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Case
| HBS Case Collection
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2012
(Revised from original 2008 version)
Big to Small: The Two Lives of Barry Nalls
by
Noam T. Wasserman and Rachel Galper
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Abstract
Barry Nalls describes lessons learned during his 25-year career—his rise at GTE and shorter-lived ventures—and how these prepared him to found MASERGY, a telecommunications start-up. Even as a young boy in a family of entrepreneurs, Nalls had a reputation as a hard worker, but instead of becoming an entrepreneur himself, he built a long career at "the biggest company around," GTE. After years of working there in sales and marketing, he decided to venture out on his own. His GTE experiences armed him for some entrepreneurial challenges but also caused additional problems as he tried to start, build, and grow MASERGY. Four years after founding the venture, he now feels that he should have "taken the entrepreneurial plunge" much earlier in life.
Keywords: Business Startups;
Experience and Expertise;
Entrepreneurship;
Corporate Entrepreneurship;
Personal Development and Career;