Publications

November 2006
Case

Brontes Technologies -- 2005

By: William A. Sahlman and Caroline Perkins

Describes a set of decisions confronting the founders of a company developing a new device for taking three-dimensional pictures of teeth in order to improve dental outcomes. The company needs more money and must choose between raising new equity capital from a venture... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Business Startups; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry

May 2006 (Revised July 2007)
Case

Tropos Networks

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Elizabeth Kind

As Ron Sege, president and CEO of Tropos Networks, walked through the halls of the firm's offices, he realized that the space they had moved into only about a year ago was already becoming too small. The company, based in Sunnyvale, California, was founded in late 2000... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Growth Management; Wireless Technology; Sunnyvale

January 2006 (Revised February 2007)
Case

SuperCat Powerboats (A)

By: James L. Heskett

Ryan and David Kratz have formed a new company, under very favorable terms, with a fiberglass boat builder. But at the signing of the agreement for the new company's information, the builder's spouse suggests that the Kratz's share of ownership be reduced from 67% to... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Negotiation; Ownership Stake; Consumer Products Industry

03 Apr 2015
News

Blocking Bad: A Flare for Internet Security

Web

Winning with Digital Platforms Online Course | HBS Online

Concepts What Is a Platform? Value Creation and Capture Growth Factors Featured Exercise Articulate dynamic pricing’s benefits and drawbacks Define the most important characteristics of economies of scale Determine how platforms build trust into their systems Advise a... View Details

22 Sep 2021
Blog Post

Student Spotlight: Jesse Lou (MBA 2022) – Working to Change the Food System

living in San Francisco working at a data science startup as a product manager. I have always gravitated toward technology and science throughout my life, and machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data science were fascinating as... View Details

August 2023 (Revised January 2024)
Case

Jake Becraft and Strand Therapeutics: The Making of an Entrepreneur

By: Satish Tadikonda, William Marks and Ananya Zutshi

Jake Becraft, a PhD student at MIT disillusioned in pursuit of his dreams of becoming an academic, serendipitously finds himself discussing the potential commercial applications of his work with Tasuku Kitada, his former postdoctoral research mentor. The two decide to... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Business or Company Management

June 2010 (Revised October 2010)
Course Overview Note

Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise

By: Willy C. Shih

This Module Note for Instructors outlines the structure and content of the Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise MBA second year elective course at the Harvard Business School. The course focuses on giving students a solid grounding in the construction of... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Business Growth and Maturation

December 1998
Supplement

Vermeer Technologies (A): A Company Is Born

By: Ashish Nanda

The founding team of Vermeer Technologies, an entrepreneurial software start-up, discusses the opportunities and challenges confronting the company. View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Information Technology Industry

September 1989 (Revised January 1990)
Case

Vinod Khosla and Sun Microsystems (A)

Describes how Vinod Khosla got Sun Microsystems started, and a critical marketing challenge the company faced at the end of the first year. Objective is to illustrate how bold creative thinking can make or break start-ups. View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Business Startups; Innovation and Invention; Information Technology Industry; Computer Industry

2001
Chapter

Building Information Age Businesses for the 21st Century

By: L. M. Applegate

Keywords: Organizational Design; Organizational Structure; Business Startups

01 Apr 2002
News

Back on Course

Stephen Julius (MBA '88), who is English, and Stephen Heese (MBA '88), his Yank buddy, were classmates at HBS, divided by a common language perhaps, but united in their love of quality boats. Last year, the two men took the helm of Chris-Craft, the 128-year-old company... View Details

15 Aug 2016
Research & Ideas

Black Swans and Big Trends Can Ruin Anyone's Internet Prediction

how we thought about online opportunities one year after the dot-com bubble burst. In retrospect, many of my thoughts about the internet’s future evolution missed the mark. If you think history repeats itself, then these forecasting errors might be germane, since View Details

Keywords: by Thomas R. Eisenmann; Technology

17 Jul 2025
Blog Post

Turning Doubt into Drive: Embracing Entrepreneurship with Kait Stephens (MBA 2020)

permission to lean into that realization. I took every entrepreneurship course I could find, joined a startup bootcamp, and worked closely with faculty members to hone my ideas, confidence, and skills. Through this intentional work, I met... View Details

August 2003 (Revised April 2004)
Case

Building to a Crescendo

By: Noam T. Wasserman and Vishesh Kumar

Examines the efforts of an early-stage venture capital firm to formalize processes and build a pyramidal organization in an industry dominated by informal, unpyramidal structures. View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Organizational Structure; Business Startups