Publications

10 Apr 2019
HBS Case

How Entrepreneurs Can Turn Lead Into Gold

writer based in the Boston area. Image credit: Gremlin Related Reading: Venture Investors Prefer Funding Handsome Men Amazon Web Services Changed the Way VCs Fund Startups... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Financial Services

December 2020
Article

Different Founders, Different Firms: A Comparative Analysis of Academic and Non-academic Startups

By: Maria P. Roche, Annamaria Conti and Frank T. Rothaermel

What role do differences in founders' occupational backgrounds play in new venture performance? Analyzing a novel dataset of 2,998 founders creating 1,723 innovative startups in biomedicine, we find that the likelihood and hazard of achieving a liquidity event are... View Details

Keywords: Founders; Innovation; Occupational Imprinting; Academic Startups; Non-academic Startups; Founder Heterogeneity; Business Startups; Innovation and Invention; Performance; Demographics; Analysis

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March 2015 (Revised January 2024)
Case

CV Ingenuity (A): How to Evaluate the Commercial Viability of New Health Care Technologies

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Andrew Otazo

Duke Rohlen (HBS MBA ’01) hoped to win over a prominent venture capital investor for Series B financing of his firm CVI that was creating a drug-eluting balloon (DES) to treat peripheral arterial disease. As a second-mover, Duke felt he was more likely to acquire... View Details

12 Dec 2023
Blog Post

Bridging Science and Business: My Summer Internship at Eli Lilly

skills in business, making it a summer to remember. Our first academic year, known as the Required Curriculum (RC) year, laid a robust foundation for our new directions, but it was our summer internships that truly showcased the breadth of the program. From View Details

06 Feb 2023
Blog Post

Meet the Black Investment Club

early-stage venture capital while at HBS, Coates is an active member of the Boston innovation ecosystem from the investor side as a Venture Fellow, now Managing Partner, at Rough Draft View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Venture Capital; Venture Capital

March 2021 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Scale and Scope at Drake Real Estate Partners

By: Christina R. Wing and David Lane

Realizing in early 2021 that their pending real estate investment fund would likely be oversubscribed, Drake Real Estate Partners co-founders Nicolás Ibáñez and David Cotterman were considering how best to continue to diversify their investor base and how to optimize... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Family Business; Investment; Ownership; Value Creation; Financial Services Industry; Real Estate Industry; United States; Latin America; Chile

November 2023 (Revised May 2024)
Case

Kickstarter: Crowdfunding for the Arts

By: Rohit Deshpandé and Alexis Lefort

Kickstarter was a virtual crowdfunding platform and community that allowed creators of all kinds to raise funding for creative projects. The executive team was wrestling with a tension in its business model: the organization earned the majority of its revenue from... View Details

Keywords: Fundraising; Mission; Crowdfunding; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Arts; Web Services Industry; United States

21 Apr 2011
Research & Ideas

Searching for Better Practices in Social Investing

Investing: Emerging Trends in a Changing Landscape," a recent panel discussion hosted by Harvard Business School's Social Enterprise Initiative. They also touched on growing trends including venture View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Financial Services

26 Aug 2020
Blog Post

Two sides, same coin: How I left the Bay Area as an operator and returned as an investor

more about venture capital: The Rock Venture Partners program. The program, run by Jeff Bussgang and the Rock Center (led by Jodi Gernon, Chuck Collins, and Priyanka Gandhi), is structured as a curated... View Details

May 2010 (Revised January 2012)
Case

The Robin Hood Foundation

By: Alnoor Ebrahim and Cathy Ross

Created by hedge fund and financial managers, the Robin Hood Foundation fights poverty through grants to nonprofit organizations. As the global financial crisis continues to impact the poor disproportionately, the Foundation needs to ensure that its funds are being... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Poverty; Organizational Design; Performance Effectiveness; Financial Crisis; Programs; Measurement and Metrics

July – August 2011
Article

Evolve (Again)

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter

Frenzy over social networks and interactive media can produce equally overhyped predictions that everything will change, not to mention money-losing investments in silly ventures. Separating enduring strategic lessons from the hype can help avoid a new crash. Hint: the... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Venture Capital; Investment; Technological Innovation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Partners and Partnerships

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Career Coach

Peter Platzer

Peter (HBS '02) is a former hedge fund manager who currently runs a space exploration company he founded in 2012. A coach for HBS since 2002, he enjoys helping individuals find their unique career vision, matching their passion, skills... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Venture Capital; Venture Capital; Venture Capital; Venture Capital; Venture Capital

Career Coach

Jamie Woodard

experience will be like, and how to prepare for the various interview processes. She is happy to assist with interview prep, case study prep, resume reviews, and fund targeting. To book an appointment, please send Jamie an email. Work... View Details

2025
Working Paper

Too Much, Too Soon? Early Funding, Technological Unconventionality, and Innovation Capabilities

By: Harsh Ketkar and Maria Roche

The availability of financial resources significantly shapes firm innovation outcomes, especially for early-stage, innovation-focused technology firms. However, prior research has provided conflicting findings about this relationship: On the one hand, resource... View Details

Keywords: Startups; Technology Strategy; Novelty; Unconventionality; Resource Constraints; Early Stage Firms; Business Startups; Technological Innovation; Entrepreneurial Finance

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2025
Working Paper

Impact Investing and Worker Outcomes

By: Josh Lerner, Markus Lithell and Gordon M. Phillips

Impact investors claim to distinguish themselves from traditional venture capital and growth equity investors by also pursuing ESG objectives. Whether they successfully do so in practice is unclear. We use confidential Census Bureau microdata to assess worker... View Details

Keywords: ESG; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Private Equity; Venture Capital; Wages

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September 2018
Case

ProdEng: Services for Oil & Gas Extraction

By: Frank V. Cespedes, Maria Fernanda Miguel and Mariana Cal

ProdEng is a venture created as part of a PE fund and provides oil field services in Argentina. In 2016, an industry-wide unforeseen oil and gas demand slump drove ProdEng’s average service rates down by more than 37%, with EBITDA margins falling from 50% to 24% in the... View Details

Keywords: Pricing; Entrepreneurship; Sales; Marketing; Price; Strategy; Latin America; Argentina