Publications

January 2021 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Brigad: The Future of Work

By: Nien-he Hsieh, Elena Corsi and Daniela Beyersdorfer

In 2019 Florent Malbranche, CEO and co-founder of the French tech startup Brigad, pondered the next growth steps. Founded in 2015, Brigad’s objective was two-fold: to help restaurants and bars find qualified staff for punctual shifts, and to make it easier for... View Details

Keywords: Platform Business; Gig Economy; Regulation; Entrepreneurship; Marketplace Matching; Growth and Development Strategy

December 2020 (Revised April 2021)
Teaching Note

Women Entrepreneurs and Tech Ecosystems: One City, Two Realities, and Four Diverse Women

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Joyce J. Kim

Four diverse women entrepreneurs launched their ventures in a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem that was part of a shift to a creative technology-driven economy for Miami. Although Miami was rated the #1 U.S. city for startups in 2017, the region contained structural... View Details

Keywords: Women; Racism; Black Entrepreneurs; Entrepreneurship; Diversity; Gender; Race; Prejudice and Bias; Innovation and Invention; City; Culture; Miami

February 2016 (Revised May 2016)
Case

Blue Origin, NASA, and New Space (A)

By: Matthew Weinzierl and Angela Acocella

Jeff Bezos, six years after starting a revolution in retailing with Amazon.com, turned his life-long passion for space into a start-up, Blue Origin. Blue (as it was called) was a part of the New Space industry, a collection of startup aerospace engineering companies... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Partners and Partnerships; Transportation; Business Startups; Government and Politics; Business and Government Relations; Aerospace Industry

28 May 2024
In Practice

Job Search Advice for a Tough Market: Think Broadly and Stay Flexible

‘yes’ The venture capital and startup job market is particularly slow this year. I am reaching into my network more than in prior years to put students in touch with people in the industry. Down rounds and layoffs in tech have been in the... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

27 Feb 2018
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, February 27, 2018

entrepreneurial finance. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=54066 forthcoming Academy of Management Journal We Ask Men to Win & Women Not to Lose: Closing the Gender Gap in Startup Funding By: Kanze,... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 2022
Background Note

On CUE: The Quest for Optimal Customer Unit Economics

By: Elie Ofek, Barak Libai and Eitan Muller

Startups are often evaluated by how well they perform on unit economics, defined as the ratio of a customer’s lifetime value (LTV) to acquisition costs (CAC). A common target for unit economics, advocated by many VCs and analysts, is 3:1 (i.e., LTV/CAC=3). While there... View Details

Keywords: Unit Economics; Business Startups; Performance Evaluation; Customer Value and Value Chain; Customer Relationship Management; Analysis

November 2019
Case

DeepMap: Charting the Road Ahead for Autonomous Vehicles

By: Shane Greenstein and Nicole Tempest Keller

Founded in 2016, DeepMap developed high definition (HD) mapping software and localization services for Level 4+ autonomous vehicles. Traditional navigational maps were accurate to a few meters, which was sufficient for drivers but not for machine-driven vehicles that... View Details

Keywords: Mapping Software; Autonomous Vehicles; Business Startups; Applications and Software; Technological Innovation; Technology Adoption; Service Delivery; Global Range; Resource Allocation; Strategic Planning; Technology Industry; Auto Industry

Web

Blavatnik Fellowship in Life Science Entrepreneurship - Health Care

executive leadership skills. Past topics include “Effectively Communicating to Win Financing,” “How to Lead as a First-Time CEO,” and “Building a Team in a Startup Culture.” Industry Access Fellows build a network of connections across... View Details

February 2023
Case

Enstitute

By: Lindsay N. Hyde, Thomas R. Eisenmann, Kumba Sennaar and Sarah Mehta

Shaila Ittycheria (MBA ’10) founded the nonprofit organization Enstitute, in 2012 in New York City. Determined to challenge the status quo within higher education, Shaila and her cofounder sought to expand opportunities for talented young people by placing them in... View Details

Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship; Operations; Business Startups; Business Growth and Maturation; Education Industry; Employment Industry; United States

Web

Rock Summer Fellows - Entrepreneurship

Wrap Up, Weekly Workshops, Weekly Community Meetings, Bi-Weekly Coach Meeting, and Monthly Advisory Board Meetings. Meet with EiRs During the academic year, our EiRs provide startup counsel and advice to our students. These impressive... View Details

2013
Case

Ningbo FOTILE Kitchen Ware Co., Ltd.

