds of funding, and a lot of private sales are made. The article mentioned how, at one start-up, employees spend their time trying to keep track of shareholders using Excel spreadsheets.
I'd add this to my list of required management databases a firm should have.
For example, all CIOs should have an application database, which tracks all applications, the people responsible for them, all hardware, operating systems, etc., and downstream/upstream applications. This database should also have the dates of the last security audit, contingency exercises, etc. and send out alerts when they are due.
Now, it looks like they should have an ownership/sales database, to track who really owns them. This will prevent legal issues and headaches, in case the company is sold or goes public.
© 2019 Praveen Puri
Praveen Puri is the Strategic Simplicity® expert who has delivered over $400 million in value. He helps clients "weaponize" simplicity and bridge the gap between strategy and execution. Visit PuriConsulting.com