Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 30, 2011

Yelp's IPO filing comes hot on the heels of successful IPOs and high valuations for Angie's List and Groupon. In a recent paper , I combined Yelp ratings with restaurant revenues for every restaurant that operated in Seattle during Yelp's entire run there. The evidence shows that it does.

IPO 14

IPO Business Model Review Advertising 14

N2Growth Blog

FEBRUARY 8, 2019

Maybe you’re prepping for the IPO. And, you operate in a fishbowl. You came up with an awesome idea. Your singular focus has been to make it real. You started a company. You got funding. Maybe you’re looking for Series B or C funding now. Congratulations! You’re ready to scale or go public. You’ve gotten this far. What could go wrong?

Delegation 221

Delegation Maturity CEO Execution 221

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 15, 2018

They therefore seek investors who understand their initial losses and can facilitate secondary rounds of funding when their operations grow. Gone is the heyday of the 1990s when firms with simply an idea and little or no revenues could do an IPO. Digital startups often seek to grow quickly and so report large losses.

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist IPO Company Kleiner 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 11, 2018

To focus on businesses that are closer in spirit to the prototypical high-tech startup, we used a variety of indicators: whether the firm was granted a patent, received VC investment, or operated in an industry that employs a high fraction of STEM workers. These highest-performing firms were identified based on employment growth.

Succession 15

Succession IPO Entrepreneur Biotechnology 15

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 63

IPO Real Estate Cost Company 63

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 20, 2018

As a reminder, the dot-com crash was preceded by the dot-com bubble, a five-year period from August 1995 (the Netscape IPO) to March 2000 when there was massive wave of experiments on the then-new internet, including in commerce, entertainment, nascent social media, and search. IPOs dried up. Then one day it was over.

IPO 8

IPO First-mover Advantage Business Model Agility 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 26, 2011

A star example is Google, which raised a mere $40 million in private funding before its IPO at a $23 billion valuation. While there has not been a defining exit in clean energy akin to the "Netscape moment" for the internet, there have been numerous recent IPOs in the biofuels sector.

Energy 11

Energy Finance IPO Biotechnology 11

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 1, 2011

Microfinance has come under fire in the past 18 months, triggered in part by SKS Microfinance's IPO. Critics complain that the institutions supporting microfinance have become too greedy, and many are using this as an argument to deeply regulate or, even more, cut support to microfinance operations.

Microfinance 13

Microfinance IPO Bottom-up Finance 13

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. For these professionals, a future IPO is outweighed by today’s OPI — the opportunity for positive impact.

Motivation 11

Motivation IPO Norton Open-book 11

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

JULY 24, 2017

Major organizational changes, covering everything from recruiting and branding to regulatory approvals and marketing, happened in rapid succession, with a hard deadline of 12 months to get it all done for the IPO — and 18 months from the IPO until our full separation from GE.

Management 10

Management IPO Diversity Long-term 10

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 30, 2014

The typical enterprise software startup that IPOs is at least 7 years old (to say nothing of those that try and fail). In the year before Google IPO’d, it did about $962 million in revenue. Regardless of swings in the public markets, Page, Bezos, Immelt, and Rometty expect to stay in their jobs for a while.

Long-term 10

Long-term Innovation Company 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 28, 2016

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. Around the world, though, many countries still have domestic payment networks that operate as not-for-profit platforms. Now they are very focused on making money.

IPO 8

IPO Succession Technology Software 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 16, 2016

For example, as it grew, Facebook found that its early “move fast and break things” culture had to be funneled into focused technical teams and product groups to make its product development process faster and less erratic, and for it to have a chance of meeting the demands of its new public shareholders following its IPO.

Banking 13

Banking Strategy Film Operations 13

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 31, 2014

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? WordPress operates as an open-source ecosystem with a venture-backed corporation, Automattic , at its heart. The company has piles of money — $3.6

Marketing 9

Marketing IPO Venture Capitalist Fashion 9

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. In fact, we are really losing a lot of money.".

Christensen 19

Christensen Metrics Fixed Costs Business Model 19

Harvard Business Review

MAY 11, 2016

They operate platforms that make it easy and efficient for participants to connect and exchange value. And then many other companies that have IPO’d in the last decade, like Visa, which connects cardholders and merchants, and Facebook, which connects friends, advertisers, and developers.

Business Model 8

Business Model Participative IPO B2B 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 17, 2017

It’s far from the only case of a failure to embrace a more digital approach; the larger shift to digital is changing the way every industry operates. Some industries, like photography and media, were impacted earlier. Others, like financial services, are only now experiencing this change in earnest.

