E195
Dick Allen, Mike Harkey
2006
This case presents a study of Don Milder’s path to entrepreneurship out of business school. He began his post-business school career in a corporate development role at Dynatech Corporation. At 27, he was offered the opportunity to run a small division…
E210
Patrick Arippol, R. Ellis, Joshua Spitzer
2006
The University Games case chronicles the board game company’s early formation and growth, and culminates in two issues often faced by business owners: (a) what to do about the over-dependence that the company has developed with its founder/CEO, and (b)…
E209
Mark Leslie, James Lattin, Joshua Spitzer
2006
Acquired through a search fund, Presidio Solutions offers an outsourced sales solution for technology companies. Presidio Solutions only sells renewals of service and maintenance contracts on their clients’ hardware and software products. The rapidly…
E220
William Barnett, Ziad Mokhtar, Gabriel Tavridis
2006
In just over two years, Mark Zuckerberg had built the Internet directory service Facebook from nothing more than an idea into a national phenomenon worthy of a reported $750 million buyout offer. The organization had grown from just a few friends…
E221
Charles Holloway, John Morgridge, Joshua Spitzer
2006
“ExlService: Business Process Outsourcing in India” charts the development of outsourcing service provider ExlService. Founded by Indian nationals Vikram Talwar and Rohit Kapoor, the firm has moved through several phases of evolution. At the conclusion…
E190
R. Ellis, Alex Tauber
2006
This note is intended to familiarize non-MBAs with some concepts and terms that will be used in the class S356, Evaluating Entrepreneurial Opportunities. It is not intended to be exhaustive. It covers the following building blocks for creating an…
EC35
Eiichiro Kazumori, John McMillan
2006
Sothebys.com operated from 2000 to 2003, during the tail end of the dot-com boom, in an economy threatened by recession and in a period when the art market overall was depressed. Historically, luxury goods have not sold well during recessions, and Sotheby…
CG4A
Robert Daines, Davina Drabkin, Vinay Nair
2006
In June of 2003, PeopleSoft management announced a merger with J.D. Edwards. Within hours of the announcement, Oracle had launched an hostile takeover attempt of PeopleSoft. Oracle’s bid raised enormously difficult questions for the PeopleSoft board…
IB65
R. McKern, Marisol Vidal Palma
2006
In 2006, the confectionery industry was one of the most dynamic and innovative sectors within the food industry. Although its fragmented nature across the globe allowed the entrance of new competitors, consumers favored established brands and new entrants…
IB74
Antonio Davila, George Foster, Corinne Putt, Anne Somjen
2006
Starbucks was founded in 1971 by Jerry Baldwin, Zev Ziegler and Gordon Bowker - three men from Seattle who loved coffee. By 1995, Starbucks had expanded to 676 stores, all within the U.S. or Vancouver, Canada. Only in the next decade did Starbucks make…
E233
H. Grousbeck, Mike Harkey
2006
This case tracks three difficult situations faced by Rick Corcoran during his tenure career as an aspiring entrepreneur. In September 2003, his partner abruptly abandoned their handshake agreement and left him without a source of income. With his second…
E224
William Barnett, Mike Harkey
2006
This case tracks the development of telecommunications software provider Volantis from its launch in 2000 to March 2006. The company’s investors and founders had mis-timed its market opportunity and, by March 2006, had spent more than five years waiting…
HR25B
Aneesha Capur, Charles O'Reilly III, Tim Perlstein
2006
In 2001, Libby Sartain, Chief People Officer, arrived at Yahoo! to find a demoralized Internet company without a well-defined culture, a coordinated method to communicate with employees, or developed processes, policies and procedures. In Sartain’s first…
E222
Andrew Rachleff, Joshua Spitzer
2006
FHP Wireless develops and sells Wi-Fi networking hardware with value-added software to create “wireless meshes,” the technology that makes metro-scale Wi-Fi coverage possible. A wireless mesh connects many wireless routers together in a network that…
E230
James Lattin, Mark Leslie, Joshua Spitzer
2006
“Nektar Therapeutics” examines a drug program within a biopharmaceutical company that specializes in drug delivery and formulation technologies. Through the company’s 16-year history, it developed technologies and then established partnerships that would…
E227
H. Grousbeck, Joshua Spitzer
2006
“Tea Collection” presents several dilemmas faced by Leigh Rawdon, Tea Collection’s co-founder and CEO. Rawdon and two partners launched the company in 2002 to design and sell what she calls “lifestyle products that celebrate the beauty of cultures around…
E200
Robert Chess, Mark Leslie, Joshua Spitzer
2006
The case follows the Connetics, a biotechnology and pharmaceutical company, from its founding in 1993 through the final clinical trials of its flagship drug compound in 2000. Through that time, the company had experienced the failure of another compound…
E235
H. Grousbeck, Alex Tauber
2006
This case chronicles the travails of two young entrepreneurs who conducted a search fund in San Juan, Puerto Rico. After running out of acquisition options, the entrepreneurs decided to pursue a start-up in the billboard industry. The case then…
E225
Katherine Bose, Mike Harkey, Garth Saloner
2006
Circles is a company that runs employee and customer loyalty programs for enterprises. The company was founded by two GSB alumnae in the late 90s. The case describes the idea formation process, the founding of the company, various dilemmas management had…
HR27
David Hoyt, Hayagreeva Rao
2006
Rite-Solutions, a software company headquartered in Rhode Island, was founded by two successful executives that had seen innovation stifled in traditional companies. They observed that people with ideas generally had to present them to management for…
E223
Robert Chess, Joshua Spitzer
2006
“Napo Pharmaceuticals” chronicles entrepreneur Lisa Conte’s two ventures, Shaman Pharmaceuticals and Napo Pharmaceuticals. Shaman was formed to make drug discovery and development more efficient by studying traditional, indigenous healers in the tropics…
E216
John Glynn Jr., Alex Tauber, Peter Ziebelman
2006
This case is used in the Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital class. Its purpose is to present to students: • The not-so-frequently discussed reality of when venture capitalist board members see a company’s performance deteriorate drastically to the point…
GS51
Mike Gozycki, M. Johnson, Hau Lee
2006
Geoff O’Neill had led the implementation of a ground-breaking Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) inventory tracking system for Woolworths in the U.K. Bringing together leading edge technologies to build the first such commercial tracking system…
GS49
Charles Holloway, David Hoyt, Hau Lee
2006
In November 2005, Microsoft prepared for a global launch of its next-generation game console, the Xbox 360. Microsoft’s original Xbox had been introduced a year behind Sony’s Playstation. The Xbox 360 would beat Sony’s next-generation system to market by…
