Publications

Article

Are Online and Offline Prices Similar? Evidence from Large Multi-Channel Retailers

By: Alberto Cavallo

Online prices are increasingly used for measurement and research applications, yet little is known about their relation to prices in physical stores, where most retail transactions occur. I conduct the first large-scale comparison of prices simultaneously collected... View Details

Keywords: Online Prices; Offline Prices; Multi-channel Retailers; Price; Internet and the Web; Measurement and Metrics; Retail Industry

Read Now

February 2016 (Revised May 2016)
Case

Dinr: My First Start-up (A)

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Kristina Maslauskaite

In May 2012, a young employee at Google's London office, Markus Berger, was thinking whether he should quit his job and go after his dream of becoming an entrepreneur. Berger's idea was to create Dinr, a company that would offer an upscale food ingredient delivery... View Details

Keywords: Exit Strategy; Startup; Start-up; Business Exit or Shutdown; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Food

2014
Book

A Social Strategy: How We Profit from Social Media

By: Mikolaj Jan Piskorski

Almost no one had heard of social media a decade ago, but today websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have more than 1 billion users and account for almost 25 percent of Internet use. Practically overnight, social media seems indispensable to our lives—from... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Web; Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Social Marketing

Find at Harvard

Scott Duke Kominers is a Professor of Business Administration in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit; as well as a Faculty Affiliate of the View Details

03 Jan 2014
News

Supply, Demand, Heart Attacks

December 2018
Case

Choosy

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Julia Kelley

Founded in 2017, Choosy is a data-driven fashion startup that uses algorithms to identify styles trending on social media. After manufacturing similar items using a China-based supply chain, Choosy sells them to consumers through its website and social media pages.... View Details

11 Dec 2015
News

Analytics in Online Flash Sales: Demand Forecasting and Price Optimization

June 2008
Case

From xiaonei to hainei: The Quest for the Social Networking Service Market in China

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, Michael Shih-Ta Chen and Keith Chi-ho Wong

Wang Xing, the founder of Hainei.com, one of the fastest growing social networking service (SNS) providers in China, was preparing to raise funds from venture capitalists. Since late 2003, Wang had established several Internet startups in China. Xiaonei.com, which he... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Social and Collaborative Networks; Competition; Internet; China

Find at Harvard

Almost no one had heard of social media a decade ago, but today websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have more than 1 billion users and account for almost 25 percent of Internet use. Practically overnight, social media seems indispensable to our... View Details

October 2011 (Revised September 2014)
Case

Paddle8: Painting a New Picture of the Art Market

By: Mukti Khaire

The Paddle8 case is a short case that presents the idea for a new business in the global art market and asks students to evaluate whether it will work, given the structure and unique workings of the art market. Paddle8 is a New York-based startup that partners with... View Details

Keywords: Arts; Business Plan; Business Startups; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Internet and the Web; Trade; Fine Arts Industry; New York (city, NY)

May 2018
Case

Inditex: 2018

By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth

In 2018, Inditex, based in Spain, was the largest specialist fashion retailer in the world, generating sales of $31.5 billion in 2017 from a portfolio of eight retail brands selling through a total of 7,475 stores located in 96 countries and from websites in 49... View Details

Keywords: Fashion; Succession; IPO; Competition; Initial Public Offering; Multinational Firms and Management; Management Succession; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Strategy; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry; Fashion Industry

Research Summary

Individual Credit Constraints in Rural India (w/ Sendhil Mullainathan)

Credit access for the poor has recently been given center stage in the international policy arena. A plethora of reports and case studies have emphasized the enormous returns that micro-businesses face: the Year of Microcredit website notes that studies conducted in... View Details

November 2016 (Revised July 2018)
Case

Selling on Amazon at Tower Paddle Boards

By: Thales S. Teixeira and David Lopez-Lengowski

By June 2012, Stephan Aarstol felt that he had successfully passed the first critical stage of his ecommerce business. As the founder and CEO of a standup paddleboard (SUP) business, he had built a strong relationship with Asian manufacturers, built a small warehouse... View Details

Keywords: Tower Paddle Boards; Amazon; E-commerce; Online Shopping; Distribution; Internet and the Web; Business Growth and Maturation; Marketing Channels; Distribution Channels; Decision Choices and Conditions; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry

05 Nov 2019
News

Learning from a Different Past

February 2009 (Revised September 2011)
Case

Big Spaceship: Ready to Go Big?

By: Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind

Big Spaceship, a digital marketing agency, faced a rather big challenge: How to scale the distinctive culture that was essential to its competitive strategy? Renowned for the cutting-edge websites that it developed to market major Hollywood movies and leading consumer... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Management; Human Capital; Growth and Development Strategy; Marketing; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Groups and Teams; Competitive Strategy; Value Creation

Michael Porter is an economist, researcher, author, advisor, speaker and teacher. Throughout his career at Harvard Business School, he has brought economic theory and strategy concepts to bear on many of the most challenging problems facing corporations, economies... View Details

Keywords: biotechnology; e-commerce industry; health care; information; information technology industry; internet; nonprofit industry; service industry; state government

July 2021 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Fynd

By: Ranjay Gulati, Kairavi Dey and Rachna Tahilyani

Fynd is a fast-growing venture that in 7 years since its founding has become India's largest omnichannel retail company with real-time access to over 9,000 stores' offline inventory. It started as a B2B business supporting retailers who didn’t have an online business,... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Business Model; Acquisition; Decision Making; Cost vs Benefits; Growth and Development Strategy; Web Services Industry; Technology Industry; Communications Industry; India; Mumbai

September 2020
Article

How Multimedia Shape Crowdfunding Outcomes: The Overshadowing Effect of Images and Videos on Text in Campaign Information

By: J Yang, Y Li, Goran Calic and Anton Shevchenko

This study aims to explore the moderating effect of the number of images and videos on the relationship between text length in crowdfunding campaign descriptions and crowdfunding outcomes. We use data from 13,622 technology campaigns on the Kickstarter website to test... View Details

Keywords: Crowdfunding; Media; Cognition and Thinking; Performance Effectiveness; Entrepreneurial Finance