Professional Documents
Culture Documents
2015
Articles | Books & Chapters | Cases | Core Curriculum
Course Modules | Simulations | Video
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programs, including online courses and simulations. In addition to material from
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NEW! CORE CURRICULUM READINGS
Core Curriculum Readings in Entrepreneurship cover the fundamental concepts,
theories, and frameworks that business students must learn. Authored by faculty at
Harvard Business School, each Reading is about 20-30 pages long and comes with
a Teaching Note, review questions, and exhibit slides. Many also include video clips
and Interactive Illustrations. The 11 Entrepreneurship Readings below are listed in one
potential teaching sequence:
CASES
Cases, slices of business life, focus on actual problems and decisions facing a company.
Students are challenged to put themselves in the protagonist’s place and suggest
business strategies, tactics, and solutions.
New Cases
500 Startups: Scaling Early-Stage Investing
Dave McClure, an outspoken personality in Silicon Valley, believes that the venture capital
industry is not innovating quickly enough. He seeks to scale 500 Startups, his early-stage
investment firm, into the first “guild-based” international venture capital group. Students
contrast 500 Startups’ investment strategy with that of more traditional funds.
TN Stanford University #E528
Andreessen Horowitz
Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm launched in 2009, has quickly broken into the
industry’s top ranks with its ability to invest in Silicon Valley’s most promising startups. The
case examines the firm’s organizational structure as well as the motivations and strategy of
its founders. Should it seek to double its scale over the next few years?
TN Harvard Business School #814060
2 ENTREPRENEURSHIP • 2015
Apple’s Core (Graphic Novel Version)
This short case introduces students to a variety of choices faced by founders, including
whether to quit a big-company job to found a new venture, whether to found with a best
friend, how to split the equity within the founding team, how to deal with tensions between
founders, and whether to take on outside investors who will change the strategy and team.
Harvard Business School #814059
Iora Health
Startup Iora Health takes a new approach to the management and delivery of healthcare.
By investing twice as much in primary care, the organization hopes to save over 20% on
total care by improving health and obviating the need for acute interventions. Iora is seeking
financing to fuel an aggressive growth strategy and must decide the best path forward.
Harvard Business School #814030
Skype: A Case Study of How Skype Derived “Place Surplus” in the Estonian Capital
of Tallinn
This case examines why Skype’s Scandinavian founders chose Tallinn, Estonia, to establish
their high-tech startup. Students consider Skype’s choices against the backdrop of post-
Soviet Estonia’s economic and industrial resurrection. TN INSEAD #INS380
Strava
Strava is a fast-growing social network for avid cyclists and runners. This case traces the
entrepreneurial journey of 2 serial entrepreneurs who were co-founders in a prior venture.
The protagonists must decide whether or not to accept the Series A investment terms from
their venture capitalists. Harvard Business School #814055
Popular Cases
ATH MicroTechnologies, Inc.
This case takes students through 5 stages of growth in an entrepreneurial startup in the
medical devices industry. At each stage, students must confront tensions in balancing profit,
growth, and control. TN Harvard Business School #108092
4 ENTREPRENEURSHIP • 2015
Design Thinking and Innovation at Apple
For years, Apple has been ranked the most innovative company in the world, but how it
has achieved such success remains mysterious because of the company’s obsession with
secrecy. This note considers the ingredients of Apple’s success and its quest to develop, in
the words of the late CEO Steve Jobs, “insanely great products.”
TN Harvard Business School #609066
RightNow Technologies
The founder and CEO of a CRM software startup must decide between an attractive
acquisition offer and the opportunity to go public. The case discusses the growth of the
company—including a lengthy discussion of entrepreneurial bootstrapping—as well as an
aborted IPO attempt in 2000. The central question is whether the company will create more
value by staying independent or by joining a larger organization.
TN Harvard Business School #805032
Brief Cases
Rigorous and compact, Brief Cases from Harvard Business School present realistic
management challenges for students to discuss.
Sugar Bowl
Shelby Givens has successfully transformed her family-owned bowling alley into an urban
lounge called Sugar Bowl. When investors offer to buy the business, Givens must evaluate
whether she should accept the offer or retain involvement in the venture she worked so hard
to create. TN Student and instructor spreadsheets available #913537 L
Multimedia Cases
Now available online, multimedia cases put students in the center of business dilemmas
by bringing concepts to life with animated charts, audio, and video segments.
Entrepreneurial Insights
Seven entrepreneurial leaders answer questions about building their companies. Questions
range widely across common business issues, including starting up, acquiring financing, and
planning for future challenges. TN #306703
ARTICLES
Articles from Harvard Business Review and other renowned journals provide up-to-the-
minute ideas from the best business thinkers.
