Publications

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15 Feb 2023
News

50th AASU Conference Honors the Past and Challenges the Future

Frank Nagle

Frank Nagle is an assistant professor in the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School. Professor Nagle studies how competitors can collaborate on the creation of core technologies, while still competing on the products and services built on top of them - especially... View Details

June 2016 (Revised January 2018)
Case

Airbnb, Etsy, Uber: Growing from One Thousand to One Million Customers

By: Thales S. Teixeira and Morgan Brown

By 2016, two-sided online platforms (or marketplaces) were pervasive among the highest growing internet startups around. These marketplaces sought to match suppliers of assets for rent, physical products or services with customers demanding them. Among the most notable... View Details

Keywords: Airbnb; Etsy; Uber; Growth Hacking; Two Sided Markets; Digital Platforms; Marketing; Digital Marketing; Growth Management; Service Industry

07 Nov 2023
Research & Ideas

When Glasses Land the Gig: Employers Still Choose Workers Who 'Look the Part'

Seeking a programming gig? Wear glasses and keep your laptop in frame if you want your profile picture to attract recruiters on hiring platforms. A new study finds freelancers are more likely to land work when they “look the part” for a particular job. But, as... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis

October 19, 2021
Article

The Facebook Trap

By: Andy Wu

Facebook has a clear mission: Connect everyone in the world. Clarity is good, but in Facebook’s case, it has also put the company in a bind because the mission—and the company’s vision for creating value through network effects—has also become the source of its biggest... View Details

Keywords: Business And Society; Mission and Purpose; Network Effects; Value Creation; Corporate Accountability; Strategy

Register to Read

Brian Trelstad is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School in the General Management Unit and the Faculty Chair of the Advanced Leadership Initiative. He teaches elective courses on Social Entrepreneurship and Systems... View Details

Keywords: education industry; health care; service industry; emerging market private equity; private equity (other); venture capital industry

July 2006 (Revised February 2007)
Case

LinkedIn (A)

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski

In the summer of 2005, LinkedIn, a two-year-old start-up, was choosing between two options to monetize its 5 million business people network. Members could contact each other through trusted intermediaries on the network to offer or seek jobs, consulting engagements,... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Business Growth and Maturation; Internet and the Web; Social and Collaborative Networks; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Industry

21 Feb 2013
HBS Seminar

Barry Wellman, University of Toronto

September 2016 (Revised September 2017)
Case

Zalora Philippines: From Growth to Profitability

By: Donald Ngwe and Thales Teixeira

In May 2015 Paulo Campos, co-founder and CEO of Zalora Philippines, found himself at a crucial turning point in his young company’s development. In just three years, Zalora had come from entering the Philippine fashion retail industry as an unknown quantity to becoming... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Business Subsidiaries; Business Growth and Maturation; Fashion Industry; Retail Industry; Sweden; Southeast Asia; Philippines

09 May 2013
HBS Seminar

D.J. Wu, Georgia Tech

20 May 2020
News

The Psychic Burden of Working During Lockdown

05 Oct 2011
News

Unhappy endings: Have people stopped eating ice cream?

October 2007 (Revised March 2008)
Case

Dove: Evolution of a Brand

By: John A. Deighton

Examines the evolution of Dove from functional brand to a brand with a point of view after Unilever designated it as a masterbrand, and expanded its portfolio to cover entries into a number of sectors beyond the original bath soap category. The development causes the... View Details

Keywords: History; Expansion; Marketing Strategy; Social Marketing; Digital Marketing; Brands and Branding; Consumer Products Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry

January 2013 (Revised April 2015)
Case

Affinity Labs: Valuing Customer Growth

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Elizabeth Kind

In November 2006, Chris Michel left Military.com, which he founded in 1999, to start Affinity Labs, a global network of online communities. That month, Michel raised a Series A round of venture funding and established a partnership with Monster, which he had sold... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Demand and Consumers; Partners and Partnerships; Social and Collaborative Networks; Online Technology

January 2021 (Revised March 2021)
Case

THE YES: Reimagining the Future of E-Commerce with Artificial Intelligence (AI)

By: Jill Avery, Ayelet Israeli and Emma von Maur

THE YES, a multi-brand shopping app launched in May 2020 offered a new type of buying experience for women’s fashion, driven by a sophisticated algorithm that used data science and machine learning to create and deliver a personalized store for every shopper, based on... View Details

Keywords: Data; Data Analytics; Artificial Intelligence; AI; AI Algorithms; AI Creativity; Fashion; Retail; Retail Analytics; E-Commerce Strategy; Platform; Platforms; Big Data; Preference Elicitation; Preference Prediction; Predictive Analytics; App Development; ＂Marketing Analytics＂; Advertising; Mobile App; Mobile Marketing; Apparel; Online Advertising; Referral Rewards; Referrals; Female Ceo; Female Entrepreneur; Female Protagonist; Analytics and Data Science; Analysis; Creativity; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Consumer Behavior; Demand and Consumers; Forecasting and Prediction; Marketing Channels; Digital Marketing; Internet and the Web; Mobile and Wireless Technology; AI and Machine Learning; E-commerce; Digital Platforms; Fashion Industry; Retail Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Consumer Products Industry; United States