Publications

March 2001 (Revised October 2001)
Case

Honest Tea

By: Paul A. Gompers

This case examines the decisions of Seth Goldman and Barry Nalebuff, founders of Honest Tea. Honest Tea is a start-up in the ready-to-drink tea market. Goldman and Nalebuff must craft an expansion and financing strategy. View Details

Keywords: Financial Strategy; Expansion; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Decisions

January 2024 (Revised May 2024)
Case

Runa

By: Paul Gompers and Carla Larangeira

In early 2022, Courtney McColgan, founder and CEO of Runa, a human resources and payroll Software-as-a-Service platform, faced an unexpected tech market downturn. Founded in 2018, Runa catered to small and medium-sized businesses in Mexico, offering an affordable and... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Volatility; Entrepreneurship; Decision Making; Leadership; Management; Venture Capital; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business Growth and Maturation; Latin America

February 2011 (Revised November 2012)
Case

PatientsLikeMe: An Online Community of Patients

By: Sunil Gupta and Jason Riis

PatientsLikeMe (PLM) is an online community where patients share their personal experiences with a disease, find other patients like them, and learn from each other. The company was founded by Jamie and Ben Heywood when their 29-year-old brother was diagnosed with ALS... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Health Disorders; Knowledge Sharing; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Launch; Digital Platforms; Social and Collaborative Networks; Health Industry

26 Sep 2006
First Look

First Look: September 26, 2006

School Case 806-073 Follows the growth of an entrepreneur from his early startup activities. As the company evolves from 1998 to 2005, looks at key decisions and turning points as AtHoc's strategy adapts in response to changing market... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Aug 1998
News

High Honors

'61) Founder and Managing Partner Idanta Partners Ltd. Each year a host of bright-eyed entrepreneurs make their way to San Diego to explain their dreams to Dave Dunn, one of the nation's leading venture capitalists. For every seven... View Details

January 2007 (Revised August 2008)
Case

NatuRi Corporation

By: Robert F. Higgins and Virginia Fuller

NatuRi Corporation was a start up, founded in 2005, aiming to manufacture a cholesterol-lowering drug made from the byproducts of rice bran oil production. With operations split between Chennai, India and Boston, Massachusetts, NatuRi faced several challenges,... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Decision Choices and Conditions; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Equity; Investment Funds; Growth and Development Strategy; Chennai; Boston

09 Mar 2015
Research & Ideas

Why Entrepreneurs Should Go Work for Government

biggest customer in the world; on the other hand, 90 out of 100 VCs would say they don't back business models that sell to government," says Weiss. "Though that's starting to change as startups and government are starting to... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

09 Apr 2013
First Look

First Look: April 9

http://hbr.org/search/113088-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 813-125 Plastiq The young CEO of a venture-backed startup needs to figure out his go to market strategy and the right profile for his first key sales hires. Should he... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

05 Sep 2019
Sharpening Your Skills

Making the Right Technical Hire

they do not have a good hiring strategy. For decades, there have been books and articles about building engineering teams. The infamous book The Mythical Man Month by Fred Brooks should be on every software engineer and tech startup... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Austin; Technology

01 Mar 2023
News

Step Change

companies, a scaling initiative for ventures at the pre-series A stage, and training for individuals managing other accelerators. The effort is a continuation of the government’s investment of 5 billion Egyptian pounds in creating a... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; photographed by Abdelrahman Gabr – Koree; entrepreneurship; women; venture capital; Egypt; developing economies; Finance

01 Aug 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, August 1

provided more opportunities for catch-up from the Rest. Firms from emerging markets had the opportunity to access the global networks that replaced large integrated firms. There were also new ways to access knowledge and capital, including through View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Web

Career Support - Business & Environment

startup companies. The symposium offers conference attendees the opportunity to network with leading professionals representing a diverse group of firms, markets, and geographies. (November) Coffee Chats Meet with BEI to discuss anything... View Details

11 Aug 2021
Blog Post

The Equity Network: How HBS Helped Me Launch a Tech-Enabled Social Enterprise

Kristina Hu is from the Class of 2022 and a proud member of Section H. After graduating from Harvard College in 2016, she worked in investment banking at Morgan Stanley before pivoting into tech, eventually becoming a product manager at... View Details

23 Nov 2020
Research & Ideas

COVID Was Supposed to Increase Bankruptcies. Instead, They've Gone Down.

the highest rates of job loss since the Great Depression,” says co-author Raymond Kluender, an assistant professor in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School. “At the same time, we saw a decline in consumer... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

November 1991 (Revised July 1995)
Case

Body Shop International

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

Describes the start-up and rapid growth of a company whose founder holds strong, non-traditional beliefs about the role of the corporation and its responsibility to society. After profiling Anita Roddick as a person, the case describes the anti-mainstream approach she... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Business Growth and Maturation; Leadership Style; Management Succession; Management Teams; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Values and Beliefs; Global Strategy; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry

January 2024 (Revised May 2024)
Case

Uncle Nearest: Creating a Legacy

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

Fawn Weaver, as a Black woman and industry outsider in a capital-intensive, highly regulated, competitive and male-dominated spirits industry, successfully overcame numerous obstacles to launch a premium American whiskey brand, Uncle Nearest in 2017, which became the... View Details

December 2018 (Revised March 2019)
Case

iyzico: Fundraising in Emerging Markets (A)

By: Marco Di Maggio and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in 2016 as Barbaros Ozbugutu, co-founder and CEO of the Istanbul-based payment technology start-up iyzico, contemplates the offers the company received for its Series C round. The case then describes iyzico’s origins and provides a detailed overview of... View Details

Keywords: Iyzico; Fundraising; Business Startups; Venture Capital; Emerging Markets; Private Sector; For-Profit Firms; Management; Information Technology; Growth Management; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Negotiation Offer; Decision Making; Turkey