Publications

12 Oct 2017
Blog Post

Why I Spent this Summer Coding

The summer between RC and EC year represents a great opportunity for risk-free exploration. Encouraged by our outcome at the New Venture Competition and the funding I would receive as a Rock Summer Fellow, I forwent a View Details

November 1997 (Revised October 2000)
Case

Interactive Minds (A)

By: William A. Sahlman, Michael J. Roberts and Christina L. Darwall

The efforts of two recent Harvard Business School graduates to start a venture capital/consulting firm focused on opportunities related to the Internet are recounted. Raises the question of what the nature of this opportunity is, how well-positioned the protagonists... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Internet and the Web; Market Entry and Exit; Financing and Loans; Business Startups; Consulting Industry

September 2011 (Revised May 2012)
Case

GoodGuide

By: George Serafeim, Robert G. Eccles and Tiffany A. Clay

GoodGuide, a high-technology start-up company, founded by University of California Professor at Berkley Dara O'Rourke is at a critical junction. The venture capital funded company has yet to find the business model to monetize a very promising product that provides... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Strategic Planning; Venture Capital; Goods and Commodities; Business Model; Information Technology; Knowledge; Education Industry; California

Vikram S. Gandhi is the Gerald P. Kaminsky Senior Lecturer of Business Administration in the General Management Unit. He has developed and teaches two new courses in the Elective Curriculum of the MBA Program. The first is a finance and investing course, Sustainable... View Details

Keywords: financial services

Myra M. Hart

Myra Hart's research focus is high potential entrepreneurship. She has taught MBA and executive programs, co-chaired the entrepreneurship unit, and led several HBS initiatives. As a founding memberView Details

Keywords: consumer products; e-commerce industry; education industry; real estate; retailing

November 2002 (Revised October 2003)
Case

Circles: Series D Financing

By: Paul W. Marshall and Kristin Lieb

Circles, a corporate concierge company on the verge of profitability, must make a decision whether to take a D-round venture capital despite ever-changing and ever-worsening terms. A four-year-old company with several major clients, it has met its business plan... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Financing and Loans; Management Teams; Growth and Development Strategy; Negotiation Process; Venture Capital; Governing and Advisory Boards; Entrepreneurship; Service Industry; Consulting Industry; Massachusetts

31 May 2015
News

Keep the Talent (and the Ideas) Right Here

David S. Scharfstein

David Scharfstein is the Edmund Cogswell Converse Professor of Finance and Banking at Harvard Business School. He has written on a wide range of topics in finance, including risk management, financial distress, corporate investment, capital structure, and venture... View Details

Keywords: banking

Andre F. Perold

André Perold is a Founder, Partner, and Chief Investment Officer of HighVista Strategies, a Boston-based investment firm. HighVista focuses on investing in structurally inefficient public and private markets, including in life sciences, lower middle market private... View Details

Keywords: banking; financial services; information; investment banking industry; professional services

11 Jun 2018
Blog Post

Meet the 2018-2019 Blavatnik Fellows in Life Science Entrepreneurship

including; the New Venture Competition, the Harvard Innovation Lab, Entrepreneurs-in-Residence and entrepreneurial-focused courses. More than 50 percent of HBS graduates create ventures in a quest to change... View Details

January 2013 (Revised March 2017)
Case

CloudFlare, Inc.: Running Hot?

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Alex Godden

In July 2012, the cofounders of CloudFlare, a Silicon Valley startup that protects websites and accelerates their traffic, are considering the implications of five employees' resignations over the prior three months. Was this natural attrition for a high-tech venture... View Details

Keywords: Management Practices and Processes; Employee Relationship Management; Organizational Structure; Organizational Culture; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Growth Management; Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Resignation and Termination; Business Startups; Information Technology Industry; Web Services Industry; California

June 2010
Background Note

A Note on Corporate Entrepreneurship: Challenge or Opportunity?

This note provides an overview of the rationale and the challenges associated with building new businesses within established companies. It provides a framework for understanding why corporations pursue entrepreneurial ventures and the various levers that they employ.... View Details

Keywords: Business Plan; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Problems and Challenges; Opportunities

07 Jul 2020
News

SmileDirectClub Looks Beyond Direct-to-Consumer Marketing

October 2000
Case

Framework Technologies Corp.

By: G. Felda Hardymon, Ann Leamon, Ashesh Shah and David Waller

Dan Slavin, CEO of Framework Technologies, is contemplating a complete restart for his company to erase the impact of its shift in product and business strategy since inception. This case describes the issues he must consider, which include the impact of such a change... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Innovation and Invention; Cost vs Benefits; Venture Capital; Technology Industry

15 Sep 2011
News

Why green jobs have been slow to grow

21 Feb 2005
Research & Ideas

The VC Quandary: Too Much Money

It might be hard for the ordinary business owner or consumer to imagine having "too much" money. But that's exactly where the venture capital industry finds itself: with too much money available... View Details

Keywords: by Julie Jette; Financial Services

September 2003 (Revised March 2007)
Case

Direvo Biotech AG

Describes the financing and growth decisions facing Direvo, a young German biotech firm with a customer/partner that wants to become an investor. Also discusses the business model for Direvo's directed evolution technology, with applications in both industrial enzymes... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Decisions; Business Exit or Shutdown; Value; Business Startups; Biotechnology Industry; Germany