Entrepreneurial Management
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- January 2025
- Case
Duolingo: On a "Streak"
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Nicole Tempest Keller and Nicole LuoIn December 2024, Severin Hacker, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Duolingo, reflected on the remarkable evolution of the language-learning app he helped launch in 2011. As the #1 most downloaded education app in the world, Duolingo had over 100 million monthly active users, 8 million paid subscribers, and a market cap approaching $15 billion in late 2024. The company’s success stemmed from its gamified approach to learning, its use of adaptive AI technology, and its alignment of incentives: maintaining a streak on the app not only helped users master a language but also drove subscription growth and reduced costs for Duolingo. To date, Duolingo had focused almost exclusively on language learning with an estimated market size of $17 billion in 2020. As a technology-first company, Duolingo recognized the enormous potential of Gen AI to power innovative products, such as conversational language practice. However, Hacker envisioned an even broader future in which AI could transform the app into a comprehensive AI-powered educational ecosystem that covered many subjects beyond language, allowing the company to tap into the $56 billion ed-tech market. The company had recently started to explore this direction by adding new subjects, such as math and music. This product line diversification raised several strategic questions: Did Duolingo have the brand license to extend into adjacent subjects? Which areas were the best fit for the app’s growth, and how quickly should they roll out? And what were the long-term benefits and risks to new subjects within the flagship app?
- January 2025
- Case
Duolingo: On a "Streak"
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Nicole Tempest Keller and Nicole LuoIn December 2024, Severin Hacker, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Duolingo, reflected on the remarkable evolution of the language-learning app he helped launch in 2011. As the #1 most downloaded education app in the world, Duolingo had over 100 million monthly active users, 8 million paid subscribers, and a market cap approaching $15...
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- January 2025
- Case
Summer Health: Raising an AI-First Company?
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Sarah Mehta and Maxim Pike HarrellIn October 2023, Summer Health CEO Ellen DaSilva arrived at a defining juncture for her pediatric telehealth startup. Founded in 2021, Summer Health offered parents rapid access to licensed pediatricians via text message. DaSilva, an experienced telehealth executive, launched the company after struggling to reach dependable after-hours care for her children. As her startup grew, the advent of mainstream generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) prompted Summer Health’s leadership to consider how they might incorporate the technology into the company’s platform and capabilities set. Following a partnership with AI company OpenAI, Summer Health’s engineering team developed a pilot to create a new AI medical note summarization tool that proved highly useful to pediatricians. As DaSilva looked forward, she considered whether to integrate AI more deeply at Summer Health, even at the expense of her current product roadmap and company priorities.
- January 2025
- Case
Summer Health: Raising an AI-First Company?
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Sarah Mehta and Maxim Pike HarrellIn October 2023, Summer Health CEO Ellen DaSilva arrived at a defining juncture for her pediatric telehealth startup. Founded in 2021, Summer Health offered parents rapid access to licensed pediatricians via text message. DaSilva, an experienced telehealth executive, launched the company after struggling to reach dependable after-hours care for...
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- January 2025
- Case
Untapped Global: Financing Africa’s Missing Middle
By: Raymond Kluender and Emanuele ColonnelliIn November 2024, Jim Chu, founder and CEO of Untapped Global, faced mounting internal tensions over the company’s strategic direction. Untapped had developed a data-driven revenue-based financing (RBF) model to address the “missing middle” problem—the $5.2 trillion funding gap for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in emerging markets. By financing digital lenders who provided asset-backed loans to SMEs, Untapped combined flexible repayment structures with real-time data tracking, achieving strong results across 15 African countries. However, as both an investment fund raising capital from limited partners and a fintech startup seeking venture capital, the company’s dual structure had created operational challenges and conflicting priorities. This case provides an opportunity to examine the potential of RBF to address SME financing gaps in emerging markets and to explore the strategic and organizational decisions required to scale a mission-driven business operating at the intersection of finance and technology.
- January 2025
- Case
Untapped Global: Financing Africa’s Missing Middle
By: Raymond Kluender and Emanuele ColonnelliIn November 2024, Jim Chu, founder and CEO of Untapped Global, faced mounting internal tensions over the company’s strategic direction. Untapped had developed a data-driven revenue-based financing (RBF) model to address the “missing middle” problem—the $5.2 trillion funding gap for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in emerging markets. By...
About the Unit
The Entrepreneurial Management Unit strives to raise the level of academic work in the field of entrepreneurship, in methodological rigor, conceptual depth, and managerial applicability. We also strive to improve the odds of entrepreneurial success for our students and for practitioners worldwide.
Because it is such a complex phenomenon, entrepreneurship must be studied through multiple lenses. We use three.
- The process of entrepreneurship - We seek to understand the processes of entrepreneurial activity in start-ups and established firms by examining the antecedents and consequences of various forms of entrepreneurial opportunity identification and opportunity pursuit for individuals, organizations, and industries. We see experimentation and innovation in products, services, processes, and business models as central to entrepreneurial activity.
- The finance of entrepreneurship - We seek to understand the financing of entrepreneurial ventures by studying the antecedents and consequences of entrepreneurial funding decisions both domestically and internationally.
- The context of entrepreneurship - We seek to understand the ways in which entrepreneurs both respond to and shape the context in which they operate, by examining the history of entrepreneurship across time and national borders and by analyzing the legal and cultural contexts for managerial action.
Please also visit the Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship.
Recent Publications
Capitalization Tables, Dilution and Payouts: A brief tutorial
- February 2025 |
- Technical Note |
- Faculty Research
UST's Adoption of Open Talent
- February 2025 |
- Teaching Note |
- Faculty Research
Freelancer, Ltd.
- January 2025 |
- Teaching Note |
- Faculty Research
Duolingo: On a "Streak"
- January 2025 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Summer Health: Raising an AI-First Company?
- January 2025 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Untapped Global: Financing Africa’s Missing Middle
- January 2025 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Hunter Point Capital
- January 2025 |
- Case |
- Faculty Research
Time to Play? Netflix Considers Live Sports
- January 2025 |
- Teaching Note |
- Faculty Research