Boston Beer

1. Use the Sahlman “People-Opportunity-Context-Deal” Framework to evaluate this venture.

According to Sahlman, for a business venture to succeed the right combination of people, opportunity, external context, and deal all need to “fit”. He goes further to define “fit” as “the degree to which the people, the opportunity, the deal, and the context together influence the potential for success”. (Sahlman, 1996, p. 2) These items will all change over the years as the requirements of the company change. For example, the initial people that are very good at setting up the organization, coming up with the ideas, setting up systems, and getting things started may not be the best ones for ensuring that the follow through is completed. The initial opportunities may morph into new opportunities and the context and deals may change. The important thing for a company to do is watch for those changes and make sure that they are anticipate the changes that need to be made to accommodate those changes.

Boston Beer is in a growth stage with their company. Management needs to decide if they should continue to try to market their Boston Lightship beer or move on to other opportunities. (Cyr, Lassiter, III, & Roberts, 2001, p. 1) They need to determine if the people, opportunities, context, and deals that they currently have are the best for their current situation.

People

Sahlman outlines several questions that should be asked by the business in development of their strategy and business plan regarding the people that are currently involved. “Who are they? What have they done in the past that would lead one to believe that they will be successful in the future? Who is missing from the team and how will they be attracted?” (Sahlman, 1996, p. 3) Now that they are in the growth stages of the business, they need to determine if the people they have are still the ones that are needed. At that point, there are a new set of questions that need asked. “Does the...