Publications

April 2000 (Revised April 2004)
Case

Infosys: Financing an Indian Software Start-Up

Describes the financing and growth of Infosys, an Indian software start-up. Infosys defies a number of stereotypes about barriers to entrepreneurship in India. The company was founded by a small group of entrepreneurs with little equity and without backing from a large... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Applications and Software; Financing and Loans; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Information Technology Industry; India

April 2025
Case

Breezm: Innovative 3D-Printed Eyewear (A)

By: Juan Alcácer, Brian Mao Fu and Adina Wong

In 2023, Breezm, a South Korean startup, faced a strategic decision about how to grow its innovative 3D-printed, custom-fit eyewear business. Co-founded in 2017 by Zenma Park and Wooseok Sung, Breezm combined facial scanning, AI, and in-house production to solve the... View Details

Keywords: 3D Printing; Eyeyewear; Growth; Business Startups; AI and Machine Learning; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Risk and Uncertainty; Expansion; South Korea

2011
Working Paper

The First Deal: The Division of Founder Equity in New Ventures

By: Thomas F. Hellmann and Noam Wasserman

This paper examines the division of founder shares in entrepreneurial ventures, focusing on the decision of whether or not to divide the shares equally among all founders. To motivate the empirical analysis we develop a simple theory of costly bargaining, where... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Decision Choices and Conditions; Entrepreneurship; Fairness; Equity; Managerial Roles; Negotiation Deal; Ownership Stake; Value

Read Now

November 2001
Case

Korea-Tender

By: Das Narayandas and Kate Attea

Korea-Tender is a closed-bidding auction company trying to break even and must select the best opportunity to increase membership and revenue. It can continue its current model with heavy advertising, try to modify its costs, or develop an additional business model... View Details

Keywords: Auctions; Business Model; Advertising; Business Startups; Problems and Challenges; Marketing Strategy; Revenue; Growth and Development Strategy

19 Jul 2021
Blog Post

Building a Powerful Network of Talent at American Tower

Linder explained. “Our CEO and the head of Human Resources said that we need to think about talent in a different way to infuse bright capable people who can come in, roll up their sleeves, and jump into management positions to help us... View Details

Keywords: Technology; Telecommunications

20 Aug 2024
Book

Why Competing With Tech Giants Requires Finding Your Own Edge

products next to Apple’s own products such as charging cables. Anker has also managed to partner with offline retailers Best Buy, Costco, Target, and Walmart and sell through their channels. Through this strategy, Anker has View Details

Keywords: by Feng Zhu; Technology; Information Technology

08 Oct 2013
First Look

First Look: October 8

has sharply declined over the past 30 years, from 60% or 70% to only about 20%. What accounts for this trend? Disruption is coming for management consulting, the authors say, as it has recently come for law. For many years the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

04 Jun 2025
News

Slice of Life

that? So I was with a colleague and I said, "Hey, do me a favor. I can see the bag of flour here. Get a picture of me with this flour so I can figure out how to make this pizza." And as she's doing that, the manager comes up and he says,... View Details

11 Aug 2014
News

The First Five Years: Melissa Fensterstock (MBA 2012)

working-capital needs of the business, we have to be careful to manage supply and demand." What one piece of advice would you give fellow alumni and current HBS students when it comes to startup life? "Keep... View Details

01 Nov 2016
First Look

First Look - November 1, 2016

Tencent to Scandinavian digital trailblazer Schibsted, from The New York Times to The Economist, and from talent management to the future of education. Synthesizing what these stories have in common, and drawing on the latest research in... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

23 Jun 2015
First Look

First Look: June 23, 2015

and patenting data for 1,315 employees at the Indian R&D center of a Fortune 500 technology firm, I exploit a natural experiment where the assignment of managers for newly hired college graduates is mandated by rigid HR rules and is... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

10 Apr 2007
First Look

First Look: April 10, 2007

School Case 207-084 Following a successful model in Europe, JP Morgan has introduced a set of five U.S. retail mutual funds with an investment philosophy and marketing strategy grounded in behavioral finance. The asset management group... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

April 2011 (Revised June 2011)
Case

Internet Securities, Inc.: Path to Sustainability

By: Lynda M. Applegate, William R. Kerr and Ryan Johnson

Founded in 1994 when the Internet was still a "toy for techies," the case is set in 1998 when Internet IPOs were red-hot. Internet Securities provides hard-to-find financial, business, economic, and political information on emerging markets. Information from over 600... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Business Model; Business Startups; Decision Choices and Conditions; Venture Capital; Cash Flow; Initial Public Offering; Analytics and Data Science; Growth and Development Strategy; Valuation

January 2018 (Revised February 2025)
Teaching Note

Collage.com: Scaling a Distributed Organization

By: Christopher Stanton and Shikhar Ghosh

Teaching Note for HBS No. 817-038. View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Organizational Structure; Competitive Strategy; Employees; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy

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

Keywords: Business Model; Business Startups; Trends; Communication; Customer Focus and Relationships; Selection and Staffing; Time Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business Strategy; Software; Computer Industry