Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,389)
- Faculty Publications (272)
- January 2014
- Article
The Consequences of Entrepreneurial Finance: Evidence from Angel Financings
By: William R. Kerr, Josh Lerner and Antoinette Schoar
This paper documents that ventures that are funded by two successful angel groups experience superior outcomes to rejected ventures: they have improved survival, exits, employment, patenting, web traffic, and financing. We use strong discontinuities in angel funding... View Details
- August 2013
- Course Overview Note
Building Life Science Businesses Fall 2013: Course Outline and Syllabus
This Course Outline and Syllabus gives an overview of the Fall 2013 class Building Life Science Businesses. View Details
- February 2013 (Revised March 2013)
- Case
Agero: Enhancing Capabilities for Customers
By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred
This case illustrates the importance of choosing a primary customer as the basis for organization design. Cross Country Group managers adjusted resource allocation, organization design and performance measures over time to transform Cross Country Group from an... View Details
Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Entrepreneurial Gap; Entrepreneurship; Auto Industry; Insurance; Performance Management; Performance Measurement; Performance Measures; Performance Pressure; Decisions; Family Business; Resource Allocation; Organizational Design; Customer Focus and Relationships; Performance Evaluation; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Industry
- 5 Feb 2013
- Conference Presentation
Financing Entrepreneurial Growth
By: Tom Alberg, Andrew A. Bogan, Harold Bradley, Robert D. Cooter, Monika Gruter Cheney, Oliver R. Goodenough, William R. Hambrecht, Frank Hatheway, Thomas F. Hellmann, Marianne Hudson, Jared Konczal, Josh Lerner, Robert E. Litan, Diane Mulcahy, Ramana Nanda, Frank Partnoy, Joe Ratterman, Nava Ravikant, Jay R. Ritter, Alicia Robb, David T. Robinson, Allison Schrager, Barry Silbert, E. R. Sirri, Daniel Stangler and Sharon Vosmek
Despite recent innovations in entrepreneurial finance, particularly at the early stage of business creation, many new and young companies continue to face hurdles to acquire capital.
The Kauffman Foundation addressed current challenges and opportunities in... View Details
- December 2012 (Revised May 2014)
- Case
Hotel Ivory
By: Arthur I Segel, Nicolas P. Retsinas and Jonathan Lo
Cheick Sanankoua is an MBA student who believes that he has found the perfect investment property, a small, independently owned hotel, on the Ivory Coast. However, he has had trouble raising money for the investment beyond friends and family. Through contacts in the... View Details
Keywords: Real Estate; Emergent Countries; Investing; Entrepreneurial Finance; Debts; Cash Flow; Quantitative Analysis; Financing; Development Stage Enterprises; Small ＆ Medium-sized Enterprises; Africa; Ivory Coast; Venture Capital; Emerging Markets; Property; Investment; Accommodations Industry; Real Estate Industry; Africa
- December 2012 (Revised January 2015)
- Technical Note
Early Career LBOs Using the Search Fund Model
By: Howard Stevenson, Michael Roberts and Jim Sharpe
The funded search model is one alternative for individuals who, at some point in their career, want to run their own companies. This note looks at the funded search, as a means to entrepreneurship through acquisition and describes the path to buy and run a business... View Details
- December 2012
- Case
Blink Booking
By: William R. Kerr, Magnus Thor Torfason and Alexis Brownell
Rebeca Minguela hopes to create an arbitrage platform, similar to Rocket Internet, that can bring start-up ideas and opportunities to Spain. However, Blink Booking, her first venture and proof of concept, is rocked by a co-founder's breach of confidence and departure.... View Details
- November 2012 (Revised August 2014)
- Case
Cisco in 2012: Reorganizing for Efficiency and Flexibility
By: Ranjay Gulati, Alison Berkley Wagonfeld and Luciana Silvestri
In 2012, Cisco was under intense pressure to show results: growth in its core business was decelerating and a number of exploratory ventures and acquisitions had not proven as profitable as expected. CEO John Chambers vowed to restore the company's health in a way that... View Details
- November 2012 (Revised December 2017)
- Case
TerraPower
By: William A. Sahlman, Ramana Nanda, Joseph B. Lassiter III and James McQuade
John Gilleland, CEO of TerraPower, returned to his office after a lengthy meeting with potential investors. It was October 2012, and TerraPower was in the process of raising a $200M Series C round to finance the ongoing development of its next-generation nuclear... View Details
- November 2012
- Case
Sugar Bowl
By: Richard G. Hamermesh and Alisa Zalosh
Shelby Givens, a recent business school graduate, returned home to Raleigh, North Carolina, to help rescue her family's ailing and outdated bowling alley, Westlake Lanes. Although she cut costs and addressed inefficiencies, moving the business from near-bankruptcy to... View Details
- October 2012 (Revised July 2014)
- Background Note
The Role of the Government in the Early Development of American Venture Capital
By: Josh Lerner and Tom Nicholas
Whether the government or markets, or a mixture of both, can provide efficient and effective incentives for encouraging entrepreneurial activity and new venture financing is an age-old question. Public promotion efforts are controversial and in most cases they tend to... View Details
- September 2012 (Revised March 2013)
- Case
Entrepreneurial Finance in Finland?
