Jonathan King and Jim Stott, the founders of Stonewall Kitchen, started out in 1992 with a simple business selling jams and jellies at local farmers' markets. By 2004, they had grown the company into a $25 million organization with 250 employees. They expanded their range of services to include high-end specialty food manufacturing and wholesaling, as well as retailing through free-standing stores and catalogs. King, who serves as president and CEO, set an aggressive growth goal: to quadruple the business to $100 million within the next five years. Challenges students to consider product/market issues as well as organizational and cultural implications. Raises questions about the impact on the business and the founders of taking on new partners.
The Leveens started a high-end catalog business as a small home-based venture in 1987. It grew into a nationally recognized, $60 million company, offering products that ranged from unique pens and pencils to leather briefcases and fully furnished offices. In 1999, it reached saturation in the U.S. marketplace, and the owner-founders must consider new avenues of growth, including expansion of the catalog business into international markets; private labeling products for a large, national retailer; retailing in partnership with others; or retailing through company-owned, free-standing stores.
Focuses on the search for opportunity, the generation and evaluation of business concepts, creation of a business plan, and the start-up process. Follows experienced entrepreneur Christy Jones as she combines her business skills and personal experience to generate new business concepts. Jones' assessment of the market opportunity for the egg harvesting and cryopreservation business was based on firsthand observations of the needs of young professional women and extensive field and scientific research. The plan, which won the HBS business plan contest in 2004, provides a good example of the form and substance of a well-crafted plan. Provides an opportunity to discuss the underlying social issues that make it attractive for young women to purchase "fertility insurance" while they pursue professional careers.
Mavens & Moguls is a "virtual" marketing-consulting firm of approximately 40 professionals. Examines the processes by which its founder, Paige Arnof-Fenn, learns the business, builds a power network of industry experts and potential customers, and uses this expertise to build a new company that fulfills her career and life goals and also provides a wide range of work options to the consultants. Drawing on her experience and her network, she creates a high-quality marketing consulting operation that offers her and her stable of consultants challenging work, rewarding income, personal autonomy, and flexibility. Because Arnof-Fenn is at the nexus of almost all the deals, rapid growth has the potential to challenge the business model and threaten the fundamental values of the organization.
The development of a new venture partnership and the challenges associated with raising its first fund are chronicled. The decision to focus on early-stage investments, the determination of the appropriate size of the fund, the fund-raising process, and the steps in closing are all examined. Also presents information on the relationships among the five partners, the division of responsibilities, and the compensation package. Provides personal background on each of the partners and explores their motivation for choosing this career change at this particular moment in their lives.
Explores the career challenges facing highly successful women who leave the full-time workforce for several years to manage family commitments. Carol Cohen is a 1985 Harvard MBA who has professional line experience in a manufacturing environment, followed by a successful transition into investment banking. Details Cohen's decision to return to a professional career after almost 11 years out of the full-time workforce. Describes her decision-making process, including discussions with her husband about shared parenting responsibilities, and provides details of her professional networking, resume development, and interview preparation. Concludes with a job offer to Cohen from Sankaty Advisors, a Bain Capital Partners company. Discussion centers on the decision to return to work, the strategic plan and specific steps, and concludes with questions about setting expectations--both at home and at work--and negotiating terms.
Zipcar is a start-up organized around the idea of "sharing" car usage via a membership organization. This case describes several iterations of the Zipcar business model and financial plan. These iterations include a very early version and a version developed just prior to the launch of the business, as well as data from the first few months of operations. Students are called on to analyze the underlying economics and business model for the venture and to discover how these assumptions are holding up as the business is actually rolled out.
Sarah Vickers-Willis, HBS MBA 1999, faces a critical career decision: Does she redirect the Internet start-up she helped found or join in shaping a for-profit firm with a social mission? Sarah, a young Australian business executive, has always strived to "find space" for what's important to her in her career. Her career decisions began when she decided to interrupt a successful consulting career in Australia to attend Harvard Business School and continued through her founding (with three other HBS classmates) a fast-track Internet start-up. This case traces Sarah's increasing involvement with a small for-profit firm dedicated to improving the financial education of young women and ends with a decision point: Should she stay with the company she helped found, or should she move to the entrepreneurial firm with a social mission?
Provides a detailed description of the processes and tasks associated with creating a new venture in an emerging industry (subscription car-sharing for urban dwellers). Chronicles the entrepreneur's concept development, industry analysis, market research, identity definition, and brand building. Also provides background on writing the business plan, creating a budget and building financials, developing a management team, creating business partnerships, and financing the businesses.
A start-up team is faced with the challenge of building a senior management team with relevant industry experience. The marriage of e-commerce and the transportation logistics industry creates unusual problems in blending "old economy" employees and employee practices (compensation/equity) and company cultures.
Presents an original business plan. Students are challenged to develop assumptions and create financial projections and statements based on business plan text.
A successful entrepreneur (retailing) starts a new venture in dry cleaning. The case focuses on transferable models, skills, and knowledge from one venture to the next. Areas of emphasis are: managing growth, challenges of operations, financing, and competitive moves.
Magdalena Yesil, investor and former entrepreneur, must decide whether to become a venture partner at US Venture Partners. This case discusses career progression, entrepreneurship, and deciding among career alternatives. Yesil's entrepreneurial experiences include UUNET, CyberCash, and MarketPay.
The case provides information on the development of the office superstore concept, building partnerships, creating the business plan, and recruiting a management team. Focuses on the detailed level of decision making required to transform an idea into a viable business. Heavy emphasis is placed on operating plans and integration. A rewritten version of earlier cases.
Documents the creation of a national before and after-school day care program aimed at bridging the gap between school and parents' work schedules. This high-growth, for-profit social enterprise organization operated in what was historically the domain of nonprofit or government sectors. Tensions emerge 1) pressure to grow and the need to maintain quality, 2) pursuit of a noble mission and a desire to create personal wealth, 3) creation of a national organization and a local program delivery capability, and 4) meeting investor expectations while maintaining the purity of the programs.
The founders of Motive Communications, Inc., a recent start-up dedicated to reinventing the support chain involved in the delivery of information technology support services, put in place a development process hinged on extensive customer feedback. As part of this, a select group of "lighthouse customers" agreed to pay $50,000 to participate in beta testing--but as a deadline approached, none had sent in their checks. The founders therefore reevaluate the lighthouse policy and its rationale.