E648
David M. Dodson, Amadeus Orleans
2018
Andrea Jung became CEO of Avon Products Inc. in 1999 – the first woman to ever hold the position since the foundation of the iconic cosmetics company, in 1886. In a few years at the helm, Jung tripled the company’s profits, modernized its culture and was…
E646
George Foster, Sheila Melvin
2018
Privateer Holdings was a Seattle-based private equity firm that was “shaping the future of the legal cannabis industry.” In late 2017, Privateer held an expanding portfolio of global brands intended to “lead, legitimize, and define the future of…
SM296
Robert Chess, Cameron Lehman
2018
Dylan Smith, Co-Founder and CFO of Box, describes the various stages of founding the enterprise digital document and data storage company. At each financial raise, beginning with the very earliest family-and-friend money all the way through IPO, Smith…
SM295
George Foster, Cameron Lehman
2018
Melody McCloskey, founder and CEO of StyleSeat, discusses the earliest stages of her hair-appointment booking platform, from bootstrapping to fundraising, from a potential business model pivot to potential obstacles in the future.
SM297
Robert Chess, Cameron Lehman
2018
Fabien Beckers, Founder and CEO of Arterys, walks through the creation of his medical / AI imaging company, including the equity struggles of the founding team, building the right team and final the right channel sales partners.
SM293
Mike Volpi, Dione Chen
2018
Sonos, a home audio equipment manufacturer known for pioneering wireless speakers that offered home listeners greater convenience and superior sound quality, had good reason to be optimistic in 2015. For the past several years, sales had grown in excess…
SM300
Mike Speiser, Julie Makinen
2018
By 2015, MongoDB was seven years old and a so-called “unicorn,” a startup valued at more than $1 billion. MongoDB’s open-source software had been downloaded about 9 million times, and the company seemed to have the potential to disrupt the $45 billion…
E562B
Robert Siegel
2018
Between the back half of 2015 and early 2018 CircleUp had both grown and changed substantively. The company’s core data and Helio platform had enabled the firm to offer a new set of equity and credit services to startup consumer companies that were too…
SM292
Steve Callander, Josh Richman, Julie Makinen
2018
In July 2015, a monumental environmental bill, S.B. 350, was making its way through the California legislature. The measure sought to reduce the state’s petroleum use by 50 percent; require 50 percent of energy to come from renewable sources; and double…
E838
Peter Ziebelman, Matthew Saucedo, Jose Ignacio Garcia Suarez
2017
This case study delves into the complexities of equity allocation among startup cofounders, exploring three distinct scenarios: DogBone/Whiplash, Kitten Mittens, and Bad Blood. Each vignette presents unique challenges and decisions faced by cofounders…
E616
Jim Ellis, Matt Saucedo
2017
CRC Telecom explores the founding and growth of Alberto López and Fernando Gutierrez’s company CRC Telecom. It follows the entrepreneurs’ journey from launching a search fund to deciding to build a company from scratch in the Panamanian billboard market…
E615
Robert Chess, Ryan Kissick
2017
“Stanford Medicine: Health IT Purchasing Decisions in a Complex Medical Organization” examines how a complex medical organization evaluates new health information technology products to pilot, purchase, and utilize. Every year, hundreds of companies…
E641
Federico Antoni, Steve Ciesinski, Howard Rosen
2017
As developing economies grow and become more connected, new and exciting entrepreneurial opportunities arise across markets and industries. Smartphones, the best sensors on earth have already been deployed and new technologies, such as Machine Learning…
E642
Robert E. Siegel, Amadeus Orleans
2017
In 2017, significant changes were sweeping the global automotive industry: the rapid growth of electric vehicles, the race to develop commercially reliable autonomous cars and the ride-sharing phenomenon. Those trends were magnified by technological…
SM285
Joel Peterson, Mark George
2017
Paradise Bakery and Café: The Challenges of Success traces the journey of entrepreneur Daniel Patterson from the founding of his bakery in Southern California, through the challenges of growth, to an eventual sale, and a post-acquisition crisis. The case…
E592
Stephen Ciesinski, Howard Rosen, Matt Saucedo
2016
The Pioneer Academies case looks at the founding and growing of a South African campus of private schools that offered preschool through secondary, and walks through the different considerations as the founder considers potential merger opportunities.
E598
Robert Chess, Ryan Kissick
2016
Despite the existence of large social networks, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, co-founders Jeff Tangney and Dr. Nate Gross believed there was a unique opportunity to create a social network specifically targeted at physicians. The two envisioned a social…
E590
George Foster, Ryan Kissick
2016
Near the end of 2014, Derek Belch decided to turn his master’s thesis into a virtual reality athletic training company called STRIVR Labs [Sports Training in Virtual Reality]. Born out of Stanford University’s famed Virtual Human Interaction Lab, STRIVR…
E451
Mark Leslie, George Foster, Jocelyn Hornblower
2016
Skybox Imaging was hanging by a thread. The venture-backed company was founded with the goal to develop a constellation of imaging microsatellites to deliver high-resolution imagery of any spot on Earth multiple times per day. The company had raised $21…
E605
Peter Kelly, David Dodson, H. Irving Grousbeck, Susan Pohlmeyer, Sara Rosenthal
2016
Since 1996, the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies (CES) at the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) has conducted a series of studies on the performance of search funds. These studies endeavor to gather data and gain insight into all known search…
E551
George Foster, Ryan Kissick
2015
In 2010, Rob Dyrdek launched a new skateboarding league called Street League Skateboarding (SLS) with the goal of raising the profile of street skateboarding around the world. Dyrdek had excelled within the world of professional skateboarding for more…
E532
Peter Kelly, Sara Rosenthal
2014
The Minted case tells the story of Mariam Naficy, an accomplished entrepreneur who started her entrepreneurial endeavors early in her career with the launch of Eve.com, one of the first online cosmetics websites. Less than two years after Eve’s founding…
E504
Steve Ciesinski, Howard Rosen, Jason Luther
2014
As of the date of this note, financing environments varied significantly across developing economies. Differences in legal structures, operating conditions, and available capital sources created a myriad of conditions for entrepreneurs to navigate when…
E521
David Dodson, Peter Kelly, H. Irving Grousbeck, Jason Luther, Sara Rosenthal
2014
Since 1996, the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies (CES) at the Stanford Graduate School of Business has conducted a series of studies on the performance of search funds. This study, as well as its predecessors, has endeavored to gather data and gain…
