Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 31, 2014

It’s still the users whose creating and sharing gives Twitter its value as a business, but their activities are now mostly channeled and managed by the company itself. billion in its 2013 IPO) that investors have plowed into it. Could Twitter have chosen not to follow the standard VC-to-IPO path that has brought it to this pass?

Marketing 9

Marketing IPO Venture Capitalist Fashion 9

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 21, 2016

When financial services company Square priced its IPO at $9 a share last November, well under the $15+ price that private investors paid the year before, it was a cold shower of reality for the 6-year-old company. Until the IPO, Square had been one of more than 130 unicorns: privately owned tech companies valued at $1 billion or more.

IPO 8

IPO Innovation Price Operations 8

Strategy Driven

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

When it comes to fulfilling this end, the usual route to going public involves an initial public offering , also known as an IPO. IPOs can confer great benefits on companies that are able to go through them. But IPOs also come with some steep costs and excessive risks. IPOs have huge costs and risks.

IPO 62

IPO Real Estate Cost Company 62

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 26, 2018

On February 13, 2018, the New York Times reported that Uber is planning an IPO. Twitter reported a loss of $79 million before its IPO, yet it commanded a valuation of $24 billion on its IPO date in 2013. Its value growth is powered by the network in place, not by increments of operating costs.

Company 8

Company Intangible Assets Depreciation IPO 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 16, 2011

This is the essence of Groupon's declaration last week that it will remove the controversial accounting metric called Adjusted Consolidated Segment Operating Income (ACSOI) from its financial statements. The best way to manage a fledgling business is for managers to be impatient for profit but patient for growth.

Christensen 19

Christensen Fixed Costs Metrics Venture Funding 19

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 23, 2013

To a person, they look astonished when I ask whether their dedication comes from anticipation of the money they could make in the event of an IPO. One person says that he can’t let himself think about an IPO. One sales manager, a former actor, recited Shakespeare at a customer meeting and won over skeptical executives.

Motivation 11

Motivation IPO Norton Open-book 11

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 30, 2014

The M&A markets are frothy, corporations are investing in Silicon Valley labs, and even PhDs looking for jobs in business schools are finding it tough to find homes without “innovation” somewhere in their background. But it’s an idea that demands attention, investment, and a long view of the market.

Long-term 10

Long-term Innovation Company IPO 10

Harvard Business Review

MAY 16, 2016

Strategic alignment, for us, means that all elements of a business — including the market strategy and the way the company itself is organized — are arranged in such a way as to best support the fulfillment of its long-term purpose. But corporate leaders today seem to agree that strategic alignment is high on the list.

Banking 14

Banking Strategy Film Operations 14

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 6, 2014

At the time, though, we were just in search of a new approach to building a sustainable business in that critical but often difficult market. In fact, you could say (and many did) that our previous attempts had failed, in that we hadn’t established a sustained market position. Things hadn’t gone well up until that point.

Chief Financial Officer 10

Chief Financial Officer Operations Learning-by-Doing IPO 10

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 2, 2013

Today’s model is using African diasporas where companies hire native Africans living abroad and then send them to the continent to expand their operations. With Facebook’s $115 billion market cap on its IPO day, Mark Zuckerberg created wealth nearly equivalent to half of Nigeria’s GDP in 2012. Education drives technology.

Education 8

Education Technology IPO GDP 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 4, 2016

To borrow an analogy from our Harvard Business School colleague Shikhar Ghosh, their firms aren’t murdered by the market; they commit suicide because the founders can’t or won’t adapt to the organizations’ changing needs. Also, there is a difference between managing scale and getting to scale.

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist Sample IPO Long-term 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 18, 2014

The company was hell-bent on entering a new market but knew it had to automate its warehouse to do so. BlueArc’s devices were high-end, but its management believed it needed a mid-priced product to get it through the recession. Then it cut general and administrative expenses and sales staff to contain operating losses.

CFO 8

CFO Venture Funding IPO Retail 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 10, 2016

On August 1 Uber announced that it is selling its Chinese brand and operations to Didi Chuxing for $1 billion, its annual burn rate in that market, in exchange for a 20% stake in the local competitor. The $1 billion burn rate in China was reportedly holding up its IPO, not just its expansion in other parts of the world.