By: F. Warren McFarlan, Zheng Xiaoming, Yuren Fang and Hong Zhang

Since 2008, FOTILE has actively introduced philosophies of the traditional Chinese culture—such as benevolence, justice, courtesy, wisdom and faith—into its management, which it believes to compensate for deficiencies in Western management concepts and creates a new... View Details

Keywords: Human Resource Management; China; Human Resources; Leadership; Management; Strategy; China

Every company wants to grow, and the most proven way is through innovation. The conventional wisdom is that only disruptive, nimble startups can innovate; once a business gets bigger and more complex corporate arteriosclerosis sets in. Gary Pisano's remarkable research... View Details

Program

Strategy for Health Care Delivery—Virtual

for health care, or other payor organizations Leaders from pharmaceutical companies, medical device companies, or other health care supply companies—including startups and established firms Leaders in Virtual Learning This program... View Details

Keywords: Health Care; Health Care

Web

Programs & Resources - Entrepreneurship

trusted sources for any company stage on topics ranging from customer acquisition & development to legal issues and startup failure. 13 Mar 2025 Harvard Business School HBS's Rock Center for Entrepreneurship Hosts Second Annual Demo Day... View Details

16 Nov 2016
Research & Ideas

Turning One Thousand Customers into One Million

Teixeira and Brown. Importantly, the strategies that made these companies successful starting out are not the same ones to take them to the next level. To get from zero to 1,000 customers, the three startups faced a chicken-and-egg... View Details

Keywords: by Thales S. Teixeira and Michael Blanding; Retail; Transportation; Accommodations

October 2022
Case

Ethena: A Go-to-Market Dilemma

By: Rembrand Koning and Stacy Straaberg

In November 2021, Roxanne Petraeus and Anne Solmssen, founders of Brooklyn-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup Ethena, were looking to expand their compliance training business. The founders hired Arnie Gullov-Singh, an outside revenue consultant, to advise on... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Judgments; Growth and Development Strategy; Business or Company Management; Business Strategy; Expansion; Segmentation; Technology Industry; United States; New York (state, US)

2019
Chapter

Coordination Frictions in Venture Capital Syndicates

By: Ramana Nanda and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf

An extensive literature on venture capital has studied asymmetric information and agency problems between investors and entrepreneurs, examining how separating entrepreneurs from the investor can create frictions that might inhibit the funding of good projects. It has... View Details

Keywords: Syndication; Frictions; Venture Capital; Networks; Entrepreneurship

Find at Harvard

13 Oct 2022
Other Presentation

4 Business Ideas That Changed the World: Disruptive Innovation

By: Amy Bernstein, Rita McGrath, Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Derek van Bever

A roundtable conversation takes stock of Clayton Christensen’s influential theory. This first in a series of roundtable conversations assessing the origins and impact of four breakthrough ideas.

In the 1980s, Clayton Christensen cofounded a startup that... View Details

Keywords: Disruptive Innovation

August 2018
Teaching Note

Magpie: Developing and Using Buyer Personas

By: Frank V. Cespedes

Teaching Note for HBS No. 818-013. Magpie is a startup with a platform that allows publishers to natively tag the products discussed in their content and thus allows consumers to purchase those products without needing to leave that publisher’s web page. A key aspect... View Details

Keywords: Buying Process; Marketing; Sales; Distribution Channels; Segmentation; Entrepreneurship; Social Media; Consumer Products Industry; Fashion Industry; United States