Nathan Furr

Nathan R. Furr is a Full Professor of Strategy and Innovation at INSEAD, where he teaches and researches how new and established firms adapt to technological change and enter new markets. He earned his PhD from the Stanford Technology Ventures Program at Stanford University and holds BA, MA, and MBA degrees from Brigham Young University (BYU). Before academia, he worked as a strategy consultant at Monitor Group, advising senior executives on strategy and market-discovery initiatives, and has held permanent or visiting academic positions at INSEAD, ESSEC, and BYU.

Furr is best known as an author and thought leader on innovation and uncertainty. He has co-authored several books, including *Nail It then Scale It* (NISI Institute, 2011), *The Innovator's Method* (Harvard Business School Press, 2014), *Leading Transformation* (Harvard Business School Press, 2018), *Innovation Capital* (Harvard Business Review Press, 2019), and *The Upside of Uncertainty* (Harvard Business Review Press, 2022, co-authored with his wife, Susannah Harmon Furr). His articles appear in *Harvard Business Review* and *MIT Sloan Management Review*, and he contributes to *Forbes* and *Inc.* His work has been recognized by Thinkers50.

On the investing and venture side, Furr founded the International Business Model Competition, a global startup competition attracting thousands of teams, and sits on the investment board of the Kickstart Seed Fund, an early-stage venture fund based in Salt Lake City, Utah, focused on the Mountain West. He has also acted as a founder of, and advisor to, corporations and startups across healthcare, clean technology, professional services, internet, retail, and financial-services industries, which underpins his classification as an angel/seed-stage investor.

With his wife Susannah (a designer and art historian), Furr also co-created "The Upside of Uncertainty / UP School," a research-based framework and educational platform offering keynotes, workshops, assessments, and online programs on navigating uncertainty for organizations and individuals.

• Invests at the seed / early stage, consistent with his role on the Kickstart Seed Fund investment board and his angel/advisory work.
• Strong orientation toward applying innovation method to ventures — his books (*Nail It then Scale It*, *The Innovator's Method*) advocate validating the problem and business model before scaling, a lens he brings to evaluating founders.
• Sector interests span healthcare, clean technology, internet/SaaS, fintech, retail, and professional services — the industries where he has founded or advised companies.
• Thesis centers on uncertainty as opportunity: his *Upside of Uncertainty* framework argues that the most skilled innovators reframe and leverage uncertainty rather than avoid it — a mindset he favors in founders.
• Through Kickstart, exposure to a B2B SaaS / enterprise-software-heavy early-stage portfolio concentrated in Utah and the Mountain West.