Women's Professional Soccer (WPS), which began play in March 2009, rose from the ashes of the Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA), a league that played its third and final season in 2003. After WUSA failed under the mounting pressure of flagging attendance, failure to attract sponsors, and high operating losses, its dedicated supporters immediately regrouped to learn from their past mistakes and try again. This case chronicles the experience of WPS's founding team.
The case describes the phenomenal growth of Facebook, a social networking site launched in 2004, which had reached approximately 1 billion members by 2012. The case provides an overarching picture of the company's growth over the last eight years, from its founding to present day global expansion, covering the competitive landscape, the challenges it has faced along the way (including controversy over its privacy policy), its growth strategy and product development, marketing, and organizational challenges.
The world of early-stage financing has undergone many changes over the years. In this note, we first document the historical roots of early-stage investors, and describe important milestones along the developmental path. We then describe the types of modern-day angel investors, focusing on their investment preferences and practices. Finally, we set up a discussion of salient issues in angel investing for the future.
Venture capitalist Atul Kapadia was inclined to provide seed funding for Sujeet Kumar and Michael Sinkula to found Envia Systems, a lithium-ion battery company. Admittedly, Envia was little more than the founders' vision of an affordable electric vehicle and the potential of playing in a very large market. But for Kapadia, it was precisely these two key ingredients that made Envia attractive and akin to other early-stage investments he had made at Bay Partners.
Prototypes allow you to consider and test your product or service concept quickly and at low cost, and they play an important role in the development of new ventures. This quick introduction elaborates on the concept and illustrates the use of prototypes in a variety of contexts.
Social media is disrupting politics in fundamental ways. For the first time, voters can join with one another and connect with their officials directly at a scale that is unprecedented. We believe that facilitating meaningful connection will result in a new form of civic participation that will profoundly change our world for the better." David Binetti, Founder and CEO, Votizen This case series outlines the business formation of Votizen. Founder and CEO David Binetti's original vision was to facilitate political action and organization. His efforts to start up led him through several manifestations of the original vision, each with its own challenges and quirks. Binetti used the dual lenses of Dave McClure's so-called "Pirate Model" and Steve Blank's "Customer Development Model" with which to navigate the waters. The case contains an unusual amount of detail as to the trials of starting up, as well as the usage and interpretation of the metrics prescribed by McClure and Blank.
Huntington University was a distinguished not-for-profit academic institution in the United States whose endowment grew from $7 billion to nearly $20 billion over the course of a decade. The funds prompted a variety of development projects. New funds, new buildings, and new programs brought with them new people, and Huntington was in a period of growth and change on all fronts. As administrative headcount grew dramatically from 6,800 to over 10,000, Singletary launched a major initiative to develop the University's most promising managers through effective instruction and feedback. Among the attendees were Rita Torres, Dieter Kopp, and Marilyn Malkin. They were excited to be among the select group of Singletary Management Program participants, and were eager to receive expert teaching and peer guidance on how they could improve as managers.
Sociable Labs was conceived as a start-up business attempting to use friend recommendations to curate and recommend purchase opportunities on the internet. Much as his Facebook social events app helped friends discover events based on their friends' events, founder Nisan Gabbay wanted to show users what their friends were buying or "liking," in the hope that such knowledge would help guide their purchases and even enable merchants to use Facebook to help grow their sales. How would he discover what his customers needed and what they were willing to pay for?
Sociable Labs was conceived as a start-up business attempting to use friend recommendations to curate and recommend purchase opportunities on the internet. Much as his Facebook social events app helped friends discover events based on their friends' events, founder Nisan Gabbay wanted to show users what their friends were buying or "liking," in the hope that such knowledge would help guide their purchases and even enable merchants to use Facebook to help grow their sales. How would he discover what his customers needed and what they were willing to pay for?
Sociable Labs was conceived as a start-up business attempting to use friend recommendations to curate and recommend purchase opportunities on the internet. Much as his Facebook social events app helped friends discover events based on their friends' events, founder Nisan Gabbay wanted to show users what their friends were buying or "liking," in the hope that such knowledge would help guide their purchases and even enable merchants to use Facebook to help grow their sales. How would he discover what his customers needed and what they were willing to pay for?
TwinMed was a nursing home supply business located in Los Angeles. This case details its humble origins and its development, and raises several strategic issues prevalent in Medicare-reimbursed businesses, business-to-business selling, and what to do when there is a sea change in government billing as there was in 1999, with the advent of Medicare's "PPS" model.
George Hausman, co-founder and CEO of Pleasanton, California-based Refresh Organics (fictional), was proud of the business he had built over the past 15 years. Along with a minority partner, Hausman had started Refresh as a distributor of organic produce sourced throughout California. The business had grown steadily, if not explosively, and was now a distributor for organic farms throughout the United States. Refresh's distribution revenues were on track to hit $40 million this year. Refresh Organics also has a lucrative juice business. As the business grows, Hausman wonders if and how he ought to expand his ad hoc board of family and friends into a "real" board (vignette 1). He also wonders whom to add and whether the group of ten he has assembled is 'right' (vignette 2). Finally, Hausman has an opportunity to learn some best practices around how to deliver bad news to the board (vignette 3).
Bigpoint was a leading online gaming company with vast international operations. One country that it wanted to enter was the United States, where existing players EA and Zynga, as well as dominant social gaming platforms and the Apple App Store posed considerable challenges. It also needed to restructure its top management to better manage its growth.
This fictional short case sets up a hiring scenario that can be analyzed through the lens of the best practices found in "Note on Best Practices in Hiring" (GSB Case E-416). A CEO wants to hire a VP of Strategy and Business Development. How will he know what he is looking for and when he has found the right person?
All hiring managers want to hire the "right" person for each position. Only half succeed. The other half end in failure, impeding direct projects as well as indirectly eroding revenue, EBITDA, and company valuation. Given such high stakes, managers should be clear on what it will take for a candidate to succeed in a given job, and be disciplined in hiring a person who fits the bill. This note outlines the process of finding and vetting candidates for success.
James Gutierrez has started a socially responsible consumer lending company focused on serving the underbanked Hispanic market. The company has gone through a succession of sales directors and Gutierrez has now pinned his hopes on his operations director Sam Ulloa to help stem the tide. Can Ulloa do it? The future of Progreso Financiero depends on it.