Stanford University Press Publishes New Text on Entrepreneurial Finance Featuring DecisionTools
Monte Carlo Simulation and Decision Trees using Palisade DecisionTools Software Among Tools Used

26 May 2011, Palo Alto, California - Stanford University Press has released an important new textbook in the rapidly expanding field of entrepreneurship: Entrepreneurial Finance: Strategy, Valuation, and Deal Structure by Janet Kiholm Smith, Richard L. Smith, and Richard T. Bliss. The new title is unique in its application of quantitative, probabilistic analysis to tackle the enormous uncertainties facing any new venture. 

Unlike other texts, this book prepares entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and outside investors for a wide variety of situations and problems that stakeholders might confront in an entrepreneurial venture. The authors specifically address the influences of risk and uncertainty on new venture success They devote substantial attention to methods of financial modeling such as Monte Carlo simulation and decision trees, techniques available in the industry-leading analytical software package The DecisionTools Suite by Palisade Corporation. One component of the Suite, PrecisionTree, is explicitly used to construct decision tree models, and another, @RISK, can easily be applied to the Monte Carlo analysis models in the book.  An educational version of The DecisionTools Suite is available to students via the book’s companion Web site.

Finally, the authors provide a comprehensive survey of approaches to new venture valuation, with an emphasis on applications. Readers will find a unique and direct focus on value creation as the objective of each strategic and financial choice that an entrepreneur or investor makes.

Complimentary review copies of Entrepreneurial Finance  and The DecisionTools Suite are available for members of the press.

For more information on Entrepreneurial Finance, visit http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?isbn=0804770913 or contact David Jackson, david.jackson@stanford.edu, at Stanford University Press.

Stanford University Press is one of the world’s leading publishers of trade and academic books in business and management, Asian studies, art, anthropology, history, literary theory, and the social sciences.

Palisade Corporation develops risk analysis and decision support software for a wide range of industry sectors.  The company was founded in 1984, and at present more than 400,000 people use Palisade’s software in fields that range from finance to oil and mineral exploration, real estate to heavy manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals to aerospace. Its software is used by over 90% of Fortune 500 companies, including Procter & Gamble, Merck, and Cummins, Inc.