Publications

June 2024 (Revised September 2024)
Case

Driving Scale with Otto

By: Rebecca Karp, David Allen and Annelena Lobb

This case asks how startup founders make scaling decisions in light of their priorities for their business and for themselves. Otto was a technology company that applied artificial intelligence technology to sales. It deployed natural language processing to find sales... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Natural Language Processing; B2B; B2B Innovation; Scaling; Scaling Tech Ventures; Business Startups; AI and Machine Learning; Finance; Sales; Business Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Information Technology Industry; United States; Cambridge; New York (city, NY); Spain

18 Nov 2011
Conference Presentation

The Role of the University in the Development of the Family Business Field

By: John A. Davis

Keywords: Family Business; Higher Education; Growth and Development

Web

Research & Development, Project Code SX-70 - Edwin H. Land & Polaroid | Harvard Business School

Home Site map Map / Directions Search: General Information HBS Home About Annual Report Campus Commencement Dean Nohria Employment Fifty Years of Women Give News New Construction Academic Programs Doctoral Programs Executive Education MBA Summer View Details

July 2017 (Revised July 2018)
Case

Upwork: Creating the Human Cloud

By: Dylan Minor and David Yoffie

Stephane Kasriel, the new CEO of Upwork, the leading platform for freelance labor, needs to decide on how to redesign its business model. While the firm has been growing rapidly since the merger of Odesk and eLance, the newly combined firm continues to face problems of... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Platform; Platform Businesses; Technology; Business Model; Digital Platforms; Growth and Development Strategy; Internet and the Web; Labor

2005
Book

Make Your Own Luck: 12 Practical Steps to Taking Smarter Risks in Business

By: H. Stevenson and Eileen C. Shapiro

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Business Ventures

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Web

Digital Archival Resources - Edwin H. Land & Polaroid | Harvard Business School

Home Site map Map / Directions Search: General Information HBS Home About Annual Report Campus Commencement Dean Nohria Employment Fifty Years of Women Give News New Construction Academic Programs Doctoral Programs Executive Education MBA Summer View Details

1994
Chapter

Entrepreneurs and the Next Generation, Management Advantages and Challenges in a Family Business

By: M. M. Hart and H. H. Stevenson

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Family Business

Web

About This Collection | Baker Library | Bloomberg Center | Harvard Business School

International Robert Higgins Highland Capital Richard Jenrette Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Dean LeBaron Batterymarch Erling Lorentzen Aracruz Dan Lufkin Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Thomas Murphy Capital Cities/ABC Joseph O’Donnell Boston Concessions Robert Reiss R&R... View Details

August 2021
Case

Mylestone: Can Multiple Pivots Preserve the Life of a Death Tech Startup?

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Marilyn Morgan Westner

Dave Balter and Jim Myers co-founded Mylestone, a death tech startup that applied technology to transform how grieving people memorialize the dead. The startup addressed a cultural problem and promised to solve a pressing need in the antiquated, multi-billion dollar... View Details

Keywords: Pivot; Startup; Business Model; Cryptocurrency; Ethical Decision Making; Emotions; Growth and Development Strategy; Ethics; Market Entry and Exit; Customer Relationship Management; Loss; Change Management; Relationships

March 1998
Article

The Nature of Diversified Business Groups: A Research Design and Two Case Studies

By: P. Ghemawat and Tarun Khanna

Keywords: Business Ventures; Groups and Teams; Corporate Strategy

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March–April 2019
Article

The Dual-Purpose Playbook

By: Julie Battilana, Anne-Claire Pache, Metin Sengul and Marissa Kimsey

Corporations are being pushed to dial down their single-minded pursuit of financial gain and pay closer attention to their impact on employees, customers, communities, and the environment. But changing an organization’s DNA may require upending the existing business... View Details

Keywords: Hybrid Organizing; Business And Society; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business Model; Goals and Objectives; Organizational Structure; Leadership

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March 2022 (Revised February 2024)
Case

Emeritus: Achieving Impact, Providing Access (A)

By: Ashish Nanda and Zack Kurtovich

In June 2019, Emeritus cofounders Ashwin Damera (HBS MBA 2005) and Chaitanya Kalipatnapu were thrilled with the rapid growth of Emeritus. Damera and Kalipatnapu believed that Emeritus, established in July 2015 to offer online executive education, was only in the early... View Details

Keywords: Education Technology; Professional Service Firm; Startup; Digital Strategy; Global Business; Global Firm; Platform Business; Business Startups; Growth and Development; Growth and Development Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Executive Education; Strategy; Education Industry; India

01 Mar 2023
News

Step Change

At Consoleya, a coworking space in Cairo’s former French Consulate, multiple levels of meeting rooms and workspaces operate at capacity, from a ground-floor café to a rooftop deck. The scene—coders bent over laptops, concepts scrawled on whiteboards, clusters of people... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; photographed by Abdelrahman Gabr – Koree; entrepreneurship; women; venture capital; Egypt; developing economies; Finance

March 2021 (Revised March 2024)
Case

M-KOPA: Empowering Lives

By: V. Kasturi Rangan, Wale Lawal and Pippa Tubman Armerding

The Pay As You Go solar power company in East Africa had sales of $71 million in 2019. It wished to grow to $300 million by 2025. M-KOPA, founded by three entrepreneurs in 2011, had grown nicely in Kenya and Uganda to reach nearly 750,000 households with an innovative... View Details

Keywords: Mobile Payment; Go-to-market Strategy; Business At The Base Of The Pyramid; Business Growth; Social Entrepreneurship; Renewable Energy; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Expansion; Marketing Strategy; Developing Countries and Economies; Kenya; Uganda; Nigeria