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Start-up
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- February 2001
- Case
Bang Networks, Inc.
By: Paul A. Gompers and Sergio Rattner
Bob Rosin, president and CEO of Bang Networks, must decide how much debt financing to take on. The company is a raw start-up and is considering taking on $10 million in debt. The firm has six offers and needs to identify the best one. View Details
- January 2001
- Case
Valuing Project Achieve
By: Mihir A. Desai and Kathleen Luchs
Project Achieve is a start-up providing information management solutions for schools. Its founders see a need for software both to manage the volumes of information necessary to administer a school and to connect parents, teachers, and students in a more effective way.... View Details
- December 2000
- Case
Stock Options at Virtua.Net
By: Brian J. Hall, Noam T. Wasserman and Carleen Madigan
Describes issues facing three young founders of a high-tech start-up in Silicon Valley, including hiring an experienced CEO and negotiating with a potential VC investor. Focuses on the incentive and compensation aspects of negotiating with job candidates (e.g., what... View Details
- October 2000 (Revised November 2001)
- Case
Garage.com (A)
By: Dorothy A. Leonard and Elizabeth Kind
Silicon Valley's Garage.com matches venture capital and corporate angel investors with high-tech start-ups that are looking for early stage funding. As a Web-based service, Garage.com fields inquiries from entrepreneurs and investors around the world, and is eager to... View Details
- October 2000 (Revised November 2000)
- Case
New Economy Ethics: YouKnowIt.com
By: Joseph L. Badaracco Jr. and Kim Slack
Entrepreneur Janice Schwartz is hoping to grow her start-up company by creating a technical advisory board and compensating members with discounted company stock. Schwartz is considering six candidates that can help her online education company in a variety of ways: as... View Details
- October 2000 (Revised October 2000)
- Case
3PLex.com
By: Myra M. Hart and Judith Marie Dror
A start-up team is faced with the challenge of building a senior management team with relevant industry experience. The marriage of e-commerce and the transportation logistics industry creates unusual problems in blending "old economy" employees and employee practices... View Details
- October 2000 (Revised November 2000)
- Case
Bridgespan Group, The
By: Allen S. Grossman and John D. Kalafatas
Bain & Co., a consulting firm with a client list that ranges from entrepreneurial start-ups to global corporations, wanted to increase its involvement with nonprofit organizations. Rather than continuing to integrate the work into the existing organization, Bain... View Details
- September 2000 (Revised February 2025)
- Case
Netflix (2000)
The CEO of a successful Internet start-up must decide whether to delay the company's initial public offering following a significant decline in the NASDAQ market during the spring of 2000. The company's CFO is asked to reevaluate the company's projected cash flow needs... View Details
- September 2000 (Revised February 2007)
- Case
Freeport Studio
By: Rajiv Lal and James Weber
Describes the start-up and first-year difficulties of Freeport Studio, a unit of L.L. Bean, founded in 1998 to sell women's clothing by catalog. First-year sales were far below plan, and projected profits did not materialize. Fran Philip must identify the problems and... View Details
- June 2000 (Revised October 2017)
- Case
IDEO
By: Stefan Thomke and Ashok Nimgade
Describes IDEO, the world's leading product design firm, and its innovation culture and process. Emphasis is placed on the important role of prototyping and experimentation in general, and in the design of the very successful Palm V handheld computer in particular. A... View Details
- March 2000 (Revised April 2003)
- Case
Iridium LLC
By: Benjamin C. Esty, Fuaad Qureshi and William J Olson
This case involves part of a module on financing large projects in the elective curriculum course entitled "Large-Scale Investment." It is set in August 1999, just after Iridium, a global communications firm, declared bankruptcy. Although the case describes Iridium's... View Details
- March 2000 (Revised July 2001)
- Case
Microsoft: Competing on Talent (A)
By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Meg Wozny
Describes the evolution of Microsoft's human-resource philosophies, policies, and practices and how they used as a core of the company's competitive advantage. In particular, the focus is on how Microsoft tried to retain its ability to recruit, develop, motivate, and... View Details
- February 2000 (Revised May 2001)
- Case
eBricks.com
eBricks.com is developing an online marketplace for construction materials. The start-up company faces two decisions: 1) whether to merge with BluelineOnline.com, a firm providing project management solutions for the construction industry; and 2) whether to develop an... View Details
- January 2000 (Revised October 2000)
- Case
Staples: A Year in the Life of a Start-Up
By: Myra M. Hart
The case provides information on the development of the office superstore concept, building partnerships, creating the business plan, and recruiting a management team. Focuses on the detailed level of decision making required to transform an idea into a viable... View Details
- December 1999 (Revised May 2002)
- Case
CNBC (A): NBC and Its Startup Friends
NBC expands further on to the Internet with CNBC.com. NBC's Internet strategy, supported by corporate parent General Electric, involves numerous investments as well as new ventures like CNBC.com. Soon after CNBC.com is launched in 1999, NBC brings in a new CEO, Pamela... View Details
- August 1999 (Revised May 2000)
- Case
E Ink
By: Teresa M. Amabile and Susan Archambault
E Ink is a high-technology start-up attempting to revolutionize print communication through electronic ink displays. The founders and top managers of this two-year-old firm are striving to translate a technological breakthrough into a working prototype, move from... View Details
- April 1999
- Case
Steve Perlman and WebTV (A)
By: James K. Sebenius and Ron Fortgang
The dynamics of a linked series of internal and external negotiations involved in launching, growing, and selling a high-tech, Internet start-up are explored. Steve Perlman unfurled an impressive new technology, recruited a top technical and management team, secured... View Details
- April 1999
- Case
Steve Perlman and WebTV (B)
By: James K. Sebenius and Ron Fortgang
The dynamics of a linked series of internal and external negotiations involved in launching, growing, and selling a high-tech, Internet start-up are explored. Steve Perlman unfurled an impressive new technology, recruited a top technical and management team, secured... View Details
- April 1999 (Revised October 2001)
- Case
Motive Communications
The founders of Motive Communications, Inc., a recent start-up dedicated to reinventing the support chain involved in the delivery of information technology support services, put in place a development process hinged on extensive customer feedback. As part of this, a... View Details
- September 1998 (Revised July 1999)
- Case
Integral Capital Partners
By: Andre F. Perold and Markus Mullarkey
Integral Capital Partners is a small firm with a very distinctive approach to investing in high-technology stocks. The firm invests privately in small start-ups as well as in publicly traded companies, and it develops important financial and advisory relationships with... View Details