Industry 12

Industry Short-term Planning Long-term 12

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 30, 2018

Dara Khosrowshahi, the CEO of Uber, the ride-sharing giant, proudly declared on September 10 that “very few brands become verbs” The same week Upwork, a platform for hiring freelancers, filed for an IPO, as did Fiverr , which boasts that it offers a “freelance services marketplace for the lean entrepreneur.”

Quinn 10

Quinn Entrepreneur IPO Survey 10

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 28, 2014

billion IPO valuation in 2013) can be attributed to its continued focus on that target. Using brand personality in this way is not simply about developing creative communications; it’s about infusing every aspect of your operations with your unique character. How – personality. Harley-Davidson, Trader Joe’s, and The Honest Co.

Brand 9

Brand IPO Marketing Strategy Airlines 9

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 6, 2014

By mid-2004, however, the operation was mired in conflict over control and differences in management style. Zhou reportedly felt that the original Yahoos were overpaid and lazy, whereas the Yahoo team felt bullied and believed Zhou wasn’t focused on the Yahoo operations. We were ready to give Ma the keys to Yahoo’s operations in China.

Chief Financial Officer 9

Chief Financial Officer Learning-by-Doing Operations IPO 9

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 30, 2012

With the JOBS Act , the rise of international accelerators , the upcoming Facebook IPO , and the mind-blowing $1 billion Instagram acquisition , you can be sure that droves of young, ambitious founders will be jumping on the start-up bandwagon. It's been a banner year for start-ups.

Ries 16

Ries IPO Entrepreneur Maturity 16

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 18, 2014

However, cash flow from operations had shifted from positive to negative, the company’s cash pile was dwindling, and the new product would demand R&D investment. Then it cut general and administrative expenses and sales staff to contain operating losses. That helped BlueArc raise another $28 million in VC funds.

CFO 8

CFO Venture Funding IPO Retail 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

Nadathur's portfolio includes firms operating in drug discovery research, companion diagnostics, pharmaceutical analytics, reimbursement claims processing, patient relationship management, and specialty healthcare delivery for running clinical trials — and they all work together.

Marketing 15

Marketing Venture Capitalist Biotechnology IPO 15

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 4, 2016

But as a venture scales and becomes more complex , more operational and commercial sophistication is required to manage it. Silicon Valley lore offers examples of exceptional founder-CEOs, such as Salesforce.com’s Marc Benioff, who were able to lead their companies through an IPO.

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist Sample IPO Long-term 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 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. The tools used by Silicon Valley, London, and Paris to hire top talent — namely stock options — seldom work in Africa.

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist IPO Entrepreneur Banking 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

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 example, it is nearly impossible for scaling ventures in many countries, including Brazil and Denmark, to count on an IPO for a successful exit. Even better.

Entrepreneur 8

Entrepreneur IPO Incentives Venture Capitalist 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 17, 2015

operations in favor of financial performance. Such a move would provide options for IPOing some of these units, which would help Volkswagen raise the cash it needs to compensate unhappy customers, ride out decreases in revenue shortfalls, and pay the inevitable huge fines and legal fees that loom ahead.

CFO 8

CFO Crisis Mass Marketing IPO 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 29, 2015

Brian Fitzpatrick joined Google as a senior software engineer in 2005, shortly after the company’s IPO. He had no formal authority as a leader, operating without any title or mandate. Strategic leaders like Brian, who don’t hold positions of authority, operated in ways that were tailored to a less formal context.

Strategy 8

Strategy Power Idea Generation Engineering 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 24, 2013

It was the CEO''s incredible persistence (and experience) in all aspects of selling — sales organization, compensation, pipeline management, and selling skills — that not only saved Voltaire from oblivion, but eventually propelled it to a NASDAQ IPO. Without it, you will always be a mom-and-pop operation.

Entrepreneur 8

Entrepreneur IPO Open-book Marketing 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 10, 2011

Consider Zipcar, whose recent IPO valued the 11-year old company at over $1 billion. Unfortunately, Microsoft tied its tablet concepts to its Windows operating system and made them merely pen-enabled personal computers, so these products remained a tiny niche of the computing industry.

Venture Capitalist 12

Venture Capitalist Venture Funding Entrepreneur IPO 12

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

OCTOBER 7, 2016

Here’s a generalized scenario similar to cases we’ve experienced: A hot new mobile technology company lands one of the most successful IPOs of the year. Even a rumor of a breach can trigger a communications crisis. A hacker going by the name of ‘Tumbleweed’ enters a forum and brags that the device can be hacked.

Planning 9

Planning Company Crisis Brand 9