Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(873)
- Faculty Publications (80)
- August 2018 (Revised February 2022)
- Case
Lexoo: Building a Long-Lasting Platform
By: Chiara Farronato and Elena Corsi
Daniel van Binsbergen, Lexoo’s CEO, and web developer Chris O’Sullivan, CTO, had set up Lexoo, a UK legal marketplace, to help small and medium enterprises (SME) find legal advice at low prices. Lexoo had recently invested in a new vertical focused on larger companies.... View Details
- July 2018 (Revised January 2019)
- Teaching Note
MC Tool
By: Richard S. Ruback, Royce Yudkoff and Ahron Rosenfeld
Sean Witty and Jason Premo acquired MC Tool, a machine shop located in South Carolina in 2007 with the intent to transform it into a precision manufacturer. Witty and Premo were able to more than double revenue to $6 million in their first year of managing MC by... View Details
- July 2018 (Revised January 2019)
- Teaching Note
Next Street, LLC
By: Richard S. Ruback, Royce Yudkoff and Ahron Rosenfeld
Teaching Note for HBS Nos. 211-094 and 219-723. View Details
- July 2018 (Revised November 2018)
- Case
The Robin Hood Army
By: Susanna Gallani
In 2014, Neel Ghose and a handful of friends spent one evening distributing excess food they had collected from local restaurants to the less fortunate people living under the Hauz Khas flyover in South Delhi. Four years later, this initiative had developed into The... View Details
- February 2018 (Revised August 2018)
- Case
Blue Haven Initiative: The PEGAfrica Investment
By: Vikram S. Gandhi, Caitlin Reimers Brumme and Amram Migdal
This case examines Blue Haven Initiative (BHI), an impact investing fund and family office, and one of its investments, PEGAfrica (PEG). BHI founder Liesel Pritzker Simmons’ motivations for using her family wealth to start a family office focused on impact investing,... View Details
Keywords: Impact Investing; Family Office; Development; International Development; International Development Investing; Development Fund; Sustainability; Solar Energy; Solar; Pay As You Go; PAYG; MFI; Social Venture; Business Ventures; Acquisition; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Economics; Development Economics; Energy; Energy Conservation; Energy Sources; Renewable Energy; Social Entrepreneurship; Finance; Assets; Asset Pricing; Capital; Capital Budgeting; Capital Structure; Venture Capital; Cash; Cash Flow; Currency; Currency Exchange Rate; Equity; Private Equity; Financial Instruments; Debt Securities; Stock Shares; Financing and Loans; Microfinance; International Finance; Investment; Investment Return; Investment Activism; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Price; Geography; Geographic Location; Emerging Markets; Ownership; Ownership Stake; Private Ownership; Social Enterprise; Value; Valuation; Value Creation; Energy Industry; Financial Services Industry; Green Technology Industry; Africa; United States
- August 2017
- Case
Data-driven Manufacturing: The Kutesmart System
By: Willy Shih and Nancy Hua Dai
The data-driven manufacturing system at this Chinese bespoke mens' suit manufacturer illustrates the use of information technology to support mass customization in a largely manual production environment. It contrasts sharply with some of the Industrie 4.0... View Details
- July 2017 (Revised November 2017)
- Case
Propel
By: Mitchell Weiss and Sarah McAra
In 2014, Jimmy Chen, a former product manager at Facebook, founded the start-up Propel to build software for low-income Americans. After conducting in-depth behavioral research, Chen and his small team in New York City began to develop technology to address the... View Details
Keywords: Public Entrepreneurship; Govtech; Food Stamps; EBT; Mobile App; User Research; Financial Services Referrals; Grocery Marketing; Customer Discovery; Social Entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurship; Public Sector; Business Model; Research; Social Enterprise; Poverty; Welfare; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Applications and Software; Technology Industry; United States
- 2017
- Book
HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business: Think Big, Buy Small, Own Your Own Company
By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff
Find, acquire, and run your own business. Are you looking for an alternative to a career path at a big firm? Does founding your own start-up seem too risky? There is a radical third path open to you: you can buy a small business and run it as CEO. Purchasing a small... View Details
Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Entrepreneurs; Small Companies; Small Business Finance; Negotiation; Due Diligence; Sourcing; Search Funds; Search; Deal Sourcing; Deal Structuring; Funnel; Debt Financing; Small And Medium Enterprises; Small Business; Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Negotiation Deal; Ownership; Equity; Borrowing and Debt
- January 2017 (Revised October 2021)
- Case
Delivering the Goods at Shippo
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Jeffrey F. Rayport and Olivia Hull
