Publications

October 2022 (Revised November 2023)
Case

Framebridge (A): Reimagining Custom Framing

By: Rembrand Koning and Alicia Dadlani

In December 2018, Susan Tynan, founder and CEO of Framebridge, a four-year-old venture-backed startup that sold online custom framing, formulated plans for the future. Her vision was to revolutionize the $4 billion industry by making custom framing easy, transparent,... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Business Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Operations; Consumer Products Industry; United States; District of Columbia; Kentucky

October 2022
Supplement

Framebridge (B): A New Approach

By: Rembrand Koning and Alicia Dadlani

In 2022, after revamping operations and expanding retail stores, Framebridge founder and CEO Susan Tynan is optimistic for the future but realizes changing market dynamics. New competitors are entering the market, and margin pressures remained. This case is part two of... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Business Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Operations; Market Entry and Exit; Consumer Products Industry; United States; District of Columbia; Kentucky

September 2022
Background Note

On CUE: The Quest for Optimal Customer Unit Economics

By: Elie Ofek, Barak Libai and Eitan Muller

Startups are often evaluated by how well they perform on unit economics, defined as the ratio of a customer’s lifetime value (LTV) to acquisition costs (CAC). A common target for unit economics, advocated by many VCs and analysts, is 3:1 (i.e., LTV/CAC=3). While there... View Details

Keywords: Unit Economics; Business Startups; Performance Evaluation; Customer Value and Value Chain; Customer Relationship Management; Analysis

September 2022
Case

Proactive for Her

By: Rembrand Koning and Kairavi Dey

Proactive for Her began amid the COVID-19 pandemic, in August 2020 as a digital platform to provide accessible, evidence-based, primary, preventive non-judgmental healthcare services for Indian women, who were often dissuaded from seeking help as premarital sex and... View Details

Keywords: Women's Health; Healthcare; India; Start-up; Telehealth; Digital Platforms; Health Care and Treatment; Customer Focus and Relationships; Business Startups; Health Industry; Asia; South Asia; India

September 2022
Teaching Note

Yummy: Delivering Value to Venezuela

By: Ayelet Israeli, Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago and Carla Larangeira

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 522-034. View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Health Pandemics; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Expansion

September 2022
Article

Experimentation and Start-up Performance: Evidence from A/B Testing

By: Rembrand Koning, Sharique Hasan and Aaron Chatterji

Recent scholarship has argued that experimentation should be the organizing principle for entrepreneurial strategy. Experimentation leads to organizational learning, which drives improvements in firm performance. We investigate this proposition by exploiting the... View Details

Keywords: Experimentation; A/B Testing; Data-driven Decision-making; Organizational Learning; Entrepreneurship; Strategy; Business Startups; Learning; Performance; Decision Making

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2023
Working Paper

Scoring and Funding Breakthrough Ideas: Evidence from a Global Pharmaceutical Company

By: Joshua Krieger, Ramana Nanda, Ian Hunt, Aimee Reynolds and Peter Tarsa

We study resource allocation to early-stage ideas at an internal startup program of one the largest pharmaceutical firms in the world. Our research design enables us to elicit every evaluator’s scores across five different attributes, before seeing how they would... View Details

Keywords: Project Selection; Pharmaceuticals; Financing Innovation; Resource Allocation; Innovation and Invention; Research and Development

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August 2022
Supplement

Zalora: Data-Driven Pricing Recommendations

By: Ayelet Israeli

This exercise can be used in conjunction with the main case "Zalora: Data-Driven Pricing" to facilitate class discussion without requiring data analysis from the students. Instead, the exercise presents reports that were created by the data science team to answer the... View Details

Keywords: Pricing; Pricing Algorithms; Dynamic Pricing; Ecommerce; Pricing Strategy; Pricing And Revenue Management; Apparel; Singapore; Startup; Demand Estimation; Data Analysis; Data Analytics; Exercise; Price; Internet and the Web; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry; Fashion Industry; Singapore

August 2022 (Revised February 2023)
Case

Braintrust: The Blockchain-Powered Talent Network

By: Christopher Stanton, Joseph B. Fuller and George Gonzalez

A San Francisco startup seeks to disrupt the freelancing industry through its user-owned talent network powered by the cryptocurrency, BTRST. View Details

Keywords: Freelancers; Blockchain; Cryptocurrency; Social and Collaborative Networks; Talent and Talent Management; Consulting Industry; Technology Industry; United States

August 2022
Supplement

Broadway Angels (2022)

By: Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo

In late June of 2022, Sonja Perkins, co-founder of Broadway Angels, contemplated the group’s future. She and her co-founders, Jennifer Fonstad, and Magdalena Yesil, started the group to gather together the most successful and powerful women in venture capital and... View Details

