Publications

January 2021
Case

Bespoken Spirits: Disrupting Distilling

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

On October 7, 2020, Bespoken Spirits publicly announced it had received $2.6 million of seed funding for its “sustainable maturation process,” a process that could produce award-winning whiskeys in just days rather than years using a novel technology and data science. ... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Business Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Disruption; Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Cash Flow; Disruptive Innovation; Innovation Strategy; Brands and Branding; Business Model; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Service Industry; United States; California

March 2022
Case

In Data We Trust: Be Mobile Africa and Furthering Financial Inclusion Across the African Continent

By: Lauren Cohen, Grace Headinger and Pierre Marchesseault

To Cédric Jeannot, leveraging technology to promote financial inclusion was personal. After no established financial institution would accept his technology platform to lower transaction costs for free, Jeannot launched FinTech company Be Mobile Africa in May 2020.... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Fintech; Emerging Market; Fundraising; Financial Inclusion; Strategy; Expansion; Management; Entrepreneurship; Personal Finance; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry; Banking Industry; Africa; Togo; Nigeria; Ghana

23 May 2012
Research & Ideas

Five Ways to Make Your Company More Innovative

In a hypercompetitive global economy, creativity has never been more important for success . But how do you create a company that unleashes and capitalizes on innovation? For answers, writers at the HBS Alumni Bulletin turned to five HBS faculty experts in culture,... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons, Julia Hanna & Roger Thompson

06 Apr 2023
Blog Post

Bringing Music to the HBS Classroom: My Journey as a Nontraditional Student in the Summer Venture in Management Program

work for Universal Music Group’s internal creative solutions team as a Strategic Partnerships Representative and aspire to pursue a Master of Business Administration within the next few years with the long-term goal of pursuing View Details

February 2009
Case

Paresh Patel: Building a Life in the Context of Global Business - October 2007

By: Howard H. Stevenson and Shirley Spence

This case tells the story of Paresh Patel, born in Boston to an Indian immigrant family, as he develops an entrepreneurial career, participates in the Indian diaspora, and builds a family life. It provides background on Paresh's heritage, describes his youth and... View Details

Keywords: Diasporas; Work-Life Balance; Personal Development and Career; Entrepreneurship; Boston; Mumbai

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June 2008 (Revised April 2013)
Case

Bernd Beetz: Creating the New Coty

By: Geoffrey Jones and David Kiron

Considers the creation of the world's largest fragrance company by Bernd Beetz, appointed chief executive of Coty Inc. in 2001. In 1990 the German consumer goods company Benkiser began acquiring fragrance and cosmetics brands with the intent of developing a beauty... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Entrepreneurship; Globalized Firms and Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Germany; United States

December 2004 (Revised April 2014)
Case

Stan Lapidus: Profile of a Medical Entrepreneur

By: Robert F. Higgins and Sophie LaMontagne

Describes the career path and insights of Stanley Lapidus, a successful serial entrepreneur in the medical and life sciences industry. Lapidus is the founder of Cytyc Corp. (NASDAQ: CYTC) and EXACT Sciences (NASDAQ: EXAS) and is currently the CEO of his third start-up,... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Experience and Expertise; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Managerial Roles; Health Industry

May 2016
Case

Seaside Organics

By: Howard H. Stevenson and Alisa Zalosh

This case follows Sara Norton, a soccer player-turned-serial entrepreneur, as she transforms Seaside Organics from a fledgling startup into an $89 million company. Informed by the successes and failures of her first organics venture, WellBar, Norton tries to balance... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Organizational Structure; Personal Development and Career; Entrepreneurship; Personal Characteristics; Business Startups; Business Strategy; Conflict and Resolution; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry

01 Aug 1998
News

High Honors

a high-quality urban institution, to serving on the Virginia Council of Higher Education, to funding the Batten Center for Entrepreneurship at UVA's Darden School of Business. Batten's biggest challenge these days, he says, is to... View Details

