Publications

March 2017 (Revised November 2021)
Case

Floodgate: On the Hunt for Thunder Lizards

By: Rory McDonald, Alix Burke, Emma Franking and Nicole Tempest

Founded in 2008, Floodgate pioneered the “micro-VC” category, a new type of investment firm that raised smaller funds and made earlier, smaller investments in technology startups than traditional venture-capital firms. By 2015, Floodgate had raised three funds totaling... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Business Models; Angel Investors; Crowdfunding; Incubators; Accelerators; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Business Startups; Information Technology; Business Model; Innovation and Invention; Competitive Strategy

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Organizational Behavior - Faculty & Research

and its rapid growth despite that controversial choice. It traces the company’s scaling efforts, major fundraising rounds, acquisitions, and ultimate expansion to general access by 2023. Keywords: Purpose ; Identity ; Cultural Branding ;... View Details

November 2013 (Revised May 2023)
Case

Valuing Yahoo! in 2013

By: Luis M. Viceira and Atul Khosla

In late July 2013, Danielle Engle, Managing Director of Clairemont Capital, was contemplating what to do about a large investment her fund had in the stock of Yahoo! Inc. In mid-2012, Clairemont had invested nearly $75M in Yahoo! after the tech company settled a highly... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Decision Making; Investment Activism; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Valuation

15 Aug 2023
HBS Case

(Virtual) Reality Check: How Long Before We Live in the 'Metaverse'?

The recent rollout of ChatGPT by OpenAI has set the world abuzz about the potential of artificial intelligence. But whatever happened to the last tech phenomenon, the “metaverse”? The once-heavily hyped future of immersive 3D technology... View Details

Keywords: by Jay Fitzgerald; Technology; Computer; Information Technology

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Blavatnik Fellowship in Life Science Entrepreneurship - Health Care

offers Harvard Business School (HBS) alumni and Harvard-affiliated postdoctoral researchers the opportunity to advance new ventures around promising life science technologies and develop their leadership talents during a 12-month... View Details

August 2020 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Just Arrived: Integrating Refugees in Sweden

By: Brian Trelstad, Emilie Billaud and Mette Fuglsang Hjortshoej

Just Arrived is an online platform that matches newly-arrived immigrants in Sweden with employment opportunities. As one of several for-profit and non-profit start-ups in Europe that is looking to address the refugee crisis, the case enables a comparative analysis of... View Details

Keywords: Immigration; Refugees; Employment; Integration; Business Model; Social Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Employment Industry; Sweden; Italy; Germany

March 2006
Case

The Whitesides Lab

By: H. Kent Bowen and Francesca Gino

A significant part of the long-term economic growth in developed economies depends on the translation of scientific research into new products and processes. Focuses on the front end of this value creation stream. The laboratory of George Whitesides has a 30-year... View Details

Keywords: Research; Performance Productivity; Economic Growth; Infrastructure; Creativity; Groups and Teams; Value Creation; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Leadership; Resource Allocation

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Middle East & North Africa - Global

differentiation, and internationalization challenges in emerging markets. It is ideal for teaching courses in digital strategy, global entrepreneurship, scaling tech ventures, , and platform-based business... View Details

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Entrepreneurial Management - Faculty & Research

production capacity to grow their business. Their next steps would dictate the pace of expansion and determine whether Must B Nutty could scale to become a national brand or an acquisition target amid a quickly evolving food landscape.... View Details

November 2024
Case

Demond Martin and WellWithAll

By: Hise Gibson, Archie L. Jones and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone

This case study chronicles the transformative entrepreneurial path of Demond Martin, co-founder and CEO of WellWithAll, a health and wellness startup. Motivated by a pivotal life experience and deep concern for racial health inequities, Martin transitions from a... View Details

September 2022
Article

Experimentation and Start-up Performance: Evidence from A/B Testing

By: Rembrand Koning, Sharique Hasan and Aaron Chatterji

Recent scholarship has argued that experimentation should be the organizing principle for entrepreneurial strategy. Experimentation leads to organizational learning, which drives improvements in firm performance. We investigate this proposition by exploiting the... View Details

Keywords: Experimentation; A/B Testing; Data-driven Decision-making; Organizational Learning; Entrepreneurship; Strategy; Business Startups; Learning; Performance; Decision Making

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All Industries

Nonprofit / Government Other Financial Services Private Equity Retail Services Technology Venture Capital Career Data Internship Data View: Class of 2024 Class of 2024 Class of 2023 Class of 2022 Class of 2021 Class of 2020 Sort By: A-Z... View Details

07 Jun 2023
Blog Post

My One Case: MBA Class of 2023 Looks Back

Their story ignited a desire within me to explore diverse strategies and think outside the box when it comes to building and scaling a business. In what class did you read this case?In Scaling View Details

03 May 2024
Research & Ideas

How Much Does Proximity Influence Startup Innovation? 20 Meters' Worth to Be Exact

of each firm, including the actual walking distances between offices, to determine if and how much neighboring companies influenced each other’s website technologies, or “tech stack.” A company’s tech stack fundamentally shapes a... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

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

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March 2019 (Revised June 2021)
Case

HelloSelf: Foundation

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

On January 6, 2019, HelloSelf, a London-based “BrainTech” company, founded a year earlier by Charles Wells, soft launched. The proposition was simply to help its members “Be your Best Self.” The company provided its registered members with access to a clinical... View Details

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HBS Entrepreneurship Summit - Alumni

and builders of high-growth pre-IPO/pre-acquisition ventures that: Are working on high-growth ventures with $1 billion+ market opportunities. Have achieved product market fit and are rapidly View Details

Profile

Enrico Ferrari

technology, he spent nights and weekends learning how to code; soon, he started developing his own algorithms to scale and automate digital marketing campaigns, a skill he applied to successfully expand a classifieds business into fifteen... View Details

Keywords: Tech

July 1996 (Revised July 2025)
Case

Innovative Opportunities to Manage Health Care Delivery: THG/Healthy Shop

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and D. Scott Lurding

The purpose of this case is: To familiarize the students with the changing landscape of health care delivery, through chains of retail medical centers and those offering value-based care (VBC).

To discuss fundamental managerial decisions about their... View Details

Keywords: Managed Care; Capitation; Strategy