More from the Author

• Case | HBS Case Collection | November 2019

  DeepMap: Charting the Road Ahead For Autonomous Vehicles

  Shane Greenstein and Nicole Tempest Keller

  An examination of the strategic and operating challenges that DeepMap faces in developing HD mapping software for the nascent autonomous vehicle market.   

  Citation:

  Greenstein, Shane, and Nicole Tempest Keller. "DeepMap: Charting the Road Ahead For Autonomous Vehicles." Harvard Business School Case 620-047, November 2019.  View Details

  CiteView DetailsEducators

  Related

• Case | HBS Case Collection | August 2019

  Twiggle: E-commerce with Semantic Search

  Shane Greenstein and Danielle Golan

  Four years after being founded, in 2014, by former Google executives Amir Konigsberg (CEO) and Adi Avidor (CTO), Twiggle had developed a search enhancement that plugged into an online merchant’s existing framework. The company utilized advanced structuring and linguistic tools to build search technology that understood shopper intent and matched it with the right products. Konigsberg and Avidor believed e-tailers were losing enormous revenue due to poor search results. The team built a set of proprietary tools that created a human-like understanding of customer queries in the e-commerce search experience, using natural language processing that translated text into meaning. The team also constructed a semantic model of the e-commerce world for three product domains: fashion, home and electronics. The resulting “ontology” was a set of concepts and categories in a subject area that showed their properties and the relations between them. Twiggle’s tools could also unlock significant online sales revenue by increasing click-through and add-to-cart rates, ultimately improving sales conversions. So far, the company had secured deals with more than half a dozen large e-commerce retailers, and could improve search results in three product categories: fashion, home, and electronics.
  The company initially targeted large direct-to-consumer e-commerce players. Yet the cofounders encountered challenges pursuing this type of customer. The customer acquisition process included lengthy, intensive face-to-face sales cycles, expensive and technologically complex proof-of-concept testing, and requests for customization. Konigsberg and Avidor wondered if they should expand their customer focus to target a wider set of smaller e-tailers that still had significant volumes of online search queries, but whose search quality tended to be less robust and might be easier to improve. They also contemplated a variety of growth opportunities.

  Keywords: e-commerce; search technology; customer acquisition; Online Technology; Technological Innovation; Commercialization; Growth and Development Strategy; Technology Industry; Israel;

  Citation:

  Greenstein, Shane, and Danielle Golan. "Twiggle: E-commerce with Semantic Search." Harvard Business School Case 620-025, August 2019.  View Details

  CiteView DetailsEducators

  Related

• Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | June 2019

  Zebra Medical Vision

  Shane Greenstein and Sarah Gulick

  Teaching note is meant to accompany Zebra Medical Vision case, which offers a look at a company’s decisions as a small startup competing with other startups and major technology companies. It also demonstrates the challenges faced by a machine learning company working on brand-new technology, including difficulties finding training data, hiring competition, and negotiating FDA approvals and other government regulations. Teaching Note for HBS No. 619-014.

  Keywords: Business Startups; Science-Based Business; Software; Patents; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Health Care and Treatment; Health Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; Technology Industry; Israel;

  Citation:

  Greenstein, Shane, and Sarah Gulick. "Zebra Medical Vision." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 619-053, June 2019.  View Details

  CiteView DetailsPurchase

  Related