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start-up
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- December 2004 (Revised July 2005)
- Case
Extend Fertility
By: Myra M. Hart and Sylvia Sensiper
Focuses on the search for opportunity, the generation and evaluation of business concepts, creation of a business plan, and the start-up process. Follows experienced entrepreneur Christy Jones as she combines her business skills and personal experience to generate new... View Details
- November 2004
- Case
Innocent Drinks
By: William A. Sahlman and Dan Heath
The three founders of a London-based, start-up smoothie company must decide between three growth options: expansion of the existing product line into Europe, extension of the brand into other product categories, or continued organic growth within the United Kingdom. View Details
- November 2004 (Revised May 2010)
- Case
RightNow Technologies
By: William A. Sahlman and Dan Heath
The founder and CEO of a CRM software start-up must decide between an attractive acquisition offer and the opportunity to go public. Discusses the growth of the company--including a lengthy discussion of entrepreneurial bootstrapping--as well as an aborted IPO attempt... View Details
- October 2004 (Revised March 2005)
- Case
Langer Lab, The: Commercializing Science
By: H. Kent Bowen, Alex Kazaks, Ayr Muir-Harmony and Bryce LaPierre
Professor Robert Langer's laboratory at MIT is the source of an unusually large number of published papers, patents, and technology licenses to start-up and established companies in the biomedical industry. Explores Langer's leadership and other factors that create a... View Details
- October 2004 (Revised December 2005)
- Case
Rakuten
By: F. Warren McFarlan, Andrew P. McAfee, Thomas R. Eisenmann and Masako Egawa
Rakuten, a native Japanese, e-commerce start-up and highly successful company, is expanding into new categories and new countries. It must figure out how to continue its trajectory of growth and profitability. A rewritten version of an earlier case. View Details
- May 2004
- Supplement
Slingshot Technology, Inc. Supplement: Partnership Agreements
By: Lynda M. Applegate and Elizabeth Collins
Slingshot Technology Inc. (STI) is a privately held software start-up founded in 1995 focused on identifying emerging spaces in the IT services industry and partnering with vendors selling promising but unproven technologies in those spaces. The vendors used STI to... View Details
- May 2004 (Revised December 2004)
- Case
Slingshot Technology, Inc. (A)
By: Lynda M. Applegate and Elizabeth Collins
Slingshot Technology Inc. (STI) is a privately held software start-up founded in 1995 focused on identifying emerging spaces in the IT services industry and partnering with vendors selling promising but unproven technologies in those spaces. The vendors used STI to... View Details
- May 2004 (Revised December 2004)
- Case
Slingshot Technology, Inc. (B)
By: Lynda M. Applegate and Elizabeth Collins
Slingshot Technology Inc. (STI) is a privately held software start-up founded in 1995 focused on identifying emerging spaces in the IT services industry and partnering with vendors selling promising but unproven technologies in those spaces. The vendors used STI to... View Details
- April 2004
- Case
D-Wave Systems: Building a Quantum Computer
By: Alan D. MacCormack, Ajay Agrawal and Rebecca Henderson
D-Wave Systems is a start-up seeking to commercialize a quantum computer. Its business model is unique: as of 2003, it had very few technical resources within the firm. Instead, it financed a series of projects undertaken at universities and government labs. In return... View Details
- April 2004 (Revised May 2006)
- Background Note
Achieving Profitable Growth and Market Value
By: James L. Heskett and Richard G. Hamermesh
Provides an overview of how a new venture needs to change as it passes from the initial start-up to the growth phase. Explores how a venture's leadership, strategy, and execution need to evolve to deal with rapid growth. View Details
- February 2004 (Revised April 2004)
- Case
Orchid Partners: A Venture Capital Start-up
By: Myra M. Hart and Kristin Lieb
The development of a new venture partnership and the challenges associated with raising its first fund are chronicled. The decision to focus on early-stage investments, the determination of the appropriate size of the fund, the fund-raising process, and the steps in... View Details
- December 2003 (Revised April 2005)
- Course Overview Note
Corporate Strategy: Course Note for Instructors
By: Bharat N. Anand
Introduces students to the concerns that impact a firm's choice of strategy, scope, and organization and assists in three central tasks that comprise the typical decision problem: diagnosing the sources of corporate advantage, evaluating the limits to such advantage,... View Details
Keywords: Corporate Strategy
- November 2003 (Revised May 2005)
- Case
Beverly Stern: Retail Executive
By: H. Kent Bowen and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld
Beverly Stern has been a successful operating manager in three prominent retail chains: GAP, Pottery Barn, and Williams-Sonoma. Stern's last job at a start-up did not meet her expectations, and she must now decide what to do next. She has an offer to start a new retail... View Details
- November 2003 (Revised January 2004)
- Case
XS, Inc.
By: Ray A. Goldberg and Joan McRobbie
XS, Inc. created a seller and buyer Internet for the $200 billion farm supply industry. How can this start-up remain the nonpartisan hub of this network, and how will it aid in the traceability of the U.S. food system? View Details
- October 2003
- Case
Henry Tam and the MGI Team
By: Jeffrey T. Polzer, Ingrid Vargas and Hillary Anger Elfenbein
Within a short time frame, seven diverse team members assemble to write a business plan for a new company and struggle to define their roles, make decisions together, and resolve conflict. Henry Tam, a second-year Harvard MBA student, who joins an aspiring start-up... View Details
- October 2003 (Revised December 2003)
- Case
Orange Imagineering
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Todd H Thedinga
As a proven entrepreneur, Rich Miner has been successful in the start-up world. Now, following the acquisition of his start-up, he has established a corporate R&D/venture operation in America to serve as the "eyes and ears" of his European parent company, Orange... View Details
- July 2003 (Revised October 2013)
- Case
Model N Inc.
By: Marco Iansiti and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld
The CEO of a Silicon Valley start-up needed to make organizational and product changes to deliver a new software solution to a Fortune 500 customer. He was wondering how he should structure the company to best meet the requirements for this particular customer, while... View Details
- 2003
- Book
When You Say Yes But Mean No: How Silencing Conflict Wrecks Relationships and Companies
By: Leslie Perlow
“Saying yes when you really mean no” is a problem that haunts organizations from start-ups to multi-nationals. It exists across industries, levels, and functions. And it’s exacerbated by a down economy, when the fear of losing one’s job is on everybody’s mind and the... View Details
- February 2003 (Revised July 2003)
- Case
Ember Corporation: Developing the Next Ubiquitous Network Standard
By: Rebecca Henderson and Nancy Confrey
Ember is a venture capital-funded start-up that hopes to establish a standard for ubiquitous wireless networks. Its unique approach and proprietary technology promises to create enormous value in a wide variety of markets, particularly in local sensing and control.... View Details
- January 2003 (Revised May 2005)
- Case
Zipcar: Refining the Business Model
By: Myra M. Hart, Michael J. Roberts and Julia Stevens
Zipcar is a start-up organized around the idea of "sharing" car usage via a membership organization. This case describes several iterations of the Zipcar business model and financial plan. These iterations include a very early version and a version developed just prior... View Details