Arar Han, Russell Siegelman
2012
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’…
Arar Han, Russell Siegelman
2012
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’…
Arar Han, Russell Siegelman
2012
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’…
Jeffrey Chambers, Michael Child, Arar Han
2012
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…
Jeffrey Chambers, Michael Child, R. Ellis, Arar Han
2012
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…
Jeffrey Chambers, Michael Child, Arar Han
2012
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…
Arar Han, Haim Mendelson
2012
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…
George Foster, Arar Han
2012
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…
George Foster, Arar Han
2012
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…
George Foster, Sara Rosenthal
2012
FullBloom Baking Company was started in 1989 by Karen Trilevsky to provide wholesome, all-natural and delicious baked goods to coffee shops in and around San Francisco, California. Over the last 20-plus years, FullBloom has grown to $35 million in…
Arar Han, Charles Holloway, John Morgridge
2012
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…
George Foster, Sara Rosenthal
2012
The Financial Engines case chronicles the firm’s evolution from launch to IPO, highlighting the various decisions and events that impacted the company’s business model from 1997 through 2010. The concept for the company sprung from Nobel Prize winning…
Douglas Abbey, Chris Mahowald, Max Lamont
2012
In March 2008, a group of investors considered purchasing 8,300 residential lots in 11 states from one of the largest U.S. homebuilders, at a price of 10 cents on the dollar. The deal would also involve purchasing a partially-built condominium complex…
Saumitra Jha, Debra Schifrin
2012
Managing Local Political Risk: Parking the Tata Nano highlights the role of political geography in shaping risks to businesses. The case has three parts: an (A) case, (B) case, and (C) case. The (A) case is set in 2006 and discusses the decision Tata…
Saumitra Jha, Debra Schifrin
2012
Managing Local Political Risk: Parking the Tata Nano highlights the role of political geography in shaping risks to businesses. The case has three parts: an (A) case, (B) case, and (C) case. The (A) case is set in 2006 and discusses the decision Tata…
Shelley Correll, Debra Schifrin, Sarah Soule
2012
The (B) case reveals Mae O’Malley’s decision to grow her law firm, Paragon Legal, in the San Francisco area for two to three years, and then think about expanding to new geographical areas. O’Malley wanted Paragon Legal to grow organically so it could…
Mark Leslie, Sara Rosenthal
2012
This case, GSB No. E-459, explores the SeaMicro CEO’s decision of whether or not to sell the company in early 2012. SeaMicro, a developer of low-power servers, has risen quickly as an innovative and significant force in a server market dominated by…
Gina Jorasch, Michael Kennedy, Jesper Sorensen
2012
D.light is one of the leading manufacturers of solar powered lighting technology specifically designed for use by the world’s poorest, bottom of the pyramid customers. Having sold over 7 million lights since 2007, the company has been relatively…
William Meehan III, Paul Pfleiderer, Michael Kennedy, Debra McCoy, Sheila Melvin
2012
This case describes the co-founders and leadership team of Asia Alternatives Management (“Asia Alt”), a private equity fund-of-funds focused on Asia, as they consider whether or not to invest in Vietnam. The case recounts the history of Asia Alt and its…
Russell Siegelman, Sara Rosenthal
2012
The Sustainable Conservation case presents the story of San Francisco-based nonprofit that was founded to solve environmental problems in California through collaborative partnerships between the public and private sector. The nonprofit had built up…
Robert Burgelman, Robert Siegel, Scott Nolan
2012
Flibe Energy is a startup in the nuclear power space seeking to find a safe way to enable nuclear energy using a technology previously dismissed by the US government since it could not be used for making material for nuclear weapons. The founders believe…
Robert A Burgelman, Robert E Siegel, Rosy Lee
2012
On June 12, 2008, Invitrogen and Applied Biosystems announced plans to merge. The combined company was to be renamed Life Technologies (NASDAQ: LIFE). Invitrogen offered to acquire Applied Biosystems for $6.7 billion in cash and stock. AB shareholders…
Robert A. Burgelman, Robert E. Siegel, Rosy Lee
2012
Founded in 1987, Invitrogen was one of the largest catalog life science companies in the industry. Its customers came from academic research, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies and government laboratories. Scientists viewed Invitrogen as a one…
Mark Leslie, Kirk Bowman, Sara Rosenthal
2012
These three short vignettes involve challenges faced by Andrew Markham, the CEO of Sage Networks. In the first, Markham believes that one of his VPs, Robert Salinas, may be having covert discussions with the CEO of a competitive company to discuss the…