Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,402)
- Faculty Publications (210)
- September 2020
- Case
Disrupting Justice at RightNow: Rich or King
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Amir Reza Rezvani
The case examines issues such as cascading problems within the organization, changing founder roles, founder success criteria, as well as company exit consideration. In 2017, Dr. Torben Antretter, a former competitive tennis player and academic researcher, founded... View Details
- September 2020 (Revised January 2021)
- Case
Catalys Pacific
In 2019, BT Slingsby founds Catalys Pacific, the first biotech “venture creation” fund in Tokyo. After convincing some of the biggest Japanese pharmaceutical firms to invest, BT hopes the fund can make a big splash and transform biotechnology innovation in Japan. After... View Details
Keywords: Pharmaceutical Companies; Biotech; Health Care; Entrepreneur; Innovation; International Business; Entrepreneurial Finance; Entrepreneurship; Finance; Innovation Strategy; Venture Capital; Strategy; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Pharmaceutical Industry; Biotechnology Industry; Tokyo
- August 2020 (Revised June 2021)
- Case
Skillz: Esports and Skill-Based Mobile Gaming
By: Andy Wu, David B. Yoffie and George Gonzalez
Founded in 2012, Skillz offered a platform for mobile app developers to monetize skill-based games via prized tournaments. Skillz had over 20,000 registered developers that had created thousands of Skillz-powered games played by over 30 million registered users... View Details
- July 2020 (Revised September 2020)
- Case
Property Finder's Strategy for Online Classifieds in the MENA Region
By: Krishna G. Palepu, Gamze Yucaoglu and Fares Khrais
The case opens in 2020 as Michael Lahyani, founder and CEO of Property Finder, Dubai’s leading online real estate classifieds portal, contemplates the company’s five-year growth strategy.
Since its founding in 2005 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Property... View Details
- July 2020 (Revised January 2021)
- Case
Pattern Brands
By: Sunil Gupta, Elie Ofek and Julia Kelley
In March 2020, direct-to-consumer (DTC) company Pattern Brands needed to decide how to allocate resources across its different brands. Pattern Co-Founders Nick Ling and Emmett Shine hoped to avoid the pitfalls faced by some DTC companies—such as inability to scale and... View Details
Keywords: Direct-to-consumer; Brands and Branding; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Product Launch; Product Positioning; Business Model; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Demand and Consumers; Business Strategy; Diversification; Competitive Advantage; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry; North and Central America; United States; New York (city, NY); New York (state, US)
- May 2020
- Case
Trust Merchant Bank
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Pippa Tubman Armerding, Dilyana Karadzhova Botha and Salim Dewji
Trust Merchant Bank (TMB), a leading bank in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), needs to decide whether to enter the soon-to-be-liberalized insurance industry. Since its founding in 2004, TMB has played a pivotal role in reshaping the DRC banking landscape by... View Details
Keywords: Retail Banking; Financial Services; Financial Inclusion; Turnaround; Fintech; Banks and Banking; Financial Condition; Insurance; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Business Model; Family Business; Entrepreneurship; Information Technology; Monopoly; Banking Industry; Insurance Industry; Africa; Congo, Democratic Republic of the
- May 2020 (Revised July 2020)
- Case
Justice-as-a-Service at RightNow
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Amir Reza Rezvani
The case examines the focus of an early stage company, and how an unexpected external incidence can threaten or void the business model. It encompasses issues such as minimal viable product, defining and pivoting a business model, organizational requirements for a... View Details
- April 2020
- Case
The Board's Role in Refocusing Bahrain Development Bank
By: Paul M. Healy and Alpana Thapar
In March 2016, Bahrain Development Bank’s (BDB) existing board term came to an end and Khalid Al Rumaihi was appointed the new chairman. Determining a need for change, he immediately overhauled the board and replaced BDB’s long-standing CEO. The new board quickly... View Details
- March 2020 (Revised June 2023)
- Case
EyeControl: Inspiring Communication
By: Paul A. Gompers and Danielle Golan
Eye-controlled communication device startup EyeControl was founded in Tel Aviv, Israel in 2016 by cofounders with a shared personal connection to locked-in syndrome—a neurological disorder that left sufferers cognitively sound, yet paralyzed, with the exception of eye... View Details
- March 2020 (Revised June 2020)
- Case
