E294
Katherine Bose, Joel Peterson
2008
Rachael Hinkley and Stephanie Paulson establish a publishing venture and web portal aimed at mothers, but quickly run into challenges, including the strength of their partnership itself. Beyond that, Hinkley encounters problems with: licensees, non…
E324
Claire Magat, Evan Porteus, Dennis Rohan
2008
The purpose of the venture viability research process is to identify the key questions underlying the viability of a venture, to facilitate reframing of the venture to enhance its viability, and to provide evidence to support the founders’ answers to…
HR31
David Hoyt, Hayagreeva Rao
2008
Intuit’s “Spotlight” employee recognition system had rapidly become an integral part of the company’s culture after it was introduced in late 2004. The program enabled any employee to recognize outstanding performance by any other employee by sending an…
E285
Katherine Bose, Kathryn Shaw
2008
Looking at two companies, ISG and ArcelorMittal, the case examines the steel industry over several decades, but with an emphasis on the 2000-2004 timeframe, when heavy international consolidation affected dozens of mills and mini-mills. ISG’s take-over…
E298
R. Ellis, Garth Saloner, Amanda Silverman
2008
In the tenth year of their business, Circles’ co-founders, Janet Kraus and Kathy Sherbrooke, had completed a successful exit for their company. They had worked closely for years, building their early venture into a leading provider of concierge services…
E314
Katherine Bose, Garth Saloner
2008
The protagonist is Gina Bianchini, a 32-year-old GSB graduate recovering from having co-founded a well-funded, well-led, but failed tech company. When presented with the opportunity of starting a new company in the social networking space with her former…
E301A
William Barnett, Gary Mekikian
2008
In 1991, former engineering professor Dr. Irwin Jacobs and his team of top-notch scientists and engineers were preparing to take public Qualcomm, their budding wireless communications company. They had proven that their technological approach to wireless…
IB73
Victoria Chang, Lyn Denend, R. McKern, Katya Reuk
2008
The Russian Federation (Russia) was the largest of the 15 geopolitical entities that emerged in 1991 from the Soviet Union. Despite a series of reforms initiated in 1992 to help the country transition from its centrally planned economy, Russia plunged…
E327A
Jocelyn Hornblower, Garth Saloner
2008
The case follows Rose Hanna and her three business partners (Richard Hanna, Bob Francis and Faye Francis) as they launch and grow a scientific instrument company, MicroSample. It covers the idea discovery stage, their decision to work together as a team…
E313
Dick Allen, Bethany Coates
2008
In May 2008, Mary Jones, CEO of the Richardson County Community Association (RCCA), shut the door to her office in disbelief. She had just been informed by one of her direct reports that Rick Jamison, a member of her executive team, had recently made a…
E308
Sean Harrington, Garth Saloner
2008
It was July 2007, and Linda Rottenberg, cofounder and CEO of Endeavor—a nonprofit dedicated to transforming the economies of emerging markets by identifying and supporting high-impact entrepreneurs—was preparing for a quarterly meeting with the global…
E316
Jocelyn Hornblower, Garth Saloner
2008
This case follows entrepreneur Nicole Alvino in the early days as she started a new company, dermalounge. Issues covered include building networks, writing a business plan, and fundraising.
E277
Katherine Bose, Kathryn Shaw
2008
The case looks at Bialecki, Inc., a boutique search firm based in NYC for senior level managers in the financial services industry. The case protagonist as well as the firm’s founder and president, Linda Bialecki, struggles to reconcile consistent…
E286C
Katherine Bose, Robert Chess, Peter Reiss
2008
The protagonist (“Howard Glass”) is a recent GSB graduate (2007) heading up a biomedical device start-up focused on the gastric bypass market. The case tracks Glass and team from the team formation and idea generation phases through the company’s first 6…
E281
Katherine Bose, H. Grousbeck
2008
The protagonist is a Japanese national and the founder and Chairman of Satura Cakes. He is based in Honolulu, HI and his president is based in Palo Alto, CA. Together, they encounter several management challenges in the first 3 years of operating their…
E327B
Jocelyn Hornblower, Garth Saloner
2008
The case follows Rose Hanna and her three business partners (Richard Hanna, Bob Francis and Faye Francis) as they launch and grow a scientific instrument company, MicroSample. It covers the idea discovery stage, their decision to work together as a team…
E297
Bethany Coates, Joel Peterson
2008
In April 2008, Brian Spaly, founder and chairman of Bonobos Inc., a men’s pants company, began a 6 mile run around Central Park in New York City. As he passed the reservoir, he thought about how tense the last six weeks had been at the company. On one…
CG14
David Larcker, Brian Tayan
2008
In the late 1990s, UtiliCorp United, a utility that owned natural gas and power assets in the Midwest and internationally, moved aggressively into the business of wholesale energy trading. The move came after Congress passed legislation that opened…
E309
Bethany Coates, John Glynn Jr.
2008
For Sean Parker, a managing partner at Founders Fund (FF), a San Francisco-based venture capital (VC) firm, November 2007 was a critical moment in the process of raising the firm’s second fund. As he prepared to describe FF’s nontraditional strategy to a…
E315
Garth Saloner, Alex Tauber
2008
This vignette is used in the seminar “Entrepreneurship from the Perspective of Women” that is led by Professor Garth Saloner. The class that uses this vignette hopes to touch on five generic questions regarding women who pursue entrepreneurial ventures…
E296
Mark Leslie, James Lattin, Bethany Coates
2008
Corey Leibow eased his car back onto Sand Hill Road in Palo Alto, California. As president and CEO of Mercado, a company that provided the search and merchandising technology to power retail web sites, he had just met with another venture capital (VC)…
A198
Madhav Rajan, Brian Tayan
2008
Over the last 10 years, the number of publicly traded companies that have had to restate financial results has risen dramatically. Regardless of whether the restatements stemmed from the aggressive application of accounting standards or the need to…
E282
H. Grousbeck, Sean Harrington
2008
A search fund is a pool of capital raised to financially support the efforts of an entrepreneur, or a team of entrepreneurs, to locate a privately held company for acquisition. This study, as well as its predecessors in 1996, 1998, 2001,2003, and 2005…
GS59
Hau Lee, Jennie Tung
2008
As the middle classes of many Asian countries grow, we are beginning to see countries like China, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, and Indonesia becoming emerging markets for many consumer goods. Markets for higher end, branded products in…
