Publications

Profile

Arjun Goyal

pitched Foresight to HBS Business Angels, an alumni investment group, and have high hopes for the annual New Venture Competition. “On a commercial level,” Arjun explains, “Foresight is innovative in the way it applies new View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Health Care

28 Apr 2015
First Look

First Look: April 28

Venture Fund in Palo Alto, Danner and Noronha work to rapidly develop the product with their founding team and their teacher partners at Rocketship Education, a K-5 charter school organization providing blended instruction combining View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

June 2025
Teaching Note

AI at QuantumBlack: McKinsey’s Open Source Dilemma

By: Frank Nagle, Sam Boysel and Susan Pinckney

In 2019, QuantumBlack by McKinsey considered releasing Kedro, a proprietary machine learning data pipeline tool as an open source software offering. View Details

February 2021 (Revised May 2021)
Case

SafeGraph: Selling Data as a Service

By: Ramana Nanda, Abhishek Nagaraj and Allison Ciechanover

Set in January 2021, the CEO of SafeGraph, a four-year-old startup that sold Data as a Service, looked to the future. His aim was to become the most trusted source for data about a physical place. The company provided points of interest (POI) and foot traffic data on... View Details

Keywords: Data As A Service; Monetization; Pricing; Business Startups; Analytics and Data Science; Consumer Behavior; Analysis; Business Model; Health Pandemics; Information Industry; United States

February 2022
Teaching Note

AptDeco: Circular Economy Furniture Marketplace

By: Ayelet Israeli

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 521-069. AptDeco, a used furniture marketplace, was growing rapidly in the tri-state area. The co-founders were confident that the business model, financial position, and unit economics positioned AptDeco for scaling in the massive $120... View Details

Keywords: E-Commerce Strategy; Mobile; Word-of-Mouth; Word Of Mouth; Word-of-mouth Marketing; Internet Marketing; Growth Strategy; Platform; Platforms; Two Sided Markets; Two-sided Market; Two-sided Marketplace; Two-Sided Markets; Two-sided Network; Black Entrepreneurs; Black Leadership; African Americans; African-American Protagonist; Circular; Peer-to-peer Markets; Furniture Industry; Growth Hacking; Monetization Strategy; Growth Management; Marketing Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Digital Platforms; Marketing Channels; Digital Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Acquisition; Retention; Growth and Development Strategy; Customer Focus and Relationships; Expansion; Brands and Branding; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Technology Industry; Web Services Industry; United States; North America; New York (city, NY); New York (state, US)

01 Mar 2012
News

The Accidental Innovator

human-capital development that Khan finds himself turning to science fiction to try to make sense of it all. Meanwhile, financial backers such as the Gates Foundation, Google, and venture capital’s Ann and John Doerr (MBA 1976) are adding... View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons; Educational Support Services; Educational Services; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services; Information

January 2022 (Revised November 2023)
Supplement

Uber in China (C): The Cost of Success for Didi

By: William C. Kirby and Noah B. Truwit

On June 30, 2021, ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing (Didi) raised $4.4 billion in its initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the largest IPO of a Chinese company listed on an American exchange since Alibaba raised $25 billion in 2014.... View Details

Keywords: Uber; Didi Chuxing; Start-up Growth; Regulation; Ride-sharing; Transportation; Business Startups; Business and Government Relations; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Growth and Development; Policy; Competition; Laws and Statutes; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; China

Web

Women on Boards: How Lara Druyan and Ann Lucena Are Shaping the Future of Corporate Leadership - Blog: RGE Report

broaden the reach and impact of her leadership. “I had a tangible impact, but in a small geographic area,” she says. “As a mission-driven person, I was excited to have a broader, positive impact on a national and international level.” Druyan spent 15 years in corporate... View Details

February 1998 (Revised June 1999)
Case

DigitalThink: Startup

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

Describes a recent Berkeley MBA's attempts to start a business aimed at corporate training via the Internet. Describes the very early efforts at finding an attorney, accountant, and financing, and the interrelationships among these choices. View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Problems and Challenges; Business Startups; Service Industry

January 2017 (Revised May 2020)
Case

Sesame Workshop (A): Bringing Big Bird Back to Health

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Ryan Raffaelli and Jonathan Cohen

Sesame Workshop was transforming in 2016. CEO Jeff Dunn had reorganized and shifted the iconic institution to respond to digital disruption and a consensus culture. This case examines his efforts to turn Sesame Workshop around. It notes Sesame's storied history and the... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leadership; Information Technology; Education; Media; Strategy; Education Industry

01 Jun 2010
News

Touting Green Energy’s Potential

reducing carbon emissions gradually to achieve an 83 percent reduction by 2050. The centerpiece of this legislative package is the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (known as the Waxman-Markey bill). “Entrepreneurs, venture... View Details

Keywords: Administration of Environmental Quality Programs; Government; Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Professional Services

09 Apr 2024
Blog Post

IFC India: JSW Steel

significantly as India becomes wealthier and builds more public infrastructure like roads, bridges, apartment buildings, public transportation, and the like. Before the trip, we spent time researching available technologies that might... View Details

01 Dec 2011
News

Ticktock

in 2007, the year Clocky came on the market. Nanda, who cut the original price of the clock from $50 to $39 to spur sales, knew she needed to extend the existing product line or venture into new product categories to grow the company... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel; viral marketing; Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing; Manufacturing

18 Feb 2021
Blog Post

SIPs in 2021

New Venture Competition were Bootcamp participants. Relationship-building became a focus of the re-imagined virtual experience, both within the participants and the curriculum. Virtual socializing events were scheduled throughout the... View Details

31 Mar 2002
What Do You Think?

Is This the Decade of the Investor?

their responsibility to represent the best interests of investors, who will? Will dynamics that determine flows of funds and foreign investment levels in the U.S. ultimately pose the threat of fewer funds—foreign or otherwise—to finance U.S. View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

October 2002 (Revised December 2003)
Case

eShip-4U

By: Roy D. Shapiro and Timothy M. Laseter

eShip is a small Israeli start-up with a potentially exciting new concept for the residential package-delivery value chain--the Automatic Delivery Machine (ADM). Much like today's ubiquitous ATMs, ADMs would allow consumers to have parcels delivered to a nearby ADM... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Business Model; Service Operations; Logistics; Corporate Strategy; Information Technology; Competitive Strategy; Value Creation; Saving; Innovation and Invention; Transportation Industry; Service Industry; Shipping Industry; Israel; United States

May 2008 (Revised March 2010)
Supplement

Palm (C): 2005

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Kevin Boudreau and Jordan Mitchell

This case series looks at three important inflection points in Palm's history that relate to decisions about its platform: when the company was debating whether to open its operating system (OS) for licensing to third-party hardware manufacturers; 2001, when the... View Details

Keywords: History; Decisions; Business Model; Technological Innovation; Value Creation; Digital Platforms; Rights; Competition