Keywords: Gender Equity; Impact; Business Startups; Venture Capital; Social and Collaborative Networks; Entrepreneurship; Gender; Mission and Purpose; Groups and Teams; Financial Services Industry

2022
Interview

Prime Venture Partners Podcast: #104 Tarun Khanna, Professor, Harvard Business School, on Creating the Conditions to Create, The Value Of Trust & The Power of Diversity

By: Tarun Khanna and Shripati Acharya

Tarun Khanna, Professor at the Harvard Business School chats with Shripati Acharya, Managing Partner Prime Venture Partners regarding: Creating the Conditions to Create, State of Entrepreneurship: India vs China, The Value of Trust in Entrepreneurship, Working with... View Details

Keywords: Startups; Entrepreneurship; Business and Government Relations; Trust

July 2022 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Kovi: Changing Brazil's Mobility Landscape

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Michael Norris and Alexis Lefort

Kovi, a car rental startup located in São Paulo, Brazil, provides affordable access to rental cars for rideshare drivers. The case examines the origins of the company, provides background on the auto and rideshare industries in Brazil, and follows the CEO, Adhemar... View Details

Keywords: Ridesharing; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Startups; Developing Countries and Economies; Auto Industry; Brazil; Mexico; Latin America

July 2022
Case

Bringing Ideas to Life: The Story of Paul English

By: Youngme Moon, Frances X. Frei and F. Katelynn Boland

Paul English is one of the most imaginative innovators of his generation. This case explores his process of creative idea generation. The case includes an exercise for students to generate value-creating ideas from scratch. View Details

Keywords: Innovation ＆ Entrepreneurship; Idea Generation; Founder; Startup; Imagination; Innovation and Invention; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Creativity; Value Creation

July 2022 (Revised February 2024)
Teaching Note

The DivaCup: Navigating Distribution and Growth

By: Ayelet Israeli

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 519-055. When the mother-daughter founders of DivaCup set out with a mission to disrupt the menstrual care industry with an innovative product form, they initially struggled to gain legitimacy and convince retailers to carry their unique... View Details

July 2022 (Revised January 2023)
Case

Vicky Tsai and Tatcha: Confronting Stereotypes

By: Geoffrey Jones and Veronica Tong

Teaching Plan for HBS Case No. 323-007. This case examines the career of Vicky Tsai, the creator of San Francisco-based TATCHA, a Japanese-themed luxury beauty brand launched in 2009. It explores how Tsai developed the concept, assembled management, and successfully... View Details

Keywords: Cosmetics Industry; Japan; Startup; Marketing; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development; Product Development; Product Marketing; Acquisition; Identity; Brands and Branding; Ethnicity; Gender; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; United States

June 2022
Case

Zalando: Becoming the Starting Point for Fashion

By: Antonio Moreno, Leela Nageswaran, Emilie Billaud and Federica Gabrieli

Born in 2008 as a small startup selling flip flops, by mid-2021 Zalando had turned into an online fashion company with an assortment of more than 4,500 international brands, 45 million active customers, and a presence in 23 European markets. An essential component in... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Customer Value and Value Chain; Digital Platforms; Distribution; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Infrastructure; Logistics; Service Operations; Strategy; Business Strategy; Fashion Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Distribution Industry; Retail Industry; Service Industry; Shipping Industry; Technology Industry; Europe

June 2022
Teaching Note

Katie Couric Media: Landing the First Client

By: N. Louis Shipley, William R. Kerr and Paige Boehmcke

Developed for teaching Entrepreneurial Sales, the Katie Couric Media case supports class discussion on client selection, sales strategy, and scaling a startup media firm. View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Marketing; Mergers And Acquisitions; Start-up; Entrepreneurship; Sales; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Media and Broadcasting Industry

June 2022
Teaching Note

Bespoken Spirits: Disrupting Distilling

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 721-419. On October 7, 2020, Bespoken Spirits publicly announced it had received $2.6 million of seed funding for its “sustainable maturation process,” a process that could produce award-winning whiskeys in just days rather than years... View Details

Keywords: B2B Vs. B2C; Technological Innovation; Business Startups; Cost Management; Business Model; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Service Industry

May 2022
Supplement

Maestro Pizza (B): The Competition Awakens

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Fares Khrais

Maestro pizza opened its first store in 2013 after its founder, Khalid Al Omran, recognized an opportunity in Saudi Arabia to offer high quality pizza at affordable prices. The business grew rapidly and under the radar at first, but soon enough caught the attention of... View Details