Stories of Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship in the Southeast

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September 29, 2024 | Tom Ballard

UGA faculty member who helped launch Priceline.com now studies start-ups

For more than a decade, Susan Cohen has investigated the practices of successful and unsuccessful start-ups, fascinated by how start-ups innovate, adapt, and ultimately thrive.

Before she launched her career in research, Susan Cohen helped launch Priceline.com and watched dozens of other early internet start-ups attempt to lift off.

It was a great time for big, new ideas.

But some companies — such as Priceline — lasted more than two decades and helped change how America used the internet, while others — such as Pets.com — crashed spectacularly and became a poster child for dot-com boondoggles.

Cohen, now an Associate Professor of Management at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business, wanted to know how some innovations take hold and some fold before they get started.

“I’ve always been curious about innovation,” said Cohen, who received her bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of Michigan and went on to get her MBA at Northwestern University and her Ph.D. in management from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“I’m fascinated by how start-ups innovate, adapt, and ultimately thrive. My curiosity about new ideas and emerging trends drives my research, which bridges the fields of innovation and entrepreneurship.”

For more than a decade, as described in this article, Cohen has investigated the practices of successful and unsuccessful start-ups.

Earlier this year, her piece “What sets successful start-up accelerators apart?” was featured in the Harvard Business Review. In 2023, she presented her talk “Three things entrepreneurs should know about advice.” as part of TEDxAtlanta’s We Rise program.

Currently, she’s working on a $400,000 grant-funded study of how Georgia’s Zell Miller and HOPE Scholarships have affected entrepreneurship rates in the state.



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