Publications

February 2010 (Revised January 2014)
Case

Tennant Company

By: Toby E. Stuart, Lynda M. Applegate and James Weber

Tennant, a leading producer of floor cleaning equipment, must determine how to create, finance, structure, staff, govern, measure, and manage a new venture for developing a fundamentally new product line. In 2005, Tennant Company had developed an innovative,... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Change Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Disruptive Innovation; Product Development; Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Research and Development

January 2020 (Revised July 2020)
Supplement

MoviePass: The 'Get Big Fast' Strategy

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

In August 2017, MoviePass dramatically lowered its subscription price from $50 per month to just $10 for up to one movie per day. The idea was to rapidly scale the business to the point where they could generate incremental revenue streams form related businesses... View Details

16 Feb 2016
First Look

February 16, 2016

experience. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=50573 2015 Shaping Entrepreneurial Mindsets: Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Leadership Development Design Thinking and View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2024 (Revised April 2024)
Teaching Note

Somatus: Value-Based Kidney Care (A) & (B)

By: Ariel D. Stern, Robert S. Huckman and Sarah Mehta

This teaching note accompanies case no. 622-009 and 622-045 (Somatus: Value-Based Kidney Care, A and B). View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Disruption; Entrepreneurship; Health Care and Treatment; Health Disorders; Medical Specialties; Innovation and Invention; Disruptive Innovation; Management; Business Strategy; Value Creation; Health Industry; United States; Virginia

July 2011 (Revised September 2011)
Case

Game Time Decision for AppDirect

By: Andrei Hagiu, Laura Arjona and Emily Zhang

AppDirect is a start-up that offers small businesses software-as-a-service solutions through a business app marketplace and portal. Daniel Saks, co-founder and co-CEO, is faced with the key question of deciding distribution strategy: should AppDirect find channel... View Details

Keywords: Digital Platforms; Distribution; Applications and Software; Innovation Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Business Growth and Maturation; Competitive Strategy; Information Technology Industry; United States

09 Nov 2009
Research & Ideas

Come Fly with Me: A History of Airline Leadership

war years; and innovator Herb Kelleher at Southwest near the end of the century. In this e-mail interview, Mayo, director of the HBS Leadership Initiative and the Thomas S. Murphy Distinguished Research Fellow, discusses how executives... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Air Transportation

February 2015 (Revised February 2016)
Case

CrossFit (A)

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Ali Huberlie and Christopher Payton

The case provides a sense of motivations of venture capital firms, the pivotal role that founders play, and explores the limits of founder-driven growth.
CrossFit (CF) describes the approach taken by its founder Greg Glassman in setting up one of the most... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Venture Capital; Strategy; Organizational Culture; Entrepreneurship; Franchise Ownership; Innovation and Invention; United States; North America

20 Jan 2010
First Look

First Look: Jan. 20

found in only a small number of tasks and functions. In the majority of situations, spans of accountability were wider than spans of control. This "Entrepreneurial Gap" is posited to be a result of management's desire for View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

March 2025
Case

Niramai: An AI Solution to Save Lives

By: Rembrand Koning, Maria P. Roche and Kairavi Dey

Founded in 2017, Niramai developed Thermalytix, a breast cancer screening tool. Thermalytix used a high-resolution thermal sensing device and machine learning algorithms to analyze thermal images and detect tumors. Its patented solution leveraged big data analytics,... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; AI and Machine Learning; Technology Adoption; Health Care and Treatment; Innovation and Management; Entrepreneurial Finance; Business Strategy; Science-Based Business; Technology Industry; Health Industry; Asia; India; South Asia

February 2023
Supplement

Astyanax Kanakakis at norbloc: A Founder's Experience with the DIFC Fintech Hive

By: Linda A. Hill and Lydia Begag

norbloc was founded in 2016 in Stockholm, Sweden, by Astyanax Kanakakis and his co-founders, Vitalii Demianets and Sam Saatchi. Kanakakis and Demianets got to work to address a key gap in the industry: Know Your Customer (KYC) data sharing. As the first distributed KYC... View Details

22 Aug 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, August 23

link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=53122 2017 The Entrepreneur's Roadmap: From Concept to IPO Entrepreneurship in Larger Companies By: Kerr, William R. Abstract—Entrepreneurship in large and established companies is... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

October 2000 (Revised November 2001)
Case

Garage.com (A)

By: Dorothy A. Leonard and Elizabeth Kind

Silicon Valley's Garage.com matches venture capital and corporate angel investors with high-tech start-ups that are looking for early stage funding. As a Web-based service, Garage.com fields inquiries from entrepreneurs and investors around the world, and is eager to... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Corporate Strategy; Business Growth and Maturation; Venture Capital; Investment; Internet and the Web; Expansion; Operations; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Global Strategy; Technological Innovation; Brands and Branding; Information Technology Industry

Find at Harvard

December 2016 (Revised May 2018)
Case

Ebony Magazine

By: Steven Rogers and Derrick Jackson

For nearly 75 years, the Johnson Publishing Company has been the most successful African American magazine publisher. Its flagship Ebony magazine was an iconic coffee table fixture for decades in black households of all classes, making founder John H. Johnson... View Details

23 Mar 2010
First Look

First Look: March 23

for Competitive Advantage, edited by Jeffrey Word. Jossey-Bass, 2009 An abstract is unavailable at this time. Book: http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470528346,descCd-tableOfContents.html Workplace Peers and View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

June 2000 (Revised September 2000)
Case

Amazon.com: Exploiting the Value of Digital Business Infrastructure

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Meredith Collura

Enables a thorough analysis of Amazon.com and the company's value proposition, in terms of its business concept, digital business capabilities, and community and shareholder value. Examines the company's complex set of business models and web of business relationships,... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Asset Pricing; Capital; Financial Management; Technological Innovation; Business or Company Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Relationships; Competitive Strategy; Information Technology Industry; Web Services Industry

January 2025
Case

The Vision of Wonder

By: Michael S. Kaufman and Daniella Bertolotti

Serial entrepreneur Marc Lore successfully disrupted three marketplaces—trading cards, diapers (founded Diapers.com and eventually sold to Amazon for more than $500 million) and ecommerce (founded Jet.com competing directly with Amazon and eventually sold to Walmart... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Exit or Shutdown; Entrepreneurship; Disruptive Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; Technology Industry