Social Salary Setting at Spiber
By: Ashley Whillans and John Beshears
Can a “set your own salary” system boost employee happiness and motivation? Spiber made synthetic silk built from proteins mimicking the proteins found in spider silk, the world’s toughest known material by weight. Kazuhide Sekiyama and Junichi Sugahara established... View Details
- March 2020
- Article
Organizing Knowledge Production Teams Within Firms for Innovation
By: Vikas A. Aggarwal, David H. Hsu and Andy Wu
How should firms organize their pool of inventive human capital for firm-level innovation? While access to diverse knowledge may aid knowledge recombination, which can facilitate innovation, prior literature has focused primarily on one way of achieving that: diversity... View Details
- February 2020 (Revised January 2024)
- Case
Wellthy: The Economics of Caring
By: Brian L. Trelstad and Joseph B. Fuller
In 2014, Lindsay Jurist-Rosner (MBA ’09) founded Wellthy, a B2C business that coordinates care for working professionals seeking help to support loved ones with chronic diseases or aging parents. With personal experience as a young professional providing care for her... View Details
- January 2020
- Case
Ureed.com: The Marketplace for Language
By: Ashley V. Whillans, Esel Çekin and Alpana Thapar
Jordanian entrepreneur, Nour Al Hassan, founded Tarjama in 2008, tapping into an underserved and high demand need: Arabic translation service. Its lean model comprised of hiring full-time employees, mainly women, who worked from home. It steadily grew over the... View Details
- November 2019
- Case
Celebrity Fashions Limited (A)
By: V.G. Narayanan, Tanvi Deshpande and Shreya Ramachandran
In May 2017 in Chennai, India, the chairman of Celebrity Fashions doubted whether the company could last until the end of the year. Venkatesh Rajagopal had found that the company, a readymade garment manufacturing and exporter he founded in 1989, was having a hard time... View Details
- October 2019
- Case
GRIT Fitness
By: Lynda M. Applegate and Olivia Hull
In December 2018, GRIT Fitness was a growing chain of boutique fitness studios offering a variety of workout classes, including weightlifting, high intensity interval training, and cardio dance. With 400 members and three Dallas studios, CEO Brittani Rettig believed... View Details
Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Mission and Purpose; Corporate Strategy; Customer Focus and Relationships; Forecasting and Prediction; Business Plan; Trends; Experience and Expertise; Talent and Talent Management; Training; Health; Selection and Staffing; Leadership Style; Leadership Development; Management Style; Management Teams; Brands and Branding; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Motivation and Incentives; Sports; Competition; Diversification; Expansion; Value Creation; Health Industry; Sports Industry; Texas
- October 2019 (Revised February 2020)
- Case
Relevent and LaLiga: Bringing Spanish Soccer to America
By: Anita Elberse and David Moreno Vicente
“Barcelona backs out of proposed LaLiga match in Miami.” It is December 2018, and Daniel Sillman, chief executive officer of sports and entertainment company Relevent, is tasked with finding a way forward after a significant setback. Relevent had found success by... View Details
- September 2019
- Exercise
Difficult Conversations (A)
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai
The exercises can be used as a follow-up to the Yesware (A) case (#816-039), or in conjunction with any case that involves replacing a founding team member (and/or providing feedback to a top executive). This is a role-playing exercise, and has been carried out in the... View Details
- September 2019
- Exercise
Difficult Conversations (B)
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai
The exercises can be used as a follow-up to the Yesware (A) case (#816-039), or in conjunction with any case that involves replacing a founding team member (and/or providing feedback to a top executive). This is a role-playing exercise, and has been carried out in the... View Details
- September 2019
- Case
Dementia Discovery Fund
By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Kathy Giusti and Sarah Gulick
The case is set in March 2019, and tells the story of the founding of the Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF). The idea for the fund began in 2015, when then-Prime Minister David Cameron spoke about the importance of making breakthroughs in dementia research, and pledged... View Details
- August 2019
- Case
Preserving Trust at Care.com (A)
By: Krishna G. Palepu and Julia Kelley
Care.com was an online platform designed to match caregivers with individuals seeking care for themselves, others, and pets, through job postings, caregiver profiles, and directories of local day care centers. In March 2019, the Wall Street Journal had just published a... View Details