Publications

05 Mar 2025
News

Uncertain Terms

After Amar Bhidé (MBA 1979/DBA 1988) became an HBS assistant professor in 1988, then-dean John H. McArthur (MBA 1959/DBA 1963) gave him a copy of economist Frank Knight’s 1921 book Risk, Uncertainty and Profit. Knight’s idea that “uncertainty” must be distinguished... View Details

Profile

Ravi Belani

Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), a leading venture capital firm that has backed some of the most successful start-ups in the Internet era. Discovering a fresh environment for growth “To be honest,” Ravi says, “the partners [at DFJ] pushed me to... View Details

13 Mar 2020
News

Expanding Cancer Care

Dana-Farber, I oversee our innovation work, which is a grouping of commercializing our science and our technology to bring it from the labs to patients by partnering with industry, partnering with the View Details

Web

Field Course: Ideation and Prototyping for Innovation - Course Catalog

can be found here . Accepted students will be notified by August 15, 2025. Learning Objectives Most early-stage ventures and new products fail because too few customers want what’s offered. Specifically, either: 1) the product doesn’t... View Details

10 Oct 2017
News

Finish What You Start-up

venture funds later in the business, it was the best of both worlds, because we had funding from venture firms on the coast, but we were able to stay heads down here. So they could get us introduced at the... View Details

April 2017
Teaching Note

DoubleDutch

By: Frank Cespedes

This Teaching Note accompanies HBS No. 815-044 “DoubleDutch” in which the co-founders of the event management start-up, DoubleDutch, have to make a significant decision about their young company's sales function. The teaching note covers: Opportunity analysis,... View Details

Keywords: Sales Management; Selling; Marketing Management; Strategy Implementation; Business Marketing; Salesforce Management; Marketing; Sales; Marketing Strategy; Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Technology Industry; United States; Europe; Asia

31 Oct 2023
Blog Post

Climate Change Pioneers in the Class of 1978

technology platform around naturally occurring beneficial bacteria found on all plants. After a career in private equity and venture capital, Steve became an entrepreneur in 2012, helping to feed a growing... View Details

25 Jun 2014
News

An International Perspective

“I’ve been involved in international business ventures my entire career,” says Andrew L. Waite (MBA 1993), a generous supporter of global research at HBS. After majoring in civil engineering at England’s Loughborough University of View Details

February 2017 (Revised May 2017)
Case

Rapid7

By: Mitchell Weiss, Paul Gompers and Silpa Kovvali

That Corey Thomas, vice president at Boston-based Rapid7, Inc., was about to enter his investor’s boardroom to negotiate a potential acquisition of Metasploit, LLC, was already an unlikely achievement of sorts. After all, Rapid7 was a venture-backed, corporate... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Computer Hacking; Open-source; Corey Thomas; Rapid7; Exploit Testing; Mergers and Acquisitions; Cybersecurity; Computer Industry; North and Central America; Boston

28 Feb 2014
News

The First Five Years: Omowale Casselle (MBA 2009)

Omowale Casselle What does your work involve? "My official title is director of product management, SAMPLEit, a new venture at redbox. In this role, I'm responsible for leveraging technology across our... View Details

Keywords: General Merchandise Stores; Retail Trade

17 Nov 2015
First Look

November 17, 2015

Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=50066 Cost of Experimentation and the Evolution of Venture Capital By: Ewens, Michael, Ramana Nanda, and Matthew Rhodes-Kropf Abstract—We study adaptation by financial... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

September 1995 (Revised October 1995)
Case

Transcape Systems: Creating a Market

Entrepreneurial companies must overcome substantial barriers to create markets for innovative products in industries reluctant to embrace change. Transcape Systems faces this callenge as it attempts to create a market for interactive multimedia software in the... View Details

Keywords: Market Entry and Exit; Applications and Software; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Product Marketing; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry; Information Technology Industry

Find at Harvard

01 Jun 2001
News

Point, Click, Give: Internet Fuels Philanthropic Fundraising Revolution

(dot-org) WEBSEs populate e-philanthropy, Austin found that dot-coms dominate. They can more readily attract the venture capital and technical talent vital to Internet companies. “Imagine a start-up dot-org asking a major foundation for... View Details

Keywords: Anne Kavanagh; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services; Information

December 2018
Case

Choosy

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Julia Kelley

Founded in 2017, Choosy is a data-driven fashion startup that uses algorithms to identify styles trending on social media. After manufacturing similar items using a China-based supply chain, Choosy sells them to consumers through its website and social media pages.... View Details

June 1998
Article

Boundary Control: The Social Ordering of Work and Family Time in a High-Tech Corporation

By: Leslie Perlow

Keywords: Family and Family Relationships; Information Technology; Business Ventures

Find at Harvard

November 20, 2000
Article

Untangling the Value of Web Companies

By: Sunil Gupta and Donald R. Lehmann

Keywords: Value; Internet and the Web; Business Ventures

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

February 2008
Case

SPECIALISTERNE: Sense & Details

Three-quarters of Specialisterne's expert software testing staff are diagnosed with some form of Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Usually a handicap, ASD conveys talents especially suited to software testing and other highly repetitive tasks that require very high... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; For-Profit Firms; Health Disorders; Employees; Performance Evaluation; Quality; Software; Information Technology Industry