Publications

October 2019 (Revised April 2020)
Background Note

Note on Funding Deep Tech Startups

By: Karim Lakhani, Peter Barrett and Noubar Afeyan

This Background Note provides essential information on funding deep technologies—those technologies that were inherently capital intensive, time consuming, risky, and potentially disruptive. Both dilutive and non-dilutive sources of investment are highlighted, along... View Details

06 May 2021
HBS Case

How Four Women Made Miami More Equitable for Startups

Despite widespread investment in entrepreneurship in cities across America, venture capital-funded startups still tend to be founded by white men in Silicon Valley. In contrast, businesses led by women are 63 percent less likely to... View Details

Keywords: by Carolyn DiPaolo

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

Keywords: Business Exit or Shutdown; Applications and Software; Going Public; Management Teams; Finance; Strategy; Value Creation; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Acquisition; Computer Industry

06 Apr 2021
Cold Call Podcast

Disrupting the Waste Industry with Technology

Keywords: Re: Shai Benjamin Bernstein

January 2000 (Revised March 2000)
Case

Cachet Technologies

By: Paul A. Gompers and Howard Reitz

Describes the decision facing Danny Lewin, Jonathan Seelig, and Tom Leighton, the founders of Cachet Technologies, an MIT spin-out. The firm has done poorly in the annual MIT business plan competition and the founders have to decide whether to continue. View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Business Startups; Business Plan; Failure; Cooperative Ownership; Business Strategy; Financial Services Industry

01 Jun 2021
Cold Call Podcast

Running a Consumer Fintech Startup within Goldman Sachs

Keywords: Financial Services

January 2025
Teaching Note

AGENTS.inc: Pathways to Growth at an AI Startup

By: Frank Nagle and Susan Pinckney

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 724-444. In 2024, AI agent startup company AGENTS.inc faced multiple strategic decisions that could shape the company’s ability to grow into the future AI agent market leader. View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; AI and Machine Learning; Growth and Development Strategy; Open Source Distribution; Entrepreneurial Finance; Competition; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Europe; Germany

October 2012 (Revised October 2013)
Case

Rock Health

By: Robert F. Higgins and Ian McKown Cornell

Rock Health was a San Francisco–based nonprofit organization offering accelerator services to spur innovation at the intersection of healthcare and technology. The company was the creation of Halle Tecco (HBS '11) and her HBS classmate Nate Gross (HBS '11), who met... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Incubation; Healthcare Technology; Startups; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Management; Health Care and Treatment; Business Startups; Health Industry; San Francisco; California; United States

May 2024 (Revised March 2025)
Case

MStudio and Djoli: Accelerating Startup Growth in Francophone Africa

By: Paul A. Gompers, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Temitayo Lawal

Djoli, a procurement platform, was one of the startups launched and supported by MStudio, a startup studio in Côte d'Ivoire, in 2023. After a year of operations, Djoli must look beyond MStudio, which had supported them financially and in kind in exchange for equity,... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Africa; Côte d'Ivoire

10 May 2017
Research & Ideas

Amazon Web Services Changed the Way VCs Fund Startups

More entrepreneurs are receiving initial funding from VCs thanks to technologies such as the cloud. Source: PeopleImages As cloud technologies allow startups to build companies... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Information Technology; Information Technology; Information Technology

May 2005 (Revised October 2007)
Case

Founder-CEO Succession at Wily Technology

By: Noam T. Wasserman and Henry McCance

Before he accepts the new CEO position, Dick Williams wants founder Lew Cirne to step down as chairman. While considering Williams' incredible demand, Cirne reflects on everything he has already given up to get Wily Technology to this point. He agreed to step down as... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Succession

March 2019
Article

When Does Advice Impact Startup Performance?

By: Aaron Chatterji, Solène Delecourt, Sharique Hasan and Rembrand Koning

Why do some entrepreneurs thrive while others fail? We explore whether the advice entrepreneurs receive about managing their employees influences their startup's performance. We conducted a randomized field experiment in India with 100 high-growth technology firms... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Field Experiment; Peer Effects; Entrepreneurial Ecosystems; Advice; Management Style; Management Practices and Processes; Knowledge Dissemination; Entrepreneurship; Performance; India

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October 2002 (Revised December 2003)
Case

Collabrys, Inc. (A)-The Evolution of a Startup

By: Dorothy A. Leonard and Brian DeLacey

The CEO of a two-year-old start-up must now decide whether to become a technology provider or a service agency. In a time of enormous uncertainty about the viability of various business models for Internet-delivered services and products, Collabrys has survived the... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Internet and the Web; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Corporate Strategy; Technological Innovation; Cost vs Benefits; Partners and Partnerships; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Corporate Finance; United States

2020
Working Paper

Digital Experimentation and Startup Performance: Evidence from A/B Testing

By: Rembrand Koning, Sharique Hasan and Aaron Chatterji

Recent work argues that experimentation is the appropriate framework for entrepreneurial strategy. We investigate this proposition by exploiting the time-varying adoption of A/B testing technology, which has drastically reduced the cost of experimentally testing... View Details

Keywords: Experimentation; A/B Testing; Data-driven Decision-making; Entrepreneurship; Strategy; Business Startups; Information Technology; Performance

SSRN

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18 Feb 2019
Book

What’s Really Disrupting Business? It’s Not Technology

established companies lament the disruption they’re facing at the hand of technologically savvy startups. But Teixeira, the Lumry Family Associate Professor of Business Administration, argues that these newcomers simply spotted and served... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Beauty & Cosmetics; Insurance; Service; Retail

March 1997 (Revised January 1999)
Case

Cambridge Technology Partners: Corporate Venturing (August 1996)

By: Paul A. Gompers and Catherine M. Conneely

Concerns the decision of Jim Sims, president and CEO of Cambridge Technology Partners (CTP) to form a corporate venture capital subsidiary. CTP is a fast-growing information technology consulting firm that has been presented with many investment opportunities from... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Venture Capital; Leadership; Information Technology; Investment; Opportunities; Customer Focus and Relationships; Business Startups; Business Subsidiaries; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry; Cambridge

February 2019 (Revised August 2019)
Case

KangaTech

By: Karim R. Lakhani, Patrick J. Ferguson, Sarah Fleischer, Jin Hyun Paik and Steven Randazzo

On a warm January afternoon in 2019, Steve Saunders, Dave Scerri, Carl Dilena, and Nick Haslam (see Exhibit 1 for biographies), co-founders of KangaTech, wrapped up the latest round of discussions about the future direction of their sports-technology start-up. Focused... View Details

Keywords: Startup; Technology Commercialization; Prototype; Business Startups; Technological Innovation; Sports; Health; Commercialization; Research and Development; Decision Making; Growth and Development Strategy; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Australia

August 1997 (Revised November 1998)
Case

Cambridge Technology Partners - 1991 Start Up

By: Paul A. Gompers and Catherine M. Conneely

Jim Sims tries to close the deal to create Cambridge Technology Partners (CTP) in a spin-out from a troubled technology consulting firm. The deal looks tenuous. View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Negotiation Deal; Information Technology; Organizations; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry; Cambridge