Publications

June 2016 (Revised August 2017)
Case

AnswerDash

By: Elie Ofek and Jeffrey D. Shulman

It is 2014, and AnswerDash, a startup backed by venture capital, has not seen the widespread adoption of their online self-service customer support solution that they were expecting based on early success in helping clients save and generate substantial amounts of... View Details

Keywords: Pricing; Economic Value Estimation; Price Metrics; Organizational Selling; Innovation Adoption; Business To Business; Marketing; Customer Lifetime Value; Venture Capital; Customer Relationship Management; Price; Marketing Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Technology Adoption; Business Startups; Sales; Innovation and Invention; Product Marketing; Financial Services Industry

Web

HBS Working Knowledge – Harvard Business School Faculty Research

three working Americans with criminal records from the economy? In a case study, Paul Gompers explores the challenges a social justice startup encounters in helping the formerly incarcerated, as well as lessons for other entrepreneurs. 12... View Details

February 2016 (Revised May 2016)
Case

Blue Origin, NASA, and New Space (A)

By: Matthew Weinzierl and Angela Acocella

Jeff Bezos, six years after starting a revolution in retailing with Amazon.com, turned his life-long passion for space into a start-up, Blue Origin. Blue (as it was called) was a part of the New Space industry, a collection of startup aerospace engineering companies... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Partners and Partnerships; Transportation; Business Startups; Government and Politics; Business and Government Relations; Aerospace Industry

September 2017 (Revised January 2025)
Case

Dinesh Moorjani and Hatch Labs

By: Christopher Stanton, Shikhar Ghosh, Allison Ciechanover and Jeff Huizinga

This case is about Tinder. It discusses different business models and ways of structuring the initial team. With a $6 million investment from IAC/Interactive in 2010, Dinesh Moorjani founded Hatch Labs to build mobile apps. His mission was to attract entrepreneurial... View Details

Keywords: Returns; Incubator; Mobile App; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship; Decision Choices and Conditions; Business Model; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Talent and Talent Management; Valuation; Equity; Finance; United States; North America

June 2020
Supplement

Shellye Archambeau: Becoming a CEO (B)

By: Tsedal Neeley and Briana Richardson

With the economy in a freefall, MetricStream is losing customers, hemorrhaging cash and struggling to make payroll. Several board members are threatening to quit. Others are pressing to sell the company even at dismally low valuations. It’s 2008 and lightning has... View Details

Keywords: Race; Gender; Leadership Style; Risk and Uncertainty; Change; Prejudice and Bias; Decision Making; Personal Development and Career; Technology Industry; California

February 2023
Case

Enstitute

By: Lindsay N. Hyde, Thomas R. Eisenmann, Kumba Sennaar and Sarah Mehta

Shaila Ittycheria (MBA ’10) founded the nonprofit organization Enstitute, in 2012 in New York City. Determined to challenge the status quo within higher education, Shaila and her cofounder sought to expand opportunities for talented young people by placing them in... View Details

Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship; Operations; Business Startups; Business Growth and Maturation; Education Industry; Employment Industry; United States

Web

Faculty & Research

sector. The proposed transaction centered on Ping Identity Corporation (“Ping”), a fast-growing identity access management (IAM) software company that was being taken private by Thoma Bravo. Blue Owl was invited to play a leading role in... View Details

08 Nov 2011
First Look

First Look: Nov. 8

PublicationsHow Much Is a Reduction of Your Customers' Wait Worth? An Empirical Study of the Fast-Food Drive-Thru Industry Based on Structural Estimation Methods Authors:Gad Allon, Awi Federgruen, and Margaret P. Pierson Publication:Manufacturing and Service... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

October 2023 (Revised February 2024)
Case

Loris

By: Shunyuan Zhang, Das Narayandas, Stacy Straaberg and David Lane

In December 2022, Loris’s executive team considered their go-to-market strategy. Loris was an artificial intelligence (AI) software startup for the customer service industry with two products on the market: 1) Agent Assist which provided customer service agents (CSAs)... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Launch; Product Positioning; Business Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Business Startups; AI and Machine Learning; Applications and Software; Marketing Strategy; Sales; Technology Industry; United States

July 2020
Case

PeopleAnswers (A): People Analytics

By: Daniel P. Gross and Christian Godwin

In the fall of 2009, founder and CEO Gab Goncalves has turned PeopleAnswers, Inc. from a fledgling startup to a steadily growing company of nearly 50 employees and $10 million recurring revenue. PeopleAnswers provides people analytics software which its clients use to... View Details

Keywords: People Analytics; Entrepreneurship; Strategy; Growth and Development; Human Resources; Selection and Staffing

July 2024
Case

Jacqueline Cook at Vendasta: Debating an IPO

By: Reza Satchu, Tom Quinn and Andrew Kosc

In May 2021, after a surge in demand for digital services that prompted high valuations for startups across the Canadian tech sector, Saskatchewan-based Vendasta entered the final stages of the initial public offering (IPO) process. COO Jacqueline Cook had invested her... View Details

Dorothy Leonard*, the William J. Abernathy Professor of Business Administration Emerita, joined the Harvard faculty in 1983 after teaching for three years at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has taught MBA courses in... View Details

Keywords: computer; consulting; education industry; electronics; federal government; high technology; information technology industry; software; venture capital industry

February 2021
Background Note

Jobs to Be Done: A Toolbox

By: Derek C. M. van Bever, Bob Moesta, Iuliana Mogosanu, Shaye Roseman and Katie Zandbergen

The Jobs to Be Done methodology is both a theory and a practical approach for understanding customer behavior and why people make the choices they make. Many practitioners, whether they work for startups or incumbent businesses, find Jobs to Be Done useful because it... View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Decision Choices and Conditions; Knowledge Acquisition; Attitudes; Perception; Theory; Behavior; Customer Relationship Management

Research Summary

Overview

By: Rohit Deshpande

Customer Centricity Rohit Deshpandé's research program focuses on Customer-Centricity. A stream of projects examines the interaction between corporate and national culture as they influence the development and implementation of global marketing strategies in high... View Details

July 2020
Supplement

PeopleAnswers (B): The Infor Acquisition

By: Daniel P. Gross

In the fall of 2009, founder and CEO Gab Goncalves has turned PeopleAnswers, Inc. from a fledgling startup to a steadily growing company of nearly 50 employees and $10 million recurring revenue. PeopleAnswers provides people analytics software which its clients use to... View Details

Keywords: People Analytics; Entrepreneurship; Strategy; Growth and Development; Human Resources; Selection and Staffing; Mergers and Acquisitions

November 2018 (Revised June 2019)
Case

ofo

By: Mitchell Weiss

Dai Wei and his co-founders grew Beijing-based ofo from a school-based startup to a bike-share behemoth in a matter of months, topped an all-out market-share battle fueled with almost $1 billion in venture capital, provided 2 billion bicycle rides, soaked up the... View Details

April 2011
Case

Daniel Kim's Dilemma (A)

By: Bill George and Natalie Kindred

Daniel Kim was considering "blowing the whistle" on his friend, the CEO of a fast-growing startup where Kim had spent most of his professional career. When Kim joined the company, called Cardio-Metric, in 2002, it consisted of seven young engineers (including its two... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Fairness; Corporate Accountability; Emotions; Behavior; Leadership Style; Governing and Advisory Boards; Corporate Disclosure