Publications

22 Mar 2017
HBS Seminar

Gerald C. Kane, Boston College

June 2019
Case

Airbnb, Etsy, Uber: Expanding from One to Many Millions of Customers

By: Thales S. Teixeira

By 2019, two-sided online platforms (or marketplaces) were 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 Marketing; Customer Acquisition; Two-Sided Platforms; Growth Management; Marketing Strategy; Customers; Acquisition; Organizational Change and Adaptation

Jeffrey F Rayport is a faculty member in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School, where he teaches in the School’s MBA and Executive Education Programs and on HBS Online. His primary focus in teaching and research is growth-stage technology... View Details

April 2021
Case

Codecademy: Where to Next?

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Max Mailman and Sarah Ascherman

In March 2020, Zach Sims, co-founder and CEO of online education platform Codecademy, prepared for a meeting with his Chief of Staff Kunal Ahuja to discuss the company’s goals. Codecademy billed itself as the largest online resource for computer science literacy and... View Details

Keywords: Monetization Strategy; Business Model; Change Management; Venture Capital; Leading Change; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Management Teams; Marketing Channels; Product Marketing; Network Effects; Product Development; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategic Planning; Internet and the Web; Digital Platforms; United States

September 2013 (Revised February 2016)
Case

GlaxoSmithKline: Sourcing Complex Professional Services

By: Heidi K. Gardner and Silvia Hodges Silverstein

Pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) uses an innovative new approach to procuring outside legal counsel: it replaces relationship-based selection and law firms' traditional time-based billing with data-driven decision making and an online reverse auction. In... View Details

Keywords: Legal Industry; Procurement; Professional Service Firms; Pricing; Competition; Change Management; Supply Chain Management; Legal Liability; Business Processes; Legal Services Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

25 Jul 2011
Research & Ideas

How Disruptive Innovation is Remaking the University

competition, but because they are are cheaper and easier to use. In The Innovative University, Christensen and Henry J. Eyring take the idea of disruptive innovation to the field of higher education, where new online institutions and... View Details

Keywords: by Clayton M. Christensen & Henry J. Eyring; Education

March 2009 (Revised September 2013)
Case

Yelp

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, David Chen and Aaron Smith

Yelp was a popular online destination for reviews of local establishments, written by volunteer Internet users and read by 60 million people per month. However, the company was far from profitable. The CEO needs to decide between two options to increase the revenue.... View Details

Keywords: Digital Marketing; Business Model; Profit; Revenue; Marketing Strategy; Sales; Internet and the Web; Advertising Industry

November 2021 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Kwame Spearman at Tattered Cover: Reinventing Brick-and-Mortar Retail

By: Ryan Raffaelli and Kerry Herman

The case spotlights Kwame Spearman’s career-shifting decision to leave a NYC-based consulting job to return to his hometown of Denver, Colorado, and take over an iconic independent bookstore, The Tattered Cover. The case lays out ways Spearman envisions a new approach... View Details

Keywords: Retail; Leadership; Leading Change; Competitive Strategy; Personal Development and Career; Publishing Industry; Retail Industry; United States

April 2014 (Revised June 2014)
Case

Google Glass

By: Thomas Eisenmann, Lauren Barley and Liz Kind

In early 2014, business development executives at Google were formulating a distribution strategy for Glass, a wearable computer that projected information on a display viewable with an upward glance. Options, which were not mutually exclusive, included 1) continuing... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Technological Innovation; Distribution Channels; Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Technology Adoption

18 Oct 2016
News

Zenefits Reboots as Z2. But It Might Not Be Enough

10 Aug 2016
News

The meaning of trust in the age of Airbnb

June 2014
Teaching Note

Google Glass

By: Thomas Eisenmann

In early 2014, business development executives at Google were formulating a distribution strategy for Glass, a wearable computer that projected information on a display viewable with an upward glance. Options, which were not mutually exclusive, included 1) continuing... View Details

Keywords: Partners and Partnerships; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Distribution Channels; Technology Adoption; Product Marketing; Computer Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; United States

July 2007 (Revised February 2010)
Case

Saffronart.com: Bidding for Success

By: Mukti Khaire and R. Daniel Wadhwani

Saffronart, a five-year-old online art auction company, leads the market for modern Indian art and now faces competitors in the market it created. Established in 2000 by the wife-and-husband team of Minal and Dinesh Vazirani, Saffronart.com is an innovative online... View Details

Keywords: Arts; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Auctions; Industry Growth; Competition; Online Technology; Fine Arts Industry; India

March 2011 (Revised December 2012)
Case

Demand Media

By: John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

Google search had helped Demand Media grow to be a $1.9 billion online publisher. Then, social media and smartphone apps began to change the way people navigated the Internet. How should Demand Media respond? The business ran on a radically new model in which a stable... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Information Publishing; Consumer Behavior; Customization and Personalization; Internet and the Web; Publishing Industry

July 2016
Teaching Note

Launching Yelp Reservations

By: Michael Luca, Kevin Mohan and Patrick Rooney

This teaching note accompanies "Launching Yelp Reservations (A) and (B)," which present a multi-party negotiation among Yelp, current partner OpenTable, and two startups in the online restaurant reservation industry. View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Negotiation; Business Startups; Acquisition; Technology Industry; United States

7 PM – 11 PM EDT, 10 Oct 2018

HBX Strategy Execution

Identify and solve your company's strategic challenges with an exclusive group of like-minded senior leaders via HBX Live, a real-time, interactive online classroom. Program Dates: October 10, 2018 - November 7, 2018 View Details

2008
Simulation

Strategic Innovation Simulation: Back Bay Battery

By: Willy C. Shih and Clayton Christensen

This online simulation allows students to play the role of a business unit manager at Back Bay Battery Company who faces the dilemma of balancing a portfolio of investment strategies across products in the rechargeable battery space. Players have to manage R&D... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Disruptive Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Innovation and Management; Investment; Product Development; Research and Development; Battery Industry

September 2011
Case

Driving Profitable Growth at US Auto Parts

USAP faces extraordinary opportunities to change the way that automobiles are serviced in the US by selling parts at fair prices though online channels. View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Disruptive Innovation; Business Model; Internet and the Web; Business Strategy; Internet and the Web; Machinery and Machining; Cost Management; Auto Industry; Retail Industry; United States

October 2009
Simulation

Strategy Simulation: Competitive Dynamics and Wintel

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell

In this online simulation students study the dynamics of cooperation and competition between two markedly different businesses that both rely on the flow of PC sales. Playing the role of Microsoft or Intel, students determine product release schedules and pricing, as... View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Cooperation; Motivation and Incentives; Negotiation; Software; Computer Industry