Publications

25 Oct 2020
News

Google's founders have vanished as the company goes to war with Washington. It's yet another mess for Sundar Pichai to clean up.

24 Sep 2024
News

These Founders Had an 'Icky Feeling' as Their Startup Soared to a $12 Billion Valuation. Now They're Getting Raw and Honest About What Went Wrong.

February 2022 (Revised November 2022)
Case

Nuritas

By: Mitchell Weiss, Satish Tadikonda, Vincent Dessain and Emer Moloney

Nora Khaldi had built a technology “to unlock the power of nature” in the service of extending human lifespan and improving health, and now in April 2020 was debating telling her Board of Directors she wanted to put on ice some of her discoveries. Nuritas, the company... View Details

Keywords: Cash Burn; Cash Flow Analysis; Pharmaceutical Companies; Founder; Artificial Intelligence; AI; Entrepreneurship; Health Testing and Trials; Health Care and Treatment; Decision Making; Market Entry and Exit; AI and Machine Learning; Pharmaceutical Industry

01 Dec 2017
News

2017 in Health Care: Telemedicine Has Arrived

The technology behind telemedicine—health care delivered remotely and asynchronously—has been improving for years, but in 2017, the United States hit a tipping point. This year, Kaiser Permanente’s CEO announced that of the company’s 100 million–plus patient encounters... View Details

Keywords: Halle Tecco (MBA 2011), founder emeritus, Rock Health; angel investor; adjunct professor, Columbia Business School

February 2014 (Revised August 2016)
Case

Strava

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, William A. Sahlman and Sid Misra

Strava is a new fast-growing social network for the avid cyclist and runner. The Strava case traces the entrepreneurial journey of two serial entrepreneurs who have been co-founders in a prior venture, and who have co-founded Strava 3 years ago. The protagonists must... View Details

February 1998 (Revised December 2000)
Case

Nantucket Nectars

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, William A. Sahlman and Jon Biotti

The founders of Nantucket Nectars are trying to decide whether to sell their company. The case describes how the founders started the company and grew the Nantucket Nectars brand name. View Details

Keywords: Business Exit or Shutdown; Entrepreneurship; Brands and Branding; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

11 Jan 2021
News

Is A/B Testing Effective? Evidence from 35,000 Startups

September 2011 (Revised March 2014)
Case

Airbnb

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Evan W. Richardson

Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk, the three founders of Airbnb, an online private accommodation rental market, stared at each other across the kitchen table in their San Francisco apartment. It was March of 2009. A single sheet of paper sat on the table... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Housing; Information Publishing; Private Ownership; Online Technology; Information Industry; San Francisco

16 May 2023
In Practice

After Silicon Valley Bank's Flameout, What's Next for Entrepreneurs?

investments and triggered a run on deposits, gave pause to startup investors and also holds lessons for founders going forward. Harvard Business School faculty suggest some key takeaways for the startup ecosystem as the dust settles and... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman; Technology; Financial Services

March 2020
Case

Braver Angels: A Grassroots Effort to Depolarize American Politics

By: Francesca Gino, Julia A. Minson and Jeff Huizinga

The founders of Braver Angels, an organization that uses family therapy principles to foster constructive dialogue between conservatives and liberals, consider how to improve its effectiveness and reach. View Details

Keywords: Political Polarization; Interpersonal Communication; Performance Effectiveness; Strategy; United States

14 Sep 2023
Blog Post

MBAs Accelerate Their Social Enterprise Ventures

The Social Enterprise Accelerator is offered to students in the summer between their first and second year, supporting student founders in the development of their social impact startup. During the summer of 2023, eleven student View Details

16 Aug 2022
Op-Ed

Now Is the Time for Entrepreneurs to Play Offense

may be 20-40 percent lower than you had hoped, but you can still raise plenty of money to buttress your balance sheet and execute more vigorously on steps 1-5 of the “play offense” playbook outlined above. In talking to my best founders... View Details

Keywords: by Jeffrey Bussgang

April 2018 (Revised May 2018)
Case

Goldman Sachs: Making an Imprint in Impact Investing

By: Shawn Cole, Vikram S. Gandhi, Caitlin Reimers Brumme and Lynn Schenk

Goldman Sachs acquired Imprint Capital Advisors, a small firm that specialized in advising clients on environmental/social/governance (ESG) and impact investments. The founders sold Imprint with the belief that joining a global financial firm would help to scale impact... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; ESG; Investment; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Growth and Development Strategy; Acquisition; Integration

07 Jul 2003
What Do You Think?

Can We Have Too Much Productivity Improvement?

by economists from Alan Greenspan on down? Will it add to the ranks of the unemployed with attendant social and psychological costs, costs not factored into productivity calculations? Or does it provide the ultimate answer to foundering... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

January 2017 (Revised May 2019)
Case

Paytm: Building a Payments Network

By: Sunil Gupta, Das Narayandas and Rachna Tahilyani

By January 2017, Paytm, a mobile payments company that started in 2010, became India’s largest mobile payments platform with over 142 million users and $5 billion valuation. Could Paytm become a $100 billion company its founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma envisioned it be? View Details

Keywords: Mobile Payments; Ecommerce; Mobile App; India; Entrepreneurship; Expansion; Service Operations; Mobile and Wireless Technology; E-commerce; Service Industry; India

Diverse hiring, deep research, and a collaborative culture have defined Brown Capital's successful investment approach. But would those qualities endure after its founder retires? A case study by Luis Viceira and Emily... View Details

January 1981
Case

Mary Kay Cosmetics, Inc.

By: John P. Kotter

Introduces the student to Mary Kay Cosmetics, Inc., its business, its strategy, and its organization. Provides the necessary background for understanding the contributions of Mary Kay Ash, the company's founder and chairman. View Details

Keywords: Management Teams; Business Strategy; Organizations; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry