Publications
Publications
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- Faculty Publications (167)
- May 2008 (Revised August 2009)
- Case
Intel NBI: Handheld Graphics Organization
By: Willy C. Shih and Thomas Thurston
The Handheld Graphics Organization (HGO) was an internal start-up under Intel's New Business Incubator program. The unit designed a graphics co-processor for the handheld PDA market, to be sold with Intel's Xscale processor. Though NBI ventures were designed for a high... View Details
- May 2008
- Case
Sensors Unlimited: Bringing InGaAs Technology to the Market
By: Willy C. Shih
Sensors Unlimited was a small start-up in short-wavelength infrared imaging. Its learning base came out of Bell Labs, RCA's Sarnoff Lab, and the Rockwell Science Center, and as it built its capabilities and ventured into new application areas, it discovered a “killer... View Details
- March 2007 (Revised March 2009)
- Case
Cherrypicks
By: William R. Kerr
Cherrypicks is a Hong Kong communications start-up approaching a large Korean mobile operator for a partnership to take the operator's products to markets outside of Korea. SK Telecom's (SKT) Ring Back Tones (RBT) product is a spectacular success in South Korea, but... View Details
- January 2007 (Revised December 2008)
- Case
The Challenges of Launching a Start-Up in China: Dorm99.com
By: William C. Kirby, F. Warren McFarlan and Tracy Manty
After graduating from Harvard Business School in June 2006, Ken Pao and Bill Li were ready to fully commit to the Internet start-up they had been working on since they first stepped foot on the business school campus. They moved to Beijing, rounded out their management... View Details
- June 2006 (Revised January 2012)
- Case
Teena Lerner: Dividing the Pie at Rx Capital (A)
By: Boris Groysberg, Victoria Winston and Robin Abrahams
Teena Lerner started her own hedge fund firm in 2001 after nearly 20 years as a star biotechnology analyst and hedge fund manager. After the start-up phase, her firm became highly profitable. In 2004, however, one of her four analysts lost a lot of money for the firm.... View Details
- May 2006 (Revised June 2006)
- Case
Codon Devices
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and David Kiron
In December 2005, 40-year-old John Danner was about to make his first presentation to the board of directors of Codon Devices, a one-year-old biotechnology start-up based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After a month as the company's CEO, Danner was prepared to lay out... View Details
- June 2005 (Revised May 2006)
- Case
Covisint (A): The Evolution of a B2B Marketplace
By: Lynda M. Applegate and Elizabeth Collins
Ford Motor Co., General Motors, and DaimlerChrysler--the three original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) that dominated the automotive industry throughout the 20th century--launched Covisint in February 2000 as an industry supply chain exchange that would drive out cost... View Details
- June 2005 (Revised January 2008)
- Case
Good Technology: Empowering Mobility Around the Globe (A)
By: Geoffrey G. Jones and Adam Minnick
Describes the global growth of Good Technology, a Silicon Valley start-up in wireless handheld computing software and service. Reviews the evaluation of wireless standards, the emergence of the world wireless market for voice and data, and the growth of the major firms... View Details
- March 2005 (Revised April 2007)
- Case
Comergent Technologies Inc.: Enterprise E-Commerce
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Marie Bell
Coming out of the 2001 high-tech industry recession, this venture capital start-up has to come up with a marketing plan to break even and grow. Its innovative e-commerce software provides unique customer relationship management solutions, but it has to convince... View Details
- January 2005 (Revised August 2005)
- Background Note
A Note on Managing the Growing Venture
By: Richard G. Hamermesh, James L. Heskett and Michael J. Roberts
Focuses on the strategic and organizational challenges that confront growing enterprises and the entrepreneurs who lead them. Provides an overview of how a new venture needs to change as it passes from the initial start-up to the growth phase. Explores how a venture's... View Details
- November 2004
- Case
Innocent Drinks
By: William A. Sahlman and Dan Heath
The three founders of a London-based, start-up smoothie company must decide between three growth options: expansion of the existing product line into Europe, extension of the brand into other product categories, or continued organic growth within the United Kingdom. View Details
- November 2004 (Revised May 2010)
- Case
RightNow Technologies
By: William A. Sahlman and Dan Heath
The founder and CEO of a CRM software start-up must decide between an attractive acquisition offer and the opportunity to go public. Discusses the growth of the company--including a lengthy discussion of entrepreneurial bootstrapping--as well as an aborted IPO attempt... View Details
- October 2004 (Revised December 2005)
- Case
Rakuten
By: F. Warren McFarlan, Andrew P. McAfee, Thomas R. Eisenmann and Masako Egawa
Rakuten, a native Japanese, e-commerce start-up and highly successful company, is expanding into new categories and new countries. It must figure out how to continue its trajectory of growth and profitability. A rewritten version of an earlier case. View Details
- April 2004 (Revised May 2006)
- Background Note
Achieving Profitable Growth and Market Value
By: James L. Heskett and Richard G. Hamermesh
Provides an overview of how a new venture needs to change as it passes from the initial start-up to the growth phase. Explores how a venture's leadership, strategy, and execution need to evolve to deal with rapid growth. View Details
- November 2003 (Revised May 2005)
- Case
Beverly Stern: Retail Executive
By: H. Kent Bowen and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld
Beverly Stern has been a successful operating manager in three prominent retail chains: GAP, Pottery Barn, and Williams-Sonoma. Stern's last job at a start-up did not meet her expectations, and she must now decide what to do next. She has an offer to start a new retail... View Details
- October 2003
- Case
Henry Tam and the MGI Team
By: Jeffrey T. Polzer, Ingrid Vargas and Hillary Anger Elfenbein
Within a short time frame, seven diverse team members assemble to write a business plan for a new company and struggle to define their roles, make decisions together, and resolve conflict. Henry Tam, a second-year Harvard MBA student, who joins an aspiring start-up... View Details
- July 2003 (Revised October 2013)
- Case
Model N Inc.
By: Marco Iansiti and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld
The CEO of a Silicon Valley start-up needed to make organizational and product changes to deliver a new software solution to a Fortune 500 customer. He was wondering how he should structure the company to best meet the requirements for this particular customer, while... View Details
- January 2003 (Revised May 2005)
- Case
Zipcar: Refining the Business Model
By: Myra M. Hart, Michael J. Roberts and Julia Stevens
Zipcar is a start-up organized around the idea of "sharing" car usage via a membership organization. This case describes several iterations of the Zipcar business model and financial plan. These iterations include a very early version and a version developed just prior... View Details
- January 2003 (Revised February 2004)
- Case
The Credit Suisse Group
By: Ashish Nanda and Kelley Elizabeth Morrell
On September 19, 2002, Lukas Muhlemann announced that he would step down as chairman and CEO of the Credit Suisse Group, effective January 1, 2003. The bank had progressed from a small Swiss start-up 150 years ago to a global banking powerhouse. Over the past 5 years,... View Details
- November 2002 (Revised May 2006)
- Case
Forest Stewardship Council
By: James E. Austin and Ezequiel Reficco
In just a few years the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) made impressive progress toward its mission of promoting "environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable management of the world's forests." By 2001, 25.5 million hectares of forests in... View Details