Publications

October 2019
Case

GRIT Fitness

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Olivia Hull

In December 2018, GRIT Fitness was a growing chain of boutique fitness studios offering a variety of workout classes, including weightlifting, high intensity interval training, and cardio dance. With 400 members and three Dallas studios, CEO Brittani Rettig believed... View Details

05 Dec 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, December 5, 2017

Harvard Business School, the co-founders of greeting card company startup Lovepop need capital to cover the company’s operating costs and must choose between two seed financing offers. One offer is from an... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

04 Dec 2023
Blog Post

My Summer of Joy with the National Parks Service

Hi all, my name is Rhea! I was lucky enough to work for the National Park Service this summer as a business management intern with the Submerged Resources Center (SRC). The SRC is the NPS national dive program, responsible for... View Details

March 1995 (Revised May 1997)
Case

Stonyfield Farm: September 1994

Samuel Kaymen and Gary Hirshberg founded Stonyfield Farm in 1983, in part to demonstrate that "environmentally and socially responsible businesses can also be profitable." In 1994, the company has grown to over $21 million in revenues, derived mainly from refrigerated... View Details

Keywords: Growth Management; Animal-Based Agribusiness; Food; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; New Hampshire; California; Russia

02 Oct 2017
What Do You Think?

Do Bitcoin and Digital Currency Have a Future?

tradable digital currencies that can be used to purchase future goods or services offered by the startup, possibly on more favorable terms than in the real market. According to one report, 140 startups have raised over $2 billion in this... View Details

Keywords: by James L. Heskett; Financial Services

Web

Student Spotlight: 2023 HCC Co-Presidents Reflect on Their Time at HBS and the Current Health Care Systems - Blog: Health Supplement

related, reinforcing how social determinants of health play such a significant role in health outcome disparities for different populations. What industry of health care are you most interested in? I am most interested in digital health and biotechnology. Although... View Details

January 2008 (Revised November 2009)
Case

Linear Air: Creating the Air Taxi Industry

Linear Air is an air taxi start-up established to take advantage of the emergence of Very Light Jets, which incorporate new technology that cuts jet operating costs by about 40%. Air taxis could make use of the 5400 smaller regional airports throughout the US,... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Disruptive Innovation; Product Launch; Industry Structures; Competition; Air Transportation Industry

June 2010 (Revised August 2011)
Case

Tennant Company: Innovating Within and Beyond the Core

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Toby E. Stuart and James Weber

Tennant, a leading producer of floor cleaning equipment, must determine the business model to use for its new chemical-free cleaning technology. In 2005, Tennant Company had developed an innovative, environmentally friendly cleaning technology that could potentially... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Startups; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Disruptive Innovation; Organizational Structure; Business Strategy; Value Creation; Consumer Products Industry; Industrial Products Industry

01 Nov 2019
What Do You Think?

Should Non-Compete Clauses Be Abolished?

business interest other than merely competition. In the US, all but a handful of states allow them, but with a variety of laws and legal interpretations. Making the arguments The argument for NCCs goes something like this: When people... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

23 Nov 2020
Research & Ideas

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

Bankruptcy filings in the United States were expected to soar during this year’s economic recession, induced by COVID-19. Instead, they dropped 27 percent year-over-year through August, driven by an unexpected drop in consumer and small View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

09 Dec 2014
First Look

First Look: December 9

affects how perceivers evaluate and respond to the actor. This experiment reveals a theoretically novel and practically informative result that demonstrates the causal relation between preparatory nonverbal behavior and subsequent performance and outcomes. December... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 2000 (Revised May 2001)
Case

Silicon Valley Bank

By: G. Felda Hardymon and Ann Leamon

Silicon Valley Bank, a $4 billion institution in California, has made its reputation by working with venture capitalists in backing start-up companies. In 1999, it is forced to compete with nonbank financial institutions that can give money on better terms and in a... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Business Startups; Competitive Strategy; Financial Institutions; Financing and Loans; Financial Markets; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Entrepreneurship; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; California

May 2004
Supplement

Slingshot Technology, Inc. Supplement: Partnership Agreements

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Elizabeth Collins

Slingshot Technology Inc. (STI) is a privately held software start-up founded in 1995 focused on identifying emerging spaces in the IT services industry and partnering with vendors selling promising but unproven technologies in those spaces. The vendors used STI to... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Emerging Markets; Partners and Partnerships; Intellectual Property; Information Technology Industry; Consulting Industry

01 Aug 1998
News

High Honors

Ralph M. Barford (MBA '52) Frank Batten (MBA '52) David J. Dunn (MBA '61) Ann M. Fudge (MBA '77) Ellen R. Marram (MBA '70) Robert F. McDermott (MBA '50) Martin V. Marshall (MBA '47, DCS '53), Henry R. Byers Professor of Business... View Details

07 Feb 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research: February 7

case:https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/product/817019-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 815-082 Silicon Fen The region around Cambridge, England (known colloquially as Silicon Fen), is home to a cluster of high-tech View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

08 Dec 2020
Research & Ideas

Why Companies Hunt for Talent on Digital Platforms, Not in Resume Piles

field studies, researchers tend to think that workers submit resumes to open positions. In fact, scholars have learned a lot about discrimination in labor markets by sending resumes to job postings to see who gets called back and who doesn’t. As Harvard View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Employment

01 Dec 2022
News

Singing to the Corn

preventing diabetes in indigenous populations. “I quickly realized that business alone was not enough to reverse the dysfunction of some tribal economies,” says Keen. Earlier, he’d experienced the fallout of an LBO at Maine shipbuilder... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; photographed by Vance Jacobs; Agriculture

September 2023 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Atomwise: Strategic Opportunities in AI for Pharma

By: Satish Tadikonda

Abraham Heifets and his co-founder, Izhar Wallach, had founded Atomwise to develop i) an AI engine to transform drug discovery by creating better medicines faster, and ii) a machine learning-based discovery engine that combined the power of convolutional neural... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Startups; AI and Machine Learning; Science-Based Business; Technological Innovation; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

February 2014 (Revised August 2016)
Case

Strava

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, William A. Sahlman and Sid Misra

Strava is a new fast-growing social network for the avid cyclist and runner. The Strava case traces the entrepreneurial journey of two serial entrepreneurs who have been co-founders in a prior venture, and who have co-founded Strava 3 years ago. The protagonists must... View Details