Laura Behrens Wu, CEO of software start-up Shippo, prepares her pitch for a Series A funding round following a successful seed round. Customer adoption of Shippo’s e-commerce dashboard application, which allows small and medium retailers to compare delivery rates... View Details
Keywords: Application Program Interface; API; API Strategy; Customer Cohorts; Churn; Retention; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Business Startups; Strategy; Transition; Customer Focus and Relationships; Technological Innovation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Valuation; Shipping Industry; Technology Industry; Retail Industry; San Francisco; California; United States
- January 2016 (Revised July 2017)
- Case
HourlyNerd
By: Jill Avery and Joseph Fuller
HourlyNerd, a two-sided marketplace platform for matching freelance consultants with small companies looking for help, struggles to define a growth plan for the future. The company, started as a class project in HBS' FIELD 3 course, is assessing three growth paths:... View Details
- November 2015
- Case
Wynton Marsalis & Jazz at Lincoln Center
By: Rohit Deshpandé
Under the leadership of artistic director Wynton Marsalis, Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) hosts performances and education events year-round for audiences in New York and across the United States. Despite the popularity of JALC's events, however, the U.S. audience for... View Details
- August 2015 (Revised May 2017)
- Case
TSG Hoffenheim: Football in the Age of Analytics
By: Feng Zhu, Karim R. Lakhani, Sascha L. Schmidt and Kerry Herman
In 2015, Dietmar Hopp, owner of Germany's Bundesliga football team TSG Hoffenheim and co-founder of the global enterprise software company SAP, was considering how to ensure long-term sustainability and competitiveness for TSG Hoffenheim. While historically a small... View Details
- July 2015 (Revised October 2015)
- Case
Building Strong Partnerships at the Inter-American Development Bank
By: Amy C. Edmondson, Erin L. Henry, Andreas Georgoulias and Natalie Bartlett
Building Strong Partnerships at the Inter-American Development Bank details the development of the bank's new Office of Outreach Partnerships to sustain a culture of innovation through maintaining and generating partnerships in order to fulfill the bank's greater... View Details
Keywords: Business Organization; Business And Community; Well-being; Wealth and Poverty; Organizational Structure; Groups and Teams; Organizational Culture; Technology Adoption; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Government Relations; Change Management; Nonprofit Organizations; Expansion; Partners and Partnerships; Restructuring; Welfare or Wellbeing; Business and Community Relations; Non-Governmental Organizations; Banking Industry; Latin America
- July 16, 2015
- Article
How Small Businesses Can Fend Off Hackers
By: Lou Shipley
If you wanted to hack a business, which one would you pick: A Fortune 500 company with a large digital-security budget and a team dedicated to protecting its cyberassets? Or a small enterprise that doesn’t employ a single IT security specialist? Security breaches at... View Details
- 2015
- Working Paper
Informal Tradables and the Employment Growth of Indian Manufacturing
By: Ejaz Ghani, William R. Kerr and Alexander Segura
India's manufacturing growth from 1989 to 2010 displays two intriguing properties: 1) a substantial fraction of absolute and net employment growth is concentrated in informal tradable industries, and 2) much of this growth is connected to the development of one-person... View Details
- 16 Oct 2014
- Other Presentation
U.S. Competitiveness and Implications for our Economic Future
Keynote talk about enhancing U.S. competitiveness during the Inner City 100 Symposium: Icons of Industry Growth View Details
- May 2014
- Article
Right Up the Middle: How Israeli Firms Go Global
By: Jonathan Friedrich, Amit Noam and Elie Ofek
The article considers international business enterprises based in Israel and how they successfully expanded from their origins as small businesses. A common technique of those companies in which they focused on market entry in other countries whose markets were too... View Details
- February 2014
- Case
Oxfam America's Women in Small Enterprise
By: Lynda M. Applegate and Aldo Sesia
Keywords: Latin America
- 2014
- Case
Meizhou Dongpo Restaurant: Entrepreneurship, Leadership and Culture
By: F. Warren McFarlan, Weiku Wu and Jia Guo
Meizhou Dongpo is a large catering group in China. On June 6, 1996, the first Meizhou Dongpo Restaurant was opened in Beijing. The enterprise entered the stage of rapid development in 2000, and set up Beijing Meizhou Restaurant Management Co., Ltd. In June 2003 the... View Details
- 2014
- Teaching Note
Meizhou Dongpo Restaurant: Entrepreneurship, Leadership and Culture (TN)
By: F. Warren McFarlan, Weiku Wu and Jia Guo
Meizhou Dongpo is a large catering group in China. On June 6, 1996, the first Meizhou Dongpo Restaurant was opened in Beijing. The enterprise entered the stage of rapid development in 2000, and set up Beijing Meizhou Restaurant Management Co., Ltd. In June 2003 the... View Details