Publications

March 2022 (Revised May 2022)
Case

Reclaiming the Land of Purple: Purpl’s Mission to Unlock Finance in Lebanon

By: Lauren Cohen and Grace Headinger

Karl Naim, Co-Founder and CEO of Purpl, embarked on a venture to lower remittance costs for his native Lebanon. Since October 2019, the Lebanese economy had entered a free fall as its banking sector collapsed and large swathes of its population were plunged into... View Details

Keywords: Business Startup; Fintech; Inflation; Deflation; Cross-border Frictions; Remittances; Business Startups; Diasporas; Financial Crisis; Money; Entrepreneurship; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Poverty; Financial Institutions; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry; Lebanon

24 Jan 2025
News

The Network Effect

Karan Mathur (left) and Dina Model (Illustration by Gisela Goppel) When Dina Model and Karan Mathur (both MBA 2015) met through mutual friends during their first year at HBS, neither was envisioning a future business deal. “We didn’t realize that we had shared... View Details

01 Oct 1998
News

Merton Named University Professor

In a prestigious appointment with strong HBS overtones, Professor Robert C. Merton has been named the first incumbent of a new Harvard University Professorship named for John and Natty McArthur, the former Dean of HBS and his wife.... View Details

10 Aug 2010
First Look

First Look: August 10

more than twice as likely to be untrustworthy as uncertified sites. This difference remains statistically and economically significant when restricted to "complex" commercial sites. Meanwhile, search engines create an implied... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

04 Jun 2013
First Look

First Look: June 4

acquisition, offer branding guidelines, and explain how a choir of angel investors often will sing different parts. Publisher's link: http://www.amazon.com/Managing-Startups-Best-Blog-Posts/dp/1449367879 2006 Journal of Economic Behavior... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

05 May 2011
Research & Ideas

How ‘Political Voice’ Empowers the Powerless

and economics in developing countries, examining how distribution of power impacts policy and social groups. "I don't think we can understand the effects of economic policy without understanding the... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish

December 2018 (Revised June 2021)
Supplement

Bulb 2018: Hypergrowth

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

After a wild and volatile year, Bulb, a new entrant in the UK residential energy market, ended March 2018 with 329,171 properties, 1.2% of the total residential energy market). This was 150% ahead of a plan for 130,000 properties and almost ten times the size the... View Details

23 Oct 2012
First Look

First Look: October 23

Rotemberg Publication:Journal of Public Economics (forthcoming) Abstract This paper presents a model in which anonymous charitable donations are rationalized by two human tendencies drawn from the psychology... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

October 2016
Case

Triangulate: Stay, Pivot or Exit?

By: Thomas Eisenmann, Shikhar Ghosh and Christopher Payton

Sunil Nagaraj, Triangulate's founder had spent a few years trying to launch a dating application that matched users based on their behavior on social media. Based on input from advisors, the company changed its focus from a B2B site to a B2C dating site with a unique... View Details

Keywords: Early Stage; Pivot; Two Sided Markets; Business Model; Business Exit or Shutdown; Product Launch; Venture Capital; Failure; Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Information Technology; Social and Collaborative Networks; United States; North America

19 Jul 2011
First Look

First Look: July 19

jobs and dignified salaries. As of March 2010, La Fageda has opened up a new production facility to make ice cream in an urban area outside of its well-known agricultural farm. Students are faced with understanding La Fageda's business... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

December 2017 (Revised January 2018)
Case

Alltech

By: David E. Bell and Natalie Kindred

Alltech was a Lexington, Kentucky–based producer of supplements for animal feed, with revenues of over $2 billion (projected to reach $3 billion in 2018), sales in 120 countries, 5,000 employees, and 100 manufacturing plants worldwide. For nearly four decades, Alltech... View Details

July 2015
Case

Uncharted Play (A)

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Ali Huberlie

The case recounts the process of launching an early stage venture, from idea conception through initial efforts to validate the concept, followed by product launch, and fund raising. It emphasizes the Customer Value Proposition of the business model, and asks – Who is... View Details

Keywords: Early Stage; Female Protagonist; Value Proposition; Team Building; Founders' Agreements; Start-up; Entrepreneurship; Business Model; Business Startups; Sports; United States; North America; Nigeria; Africa

2003
Book

The Slow Pace of Fast Change: Bringing Innovations to Market in a Connected World

By: Bhaskar Chakravorti

Innovation's encounter with the market results in a game of both high risk and high stakes. Often its outcome defies common sense: Superior new products flop, unlikely ideas become runaway hits, and—despite rapid technological advances and intense... View Details

Keywords: Game Theory; Network Effects; Innovation and Invention; Product Marketing; Economics

24 May 2011
First Look

First Look: May 24

and further development of the original cluster framework. The fourth part then explores the policy implications to be drawn from Porter's work on clusters. Porter develops recommendations on how to leverage clusters as a tool in economic... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

10 Jan 2012
First Look

First Look: January 10

startups, suggesting a time of increased experimentation in the economy. We provide a model of investment into new ventures that demonstrates why some places, times, and industries should be associated with... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

15 Mar 2011
First Look

First Look: March 15

report data from an experiment where subjects in a Willpower Treatment are asked to resist the temptation to join others in watching a humorous video for 10 minutes. In relation to a baseline treatment that does not require willpower, we show that resisting this... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

April 2021
Case

Codecademy: Where to Next?

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Max Mailman and Sarah Ascherman

In March 2020, Zach Sims, co-founder and CEO of online education platform Codecademy, prepared for a meeting with his Chief of Staff Kunal Ahuja to discuss the company’s goals. Codecademy billed itself as the largest online resource for computer science literacy and... View Details

Keywords: Monetization Strategy; Business Model; Change Management; Venture Capital; Leading Change; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Management Teams; Marketing Channels; Product Marketing; Network Effects; Product Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategic Planning; Internet and the Web; Digital Platforms; United States