August 1995 (Revised December 2003)
Case

Cricket Road, 503

By: William J. Poorvu and Donald A. Brown

In September 2003, Mason Sexton, a young, inexperienced developer, was making plans to replace a rooming house he had inherited next to the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville with a new 14-unit, 5-story apartment house. His attempts to assemble the... View Details

Keywords: Property; Entrepreneurship; Housing; Buildings and Facilities; Construction; Risk and Uncertainty; Management Practices and Processes; Real Estate Industry; United States

January 2021 (Revised June 2023)
Case

Biobot Analytics

By: Raymond Kluender, Joshua Krieger and Mitchell Weiss

In 2017, Newsha Ghaeli and Mariana Matus were deciding whether to leave their labs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, put other job opportunities aside, and dive full-time into founding a wastewater analysis start-up, Biobot. Ghaeli, an architect, and Matus,... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Information Technology; City; Analytics and Data Science; Personal Development and Career; Technology Industry; Utilities Industry; Health Industry; Information Technology Industry; Information Industry; Biotechnology Industry; United States; Kuwait; Korean Peninsula

October 2022
Case

An Heir with No Spare: The Deitch Family Office

By: Lauren Cohen and Grace Headinger

Joe and Matt Deitch, father and son, knew it was time to start their own family office. Matthew had recently joined his father at the family’s three enterprises, and they both realized that their family’s needs had grown increasingly complex over the years. In search... View Details

February 2021 (Revised April 2024)
Case

Shopify: The Conquest for Chinese E-Commerce

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Avani Patel, Samantha Lin and Ariel Yang

In mid-2020, Tobias Lütke, CEO of Shopify, faced a critical decision on how to time potential expansion into the China market. Over the prior 15 years, his Canadian software-as-a-service company had grown from a small e-commerce solutions provider to a full service... View Details

March 2020
Case

Maven Clinic: Women's Health in the Digital Age

By: Ariel D. Stern and Sarah Mehta

In late 2017, Kate Ryder, the founder and CEO of digital women’s health telemedicine company Maven Clinic, faced an important decision. Maven offered both a direct to consumer (D2C) product that anyone could use to book virtual appointments with health practitioners... View Details

Keywords: Business Growth and Maturation; Business Model; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Health; Health Care and Treatment; Strategy; Information Technology; Applications and Software; Health Industry; Technology Industry; United States

December 2022
Article

Shaping Nascent Industries: Innovation Strategy and Regulatory Uncertainty in Personal Genomics

By: Cheng Gao and Rory McDonald

In nascent industries—whose new technologies are often poorly understood by regulators—contending with regulatory uncertainty can be crucial to organizational survival and growth. Prior research on nonmarket strategy has largely focused on established firms in mature... View Details

Keywords: Technological Change; Innovation; Qualitative Methods; New Categories; Entrepreneurship; Technological Innovation; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Risk and Uncertainty; Strategy

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Involvement in Faculty & Student Ventures | About

Involvement in Faculty & Student Ventures Background Harvard Business School (HBS) has a long tradition of entrepreneurial activity. In recent years, the emphasis on entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School specifically and at Harvard... View Details

October 1999 (Revised February 2000)
Case

Steinway & Sons: Buying a Legend (A)

By: John T. Gourville and Joseph B. Lassiter III

It is 1995 and Steinway & Sons has just been purchased by two young entrepreneurs. For 140 years, Steinway has held the reputation for making the finest quality grand pianos in the world. The past 25 years have proven to be a challenge, however. First, the company has... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Decisions; Entrepreneurship; Globalization; Crisis Management; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Quality; Competitive Strategy; Manufacturing Industry; Japan; New York (state, US)

October 2013 (Revised November 2016)
Case

Carbon Engineering

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Sid Misra

Dr. David Keith, President of Carbon Engineering, a company based in Calgary, Alberta, is commercializing a technology to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. The company plans to market the captured CO2 to produce low carbon transportation fuels in... View Details