Curt Schilling's Next Pitch

Noam T. Wasserman; Jeffrey J. Bussgang; Rachel  Gordon

Case | HBS Case Collection | December 2009 (Revised June 2011)

Curt Schilling's Next Pitch

by Noam T. Wasserman, Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Rachel Gordon

Abstract

As his major-league pitching career was starting to wind down in 2006, baseball all-star Curt Schilling decided to become an entrepreneur. Looking to focus his tenacity and his passion for online role-playing games on a new challenge, he founded an online gaming venture, which later became known as 38 Studios. During the venture's first two years, he built a team of 70 people, including an executive team of business and industry veterans and learned key lessons about the challenges faced by industry-changing entrepreneurs. Wanting to self-fund the venture initially, and later finding it hard to raise outside money, he put a substantial percentage of his net worth on the line to build 38 Studios. Now he is facing a critical acquisition decision that could either double his problems or help solve them.

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Startups; Decision Choices and Conditions; Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; Leadership; Personal Development and Career; Groups and Teams; Video Game Industry;

Format: Print

29 pages

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Citation:

Wasserman, Noam T., Jeffrey J. Bussgang, and Rachel Gordon. "Curt Schilling's Next Pitch." Harvard Business School Case 810-053, December 2009. (Revised June 2011.)

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Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2018 (Revised January 2019)

ZappRx

Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Olivia Hull

In October 2015, ZappRx founder Zoe Barry is deciding between two business models for her health technology start-up. Her product, a software application that aims to expedite the prescription fulfillment process for patients with rare diseases, has attracted interest from specialty drug manufacturers who wish to build an exclusive platform for patients taking their medications. But Barry, against the advice of her management team, is considering an alternative business model, which would open the platform up to all manufacturers in a given disease area. Instead of financing product development through individual contracts, the comprehensive platform would be free to doctors and pharma alike and financed via an aggressive fundraising strategy and through the sale of the prescription data collected on the app. Barry is willing to take the risk, but her management team is staunchly opposed. Which path should ZappRx take? The case is a window into the early go-to-market and business model decisions that an entrepreneur must make, in this case in the face of pushback from her own management team. The case also provides a detailed picture of the specialty pharmaceutical industry and challenges students to think about target customer identification and talent management in a start-up environment.

Keywords: Speciality Drugs; Hub Services; Pivot; Speciality Prescriptions; Health Care and Treatment; Customization and Personalization; Online Technology; Business Model; Decision Choices and Conditions; Pharmaceutical Industry; Massachusetts;