Network Economy 8

Network Economy Globalization Discount Constraint 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 24, 2015

The first category is exogenous factors over which the business has little control: the growth of the markets into which it sells; the competitive intensity and thus the average profitability of the industry in which it operates; or the fragmentation of its industry and thus the scope for a growth-by-acquisition approach.

Chemicals 8

Chemicals How To Kahneman Reputation 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 28, 2016

Both associations managed their brands and ran the clearing and settlement systems for banks that issued cards or helped merchants accept cards. Then the banks decided to turn the associations into for-profit companies, IPO them, and cash out. MasterCard IPO’d in 2006, and Visa followed two years later.

IPO 8

IPO Succession Technology Software 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 13, 2015

With limited exit opportunities via initial public offers ( IPOs ) and acquisitions, smart young people understand that stock options rarely bring a big payday. He invested in training his staff, but that backfired as those individuals then became more marketable and moved on.

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist IPO Entrepreneur Banking 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 17, 2015

In managing the fallout from BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster in 2010, company Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg had to take over from CEO Tony Hayward, whose gaffes and public blaming of partners had only exacerbated the crisis. operations in favor of financial performance. Take the case of BP.

CFO 8

CFO Crisis Mass Marketing IPO 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 7, 2016

Few things are more damaging to a brand’s reputation than a hack in the headlines, and in the event of a public security incident, it’s highly likely that the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and the Chief Security Officer (CSO) will be the first people the CEO looks to and says “What do we do now?”

Planning 9

Planning Company Crisis Brand 9

Harvard Business Review

MAY 24, 2013

In the book, I tell the stories of scale-up entrepreneurs from around the world, and how they beat the odds to make a mark on their markets. I used to think our great technology would take us to leadership in our market — now I realize it is our team, our organization, our marketing and our ambition to sell.

Entrepreneur 8

Entrepreneur IPO Open-book Marketing 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 25, 2014

After five years, in 2004, Tickle was profitable with more than $20 million in revenue; it received an acquisition offer for $100 million, as well as IPO entreaties. The most important way to mitigate risk is to become excellent at either engineering, product, selling, or operations and management.

Career 8

Career Company IPO Christensen 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 10, 2013

I met Slovenian entrepreneur, Sandi Cesko, in 2007 when his Ljubljana -based multi-channel retail operation, Studio Moderna , had about $70 million in sales. For you entrepreneurs, the challenges of scale-up are first and foremost the responsibility of managements and boards. It is hell to manage.". Even better.

Entrepreneur 8

Entrepreneur IPO Incentives Venture Capitalist 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 12, 2011

For organizations like Groupon, a reputation for integrity and fair trading is much of what their business is predicated upon, especially now that others are nipping at their heels in the world of discount deals and looking so carefully at their corporate structure as Groupon prepares for its IPO. Social media is a frontline service.

Media 14

Media IPO Reputation Follow-up 14

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 5, 2011

Since at least the 1980s (the era of deregulation, that is, over which Alfred Kahn presided) managers of big companies have been upbraided for their intolerance to risk. Perhaps not surprisingly, managers of mega corporations remain largely unsold on that notion. Certainly, that's a fair accusation. First, why is it a sector?

Entrepreneur 14

Entrepreneur Innovation Intellectual Capital Mission Statement 14

Harvard Business Review

MAY 30, 2013

A good management team will be dedicated to creating product market fit, otherwise the business will flounder. Investors are involved for the long haul, understanding that startup managers will have to experiment and fail along the way to a successful IPO. In a good start-up, these characteristics are not hard to find.

Company 9

Company Ries Maturity Innovation 9

Harvard Business Review

JULY 27, 2017

To fill the void and build such a new BMW startup unit, Gimmy partnered with an experienced innovation manager from BMW, Matthias Meyer. Third, corporate VCs and accelerators are costly and complex to operate, turning them into a slow and expensive innovation tool. Top startups already have market leading solutions.