By: William R. Kerr, Ramana Nanda and Alexis Brownell
This case describes a new venture attempting to bring early-stage entrepreneurial financing to Finland and other Nordic countries. Entrepreneurship is taking off in Finland, an area that historically has had little venture capital or high-growth start-up activity, but... View Details
- September 2012 (Revised September 2012)
- Course Overview Note
Building Life Science Businesses Fall 2012: Course Outline and Syllabus
This Course Outline and Syllabus gives an overview of the Fall 2012 class Building Life Science Businesses View Details
- July 2012 (Revised April 2013)
- Case
Peter Jepsen
By: Howard H. Stevenson, Michael J. Roberts and James M. Sharpe
About to break bank covenants, Peter Jepsen has to deal with a contentious prior owner, improve profitability and staff appropriately all while maintaining credibility with his investors, in the furniture hardware company he has owned for less than a year. View Details
Keywords: Acquisitions; Bankruptcy; Crisis Management; Entrepreneurial Management; Entrepreneurial Finance; Financial Crisis; Turnarounds; Financial Distress; Negotiation; Entrepreneurs; Bank Loan; Search Funds; Liquidation; Boards Of Directors; Ethics; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Acquisition; Entrepreneurship; Manufacturing Industry; United States
- June 2012 (Revised March 2015)
- Teaching Note
PunchTab, Inc.
By: Ramana Nanda and William R. Kerr
A Teaching Note for the PunchTab case, which discusses how high-tech startups structure seed financing, merits of angels vs. super angels vs. VCs, and related topics (e.g., convertible notes, priced versus non-priced financing rounds, entrepreneurial finance networks). View Details
- 2012
- Working Paper
'Power from Sunshine': A Business History of Solar Energy
By: Geoffrey Jones and Loubna Bouamane
This working paper provides a longitudinal perspective on the business history of solar energy between the nineteenth century and the present day. It covers early attempts to develop solar energy, the use of passive solar in architecture before World War 2, and the... View Details
- March 2012 (Revised October 2012)
- Case
Gary Hirshberg and Stonyfield Farm
By: Nancy F. Koehn, Nora N. Khan and Elizabeth W. Legris
Gary Hirshberg and Stonyfield Farm is the story of one entrepreneur's vision and journey to create a market-leading, environmentally responsible business founded on the principles of product quality, organizational alignment, and sustainability. A former environmental... View Details
Keywords: Entrepreneurs; Values; Development Stage Enterprises; Innovation; Management By Objective; Experimentation; Emerging Technologies; Mission and Purpose; Management Style; Values and Beliefs; Social Issues; Organizational Culture; Environmental Sustainability; Business Growth and Maturation; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Innovation and Invention; Food and Beverage Industry; New Hampshire
- December 2011 (Revised October 2014)
- Background Note
Business Model Analysis for Entrepreneurs
By: Thomas Eisenmann
This note defines a business model and its major elements: a customer value proposition, a technology and operations management plan, a go-to-market plan, and a profit formula. For each element, the note lists questions that an entrepreneur must address when evaluating... View Details
Keywords: Business Model
- December 2011 (Revised July 2013)
- Background Note
Hypothesis-Driven Entrepreneurship: The Lean Startup
By: Thomas Eisenmann, Eric Ries and Sarah Dillard
Firms that follow a hypothesis-driven approach to evaluating entrepreneurial opportunity are called "lean startups." Entrepreneurs in these startups translate their vision into falsifiable business model hypotheses, then test the hypotheses using a series of "minimum... View Details
- October 2011
- Case
Levendary Cafe: The China Challenge
By: Christopher A. Bartlett and Arar Han
Just weeks into her new job, Mia Foster, a first time CEO with no international management experience, is faced with a major challenge at Levendary Cafe, a $10 billion US-based fast food chain. Strategically, many of her corporate staff have become concerned that the... View Details
Keywords: Globalization; International Management; Foreign Subsidiaries; General Managers; Strategy; Management Style; Strategic Planning; Business Subsidiaries; Multinational Firms and Management; Adaptation; Entrepreneurship; Relationships; Standards; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; China; United States