New Articles
The CEO of Ozon on Building an e-Commerce Giant in a Cash-Only Economy
Maelle Gavet joined Ozon because she saw the company’s potential to become the Amazon
of Russia. Russians were going online at an extraordinary rate; if Ozon could figure out how
to deliver goods in an e-commerce market, despite the country’s shaky distribution systems,
its growth would skyrocket. Harvard Business Review #R1407A
6 ENTREPRENEURSHIP • 2015
Equity-Worthiness and Equity-Willingness: Key Factors in Private Equity Deals
While access to private equity funds (PEFs) provides a unique opportunity for firms
to set up sturdy growth paths, how PEFs select companies is an unknown process to
entrepreneurs and business owners. This study offers insights about the private equity
market to entrepreneurs searching for external capital. Business Horizons #BH631
So, You Want to Be an Entrepreneur? Lessons from the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for
Veterans with Disabilities
Based on helping dozens of military veterans refine their ideas for starting a business, this
article discusses a series of potential pitfalls that aspiring entrepreneurs—veterans and
civilians alike—must avoid in order to be successful. Business Horizons #BH577
Popular Articles
Beating the Odds When You Launch a New Venture
Great entrepreneurs don’t take risks—they manage them. Risks should be uncovered and
hedged in order of importance and affordability: deal-killers first, then the risk of settling too
early on a strategic direction, and finally operational risks that can be disposed of quickly
and cheaply. Harvard Business Review #R1005G
Books
The Architecture of Innovation: The Economics of Creative Organizations
New research has shed light on the role incentives can play in promoting new ideas. By
using the principles of organizational economics, this book explains how companies can
set the right incentives and time horizons for investments and create a robust innovation
infrastructure in the process. Available as an eBook. Harvard Business Review Press #10796
8 ENTREPRENEURSHIP • 2015
The First Mile: A Launch Manual for Getting Great Ideas into the Market
The first mile—where an innovation moves from an idea on paper to the market—is often
plagued by failure. This book focuses on that critical moment when an innovator moves
from planning to reality, and equips students with new tools, questions, and examples to
speed through this crucial early stage of innovation.
Available as an eBook. Harvard Business Review Press #10437
Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck: What It Takes to Be an Entrepreneur and Build a
Great Business
After extensive research across the globe, the authors found that every business-builder
holds a combination of 4 attributes: heart, smarts, guts, and luck. This book helps managers
understand which traits to “dial up” or “dial down” to increase their likelihood of success in
starting and growing a business.
Available as an eBook. Harvard Business Review Press #10253
The Innovator’s Method: Bringing the Lean Startup into Your Organization
Emerging from lean startup, design thinking, and agile software development, authors
Nathan Furr and Jeff Dyer developed the innovator’s method as an end-to-end process for
creating, refining, and bringing ideas to market.
Available as an eBook. Harvard Business Review Press #16914
The Risk-Driven Business Model: Four Questions That Will Define Your Company
Leaders who understand how the structure of their business model affects risk have the
power to create wealth, revolutionize industries, and shape a better world. The authors
describe a business model audit to determine what key decisions get made in a business,
when they get made, and why managers make the decisions they do.
Available as an eBook. Harvard Business Review Press #11534
Worthless, Impossible, and Stupid: How Contrarian Entrepreneurs Create and Capture
Extraordinary Value
This book is about how enterprising individuals around the world see value in situations
where others do not, use that perception to develop products and services that people
initially don’t think they want, and ultimately go on to realize extraordinary value for
themselves, their customers, and society. What these business builders have in common is a
contrarian mind-set that allows them to create opportunities and succeed where others see
nothing. Available as an eBook. Harvard Business Review Press #11143
Chapters
Getting from Plan A to Plan B and Beyond—Building a Better Business Model
Every aspiring entrepreneur has a Plan A, and virtually everyone believes that their Plan
A will work. Unfortunately, they are usually wrong. What often distinguishes successful
entrepreneurs is what they do when their first plan fails. Getting to Plan B and beyond
requires the development of a business model that really works.
From Getting to Plan B: Breaking Through to a Better Business Model #5357BC
COURSE MODULES
Course Modules offer a road map to the best teaching materials, with recommendations
on how to organize them. Each module suggests 4-6 items plus alternate suggestions.
Popular modules in Entrepreneurship include:
Entrepreneurial Finance
Identifying and Evaluating Opportunities
Managing and Harvesting Growth
Managing the Early-Stage Venture
“I used the startup game on the first day of an Entrepreneurship Strategy course for
MBA students. It ended up being a highlight of the quarter, and one that students kept
tying new materials and learning back to. The game was perfect for entrepreneurship
because it immediately forced students to think about ambiguity and the types of
tradeoffs that characterize entrepreneurship.”
– Review from the Harvard Business Publishing for Educators web site*
HARVARD MANAGEMENTOR®
Delivered entirely online, Harvard ManageMentor is the leading business reference from
business experts, featuring 44 self-paced modules that address the full spectrum of
management issues. Many modules are also available in Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin
and French. Modules in Entrepreneurship include:
VIDEO SHORTS
These free, short videos are all under 10 minutes long and illustrate a case’s central
learning objective. The streaming video is available to registered Premium Educators
at hbsp.harvard.edu. Cases with Video Shorts include:
12 E N T R E P R E N E U R S H I P • 2 0 1 5
Case Analysis Coach
IDEAL FOR STUDENTS NEW TO CASE LEARNING
The Case Analysis Coach is a self-paced tutorial that offers a concise introduction
to the key concepts required for the analysis of business case studies. Delivered
entirely online, the tutorial offers a framework that will prepare students for situations
including formal presentations, written reports, “cold calls” during classroom
discussion, and final exams.
The tutorial requires students to interpret both qualitative and quantitative data
and develop short- and long-term action recommendations. It also includes a
Case Analysis Worksheet that students can use repeatedly to analyze actual
cases assigned for coursework.
Seat Time:
30–120 minutes
(depending on the
depth of analysis
desired)
#4380
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