Publications

October 2023 (Revised February 2024)
Case

Bizongo and e-B2B in India

By: Álvaro Rodríguez Arregui and Radhika Kak

Bizongo, an Indian e-B2B platform was co-founded by three college graduates in 2015 with the goal of creating the "Alibaba of India" when the B2B e-commerce landscape was practically non-existent. The founders saw a significant opportunity in connecting mid-sized... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Decision Choices and Conditions; Entrepreneurship; Digital Platforms; E-commerce; Business Strategy; India

July 2023
Supplement

Honeycomb (B): Jumping on The Generative AI Bandwagon?

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Kumba Sennaar

Honeycomb, an audio app enabling users to record stories and save family memories, considers pivoting to embrace generative AI. What should the co-founders business model look like if they pursued this new direction? View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Operations; Business Startups; Business Model; AI and Machine Learning; Technology Industry; United States

2015
Case

Advanced Leadership Pathways: Howard Fischer, Eric Jacobsen, and Gratitude Railroad's Impact Investing

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Daniel Lennox-Choate

In 2013, Howard Fischer (hedge fund founder) and Eric Jacobsen (serial entrepreneur and private equity investor) established Gratitude Railroad as a community of impact investors in nine different "tracks." Each track represented a different concept for using... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; Environmental And Social Sustainability; Social Change; Sustainable Business And Innovation; Investment; Social Issues; Environmental Sustainability; Venture Capital; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Leadership; United States

December 2018
Supplement

iyzico: Fundraising in Emerging Markets (B)

By: Marco Di Maggio and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in July 2016 as Barbaros Ozbugutu, co-founder and CEO of the Istanbul-based payment technology start-up iyzico, contemplates the pros and cons of the different term sheets the company has received for its Series C round. The case then informs the reader... View Details

Keywords: Iyzico; Fundraising; Business Startups; Venture Capital; Emerging Markets; Negotiation Offer; Decision Choices and Conditions

January 2013 (Revised December 2024)
Case

MuMaté

By: Thomas Eisenmann and Alex Godden

MuMaté, a fictional cult beverage company, requires capital to fund national expansion. Its cofounders, who have bootstrapped to this point, are now negotiating with venture capital firms to raise a $3 million funding round. The case describes MuMaté's inception, early... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital; Growth Management; Negotiation; Expansion; Valuation; Entrepreneurship; Organizational Culture; Business Startups; Food and Beverage Industry

August 2009 (Revised August 2010)
Case

Calera Corporation

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, Thomas J. Steenburgh and Lauren Barley

Brent Constantz, founder, CEO, and president of Calera Corporation, felt a surge of optimism as he gazed at the recently commissioned prototype flue gas processing line at Calera's R&D facility in Moss Landing, California. It was late May 2009, and Calera was an... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Product Design; Product Development; Environmental Sustainability; Commercialization; Green Technology Industry

Find at Harvard

February 2001
Case

ALWAYSi

By: Paul A. Gompers and Sergio Rattner

Anthony Soohoo, COO at ALWAYSi, an independent film distributor, is preparing projections for the company. Soohoo must decide which revenue streams the company should pursue. The firm is faced with a variety of attractive opportunities. View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Business Strategy; Revenue; Film Entertainment; Strategic Planning; Business Startups; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

Find at Harvard

01 Sep 2011
News

Entrepreneur Named Director of Harvard i-lab

Gordon Jones (photo by Evgenia Eliseeva) Related Links: Follow i-lab news on Twitter Find the i-lab on Facebook Gordon Jones didn’t tailor his career path to become the ideal director for the Harvard innovation lab. It just worked out that way. An entrepreneur with two... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management

06 Feb 2015
News

The Billion-Dollar E-commerce Company You Know Nothing About

Keywords: e-commerce; Nonstore Retailers; Retail Trade

January 1998 (Revised September 2001)
Case

Genset: 1989

By: Paul A. Gompers and Amy Burroughs

Discusses the start-up strategy at Genset, a French biotech firm. Pascal Brandys, a venture capitalist, and Marc Vasseur, a leading French scientist, must decide how to proceed. Future real options are central to the strategy. View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Venture Capital; Business Startups; Biotechnology Industry; France

January 2013
Supplement

SMARTBITES (B): May 2009

By: Michael Roberts and Amar Bhide

The case describes a Turkish brother and sister team who are evaluating the option of acquiring and operating a franchise of a large US bakery/cafe for Turkey. They are comparing this option to that of simply starting a similar business. View Details

Keywords: Franchising; Start-up; Franchise Ownership; Business Startups; Food and Beverage Industry; Turkey

July 2001 (Revised August 2002)
Case

Jamcracker

Jamcracker, a well-financed, young company is attempting to transform how IT services are delivered during a period of high-tech pessimism. Jamcracker is trying to popularize an "application service provider" (ASP) model of service delivery that will, if successful,... View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Information Technology; Business Startups; Information Technology Industry; Service Industry

25 Mar 2016
News

Business Gets Serious Inside ‘Shark Tank’

01 Dec 2010
News

Clubs Assist Start-Ups

Got a great start-up idea? Enter it in this year’s Alumni New Venture Contest. Fourteen HBS alumni clubs in twelve host regions — Boston, Brazil, Chicago, Germany, India, Mexico, New York, Northern California, Southern California, Shanghai, Toronto, and the United Arab... View Details

Keywords: contests

August 2020 (Revised November 2024)
Case

NextView Ventures

By: Jo Tango and Nori Gerardo Lietz

David Beisel, Rob Go, and Lee Hower are non-partners at different-and-established venture capital (VC) firms. They decide to leave their positions to start a new seed-stage VC firm. The case covers the genesis of the firm, the formulation of its strategy and... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Business Startups; Strategy