Publications

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November 2003 (Revised March 2004)
Case

Federal Express: Early History

Describes key events in the start-up of Federal Express. Outlines the company's value proposition and provides an overview of key competitors in the air freight industry. This case is used with Teledesic (Abridged), HBS No. 9-804-096, which describes a failed project... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Network Effects; Business Startups; Transportation Industry; United States

January 2000 (Revised September 2000)
Case

Casablanca Finance Group

Examines the founding and development of an investment bank in Morocco. Two Moroccan expatriates return from Paris and enter the brokerage business. Over the next six years they build the leading financial services firm in the country. Concludes with a series of... View Details

Keywords: Investment Banking; Business Startups; Financial Services Industry

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September 1991
Case

Momenta Corp. (B)

Momenta is a one-year-old corporation that has sought to build a distinct culture and identity through a structured process and organized rituals. The company is seeking to be a major player in the highly competitive pen-based computer market and has attracted... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Organizational Culture; Business Startups

18 Oct 2022
News

Startups, Don’t Pin Your Hopes on VC Dry Powder

12 Jul 2022
News

Expanding the Power to Prosper

After building her career on Wall Street, with roles at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, Stella Dyer (MBA 1994) launched Millicent, a blockchain-based company that Dyer hopes will make the global banking system more inclusive. Funded in part by British government... View Details

Keywords: Funds, Trusts, and Other Financial Vehicles; Finance

18 Sep 2019
News

Buffett Protégé Britt Cool to Start Own Firm

Photo via The Wall Street Journal Photo via The Wall Street Journal Tracy Britt Cool (MBA 2009) is leaving Berkshire Hathaway after a decade to start her own investment firm, reports the Wall Street Journal. Britt Cool is currently the CEO of the Pampered Chef and... View Details

01 Sep 2005
News

Business Plan Contest Has Many Winners

With its ninth annual competition last May, the HBS Business Plan Contest has become a well-established start-up that hits “home runs” every year. This year’s traditional track winner was Karen Grajwer (MBA ’05), founder of Uplift, an Internet and retail-store venture... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

16 Mar 2010
News

New Site Offers Free Wardrobe Advice

Keywords: apparel consulting; fashion consulting

Web

Online Entrepreneurial Marketing Course | HBS Online

making purchasing decisions Understand the importance of brand-building and the key components of an effective brand Build a media strategy across paid, earned, and owned channels Evaluate and identify growth opportunities Who Will Benefit Founders and View Details

20 Apr 2015
Blog Post

India Conference 2015

startup ecosystem in general in India, as one that is rapidly learning, adapting and surviving. He emphasized the need for a single-minded focus on execution and reacting deftly to succeed in such frontier and nascent businesses. Mr.... View Details

13 Jan 2021
News

Silicon Valley’s “Detroit Moment”

Out-Innovate, calls it the “frontier market model.” Founded in places with limited resources and nascent entrepreneurial ecosystems, these startups have to be scrappier and leaner. And these limitations, Alex says, make businesses more... View Details

Profile

Francesca Ioffreda

innovate and apply design thinking principles. Finally, I was excited about getting to meet and work with Boston-based health care startups and develop partnership strategies. Looking back on your internship, what did CVS Health do well... View Details

Keywords: Health Care

Portrait Project

Mark Cicirelli

nights researching, writing business plans, and using a lot of caffeine. My startup experience taught me big and small lessons about myself. First, I realized I still love gadgets and want to be around technology. More important, whether... View Details

Profile

Joseph Blair

his business unit managed: the famous Bobcat excavator. Yet Joe's experience at another manufacturer – FlexEnergy, a clean-tech company that makes microturbines – inspired “a passion for startups and smaller businesses” that encouraged... View Details

17 Apr 2017
News

Jeff Immelt Wants a Radical Transformation of GE

with fellow alumni, including Robert Kraft (MBA 1965), owner of the Kraft Group and the New England Patriots; classmate Stephen Pagliuca (MBA 1982), chairman of Bain Capital; and more recent graduates, such as the cofounders of the View Details

Keywords: Miscellaneous Manufacturing; Manufacturing

Web

Nim Ravid | MBA

early-stage digital healthcare startups as the Co-Founder and President of the Harvard Undergraduate Behavioral Strategy Group (BSG), a consulting group helping companies overcome the behavioral challenges, and with late-stage View Details

07 Aug 2019
News

Step Right In

he came to believe that most VR startups were stuck on a fundamental access problem: most people just don’t own VR headsets. And existing VR arcades are “essentially commoditized—it’s shooting a zombie,” he says. Askaryan saw more... View Details

July 2024
Case

Roja Garimella: Developing a Founder's Judgment

By: Reza Satchu and Patrick Sanguineti

Roja Garimella’s path to becoming a founder was anything but straight. Setting her sights on a career in medicine since childhood, she committed to medical school with her acceptance to college. And yet, throughout her studies, she continually explored alternative... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Personal Development and Career; Entrepreneurial Finance; Business Startups; Judgments; Financial Services Industry; Health Industry

February 2016 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Mattermark

By: Jeffrey Bussgang and Annelena Lobb

Mattermark, a software-as-a-service company that sold software allowing companies to access financial information about privately-held companies and startups, was at a turning point. CEO Danielle Morrill had to allocate investment funding from a Series A round. She... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Applications and Software; Business Startups; Marketing; Strategy; Technology Industry; United States