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Case
| HBS Case Collection
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2004
(Revised from original 2004 version)
Mavens & Moguls: Creating a New Business Model
by
Myra M. Hart, Victoria Winston and Kristin Lieb
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Abstract
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.