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist Meyer Innovation Fixed Costs 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 27, 2018

stock exchanges has declined by almost 50% from its peak in 1996, despite dramatic increase in aggregate market capitalization. They operate as lean organizations, using cloud and internet-based infrastructure, and launch and distribute products more quickly than did firms that competed with factories, warehouses, inventories, and suppliers.

IPO 11

IPO Company First-mover Advantage Intangible Assets 11

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 7, 2017

Just as striking is her description of Uber’s HR organization, which advised Fowler that because the manager in question was a high performer, HR did not feel comfortable punishing him. Today Uber is no startup, with 11,000 employees, not including its drivers, and a 2017 market value at IPO that is estimated as $28–$70 billion.

Compliance 11

Compliance Hedge Human Capital Finance 11

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 20, 2013

China leads all emerging markets with 89 companies on the latest Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest. To many skeptical consumers in developed markets, Brand China still means lower quality. Western brands also want access to China and recent global market turmoil has exposed many targets for astute Chinese brands.

Brand 8

Brand Globalization Company Development 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 19, 2017

went public in June, then saw its stock price fall 70%, making it the worst performing IPO of a major company so far in 2017. They argue that the market has become saturated because of the barriers to entry are low (do we really need 53 subscription box companies offering sex products?) that aggregate sales in the U.S.

IPO 8

IPO How To Metrics Bottom-up 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 8, 2013

operator of theme parks including SeaWorld and Busch Gardens, recently filed for an initial public offering (IPO). Best known for its aquatic shows featuring Shamu the killer whale , SeaWorld's IPO filing specifies that a key future growth strategy will be to "expand in-park per capita spending through new and enhanced offerings.by

Price 8

Price IPO Discount Bottom-up 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 9, 2010

She'd mentioned her business, Calidad de Vida, a group of day care centers for the elderly, and he'd peppered her with questions, explaining that he was interested not only as a doctor (he was the leading cardiothoracic surgeon at Madrid's best hospital) but also as a potential investor (he'd unloaded his stocks just before the market collapsed).

Case Study 13

Case Study Franchising Health Care Follow-up 13

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 10, 2015

Only a handful of so-called unicorns — companies that have achieved a valuation of over $1 billion in the last 10 years — come from Israel, and only one Israeli firm, Teva, ranks in the world’s 500 largest companies by market capitalization. In 2014, for example, 18 IPOs raised a record-breaking $9.8 We think so.

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist Entrepreneur Marketing IPO 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 20, 2017

DNA genetic testing company 23andMe fell behind on its communications with the FDA, resulting in a temporary ban on marketing the company’s personal genetic screening services to the public. A123 Systems promised to be a clean tech success with a soaring IPO in 2009. and shifts its local focus to engineering and testing.

Innovation 13

Innovation Productivity Products Venture Capitalist 13

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 10, 2013

Managers at companies like General Motors, Sears, and Eastman Kodak simply didn't have the tools to spot and respond to would-be disruptors. When a disruptive idea is first born, typically far away from the market's mainstream. A generation ago, incumbents that struggled to respond to disruptive innovations had an excuse.

Trends 8

Trends Disruptive Innovation Christensen Business Model 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 14, 2014

Its IPO in 1999 was a sensation ; by autumn 2000 its market capitalization topped $65 billion and the ratio of its stock price to the next year’s projected earnings was a staggering 483. Its high-end Internet routers were gaining share on market-leader Cisco, and the sky was the limit.

Hedge 8

Hedge Chief Technology Officer Maturity IPO 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 1, 2017

After all, most financial intermediaries themselves rely on a dizzying, complex, and costly array of intermediaries to run their own operations. After all, how do you cut cost from a business or market whose structure has fundamentally changed? Most firms cite opportunities to reduce friction and costs.

Finance 8

Finance IPO Banking Venture Capitalist 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 14, 2014

Alibaba, the Chinese internet titan that filed for an IPO in the U.S. last week, could be the largest tech IPO in history. Instead, it operates more like GE. But Alibaba doesn’t look much like Facebook, Google, or even Amazon. The article, by J. Ramachandran, K.S.

IPO 12

IPO Welch Strategy Long-term 12