John Mullins is an Associate Professor of Management Practice in Entrepreneurship and Marketing at the London Business School. He earned his MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota. An award-winning teacher and scholar, John brings to his teaching and research 20 years of executive experience in high-growth retailing firms including two ventures he founded and one he took public.
Since becoming a business school professor in 1992, John has published five books, numerous cases and more than 40 articles in a variety of outlets, including Harvard Business Review, the MIT Sloan Management Review, and The Wall Street Journal. His research has won national and international awards from the Marketing Science Institute, the American Marketing Association, and the Richard D. Irwin Foundation. He is a frequent speaker to audiences in entrepreneurship and venture capital.
John's first (and now recently updated) trade book, The New Business Road Test: What Entrepreneurs and Investors Should Do Before Launching a Lean Start-Up (5e, London: Prentice-Hall/FT 2017), now in its fifth edition, is the definitive work on the assessment and shaping of market opportunities. It's a go-to reference for entrepreneurs and investors alike, all over the world.
His second, the widely acclaimed Getting to Plan B: Breaking Through to a Better Business Model (Boston: Harvard Business Press 2009), co-authored with Randy Komisar, a partner at the esteemed venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in California, was named to "Best Books of 2009" lists by BusinessWeek and INC Magazine.
John’s newest book, The Customer-Funded Business: Start, Finance or Grow Your Company with Your Customers’ Cash (Jersey City, Wiley 2014), was named one of five “not-to-be-missed books” for 2014 by Fortune magazine. It challenges the widely held assumption that among an entrepreneur’s first and most important tasks is that of raising investment capital.
John has consulted with and done executive education on five continents for a variety of organizations both large and small, including Endeavor, Kenya Airways, Merck-Serono, Time Warner Communications, the European and African Venture Capital Associations, Pumpkin Ltd., the Young Presidents Organization, the Entrepreneurs' Organization, and the International Finance Corporation of The World Bank, among numerous others. He has served on the boards of fast-growing entrepreneurial companies in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, and Asia.
