GovDelivery

Mitchell  Weiss

Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2015

GovDelivery

Abstract

Is government the biggest, worst customer in the world? And is that a reason for venture investors to back companies that sell to government or to stay away? It had been seven years since Scott Burns joined his friend Zach Stabenow to get a company called GovDocs off the ground. In that time, they had evolved from a provider of government-mandated labor law posters to the country's largest sender of government-to-citizen emails. GovDelivery, as the company became known, was one of the first companies to move governments into the cloud; one of the first to sell them software as a service (SaaS); and in 2007, the only one with 3 million citizens registered to use its platform to receive communications from federal, state, regional, and city governments and public authorities. In those seven years, Burns had raised capital from many sources: friends and family, angel investors, strategic partners, banks, and the investment arm of a major family fund. He and Stabenow had also grown the business through operating revenue and by keeping a tight watch on costs. They had to. Because growth capital had come in from almost all corners, expect one: major venture firms. Now, with roughly $6 million in annual revenue, and projections to double that within three years, Burns was prepping for discussions with half a dozen Tier 1 firms. In doing so, he was anticipating what he thought would be the "elephant in the room." GovDelivery's business-to-government revenue model had been a conversation-stopper with major investors looking at Burns' company and companies like it. What would he tell potential backers?

Keywords: GovDelivery; public entrepreneurship; B2G; Business-to-Government; Scott Burns; venture capital; Entrepreneurship; Government Administration; Venture Capital; Information Technology Industry; Public Administration Industry; Web Services Industry; Minnesota; United States;

Language: English

Format: Print

16 pages

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Citation:

Weiss, Mitchell. "GovDelivery." Harvard Business School Case 816-020, September 2015.

By April 7, 2020, over 1.4 million people worldwide had contracted the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Governments raced to curb the spread of COVID-19 by scaling up testing, quarantining those infected, and tracing their possible contacts. It had taken Singapore’s Government Technology Agency (GovTech) and Ministry of Health (MOH) all of eight weeks to develop the world’s first nationwide deployment of a Bluetooth-based contact tracing system, TraceTogether, and deploy it in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19. From late January to mid-March 2020, GovTech’s Jason Bay and his team raced to create a technology that would supplement the work of Singapore’s human contact tracers. Days after its launch, Singapore’s foreign minister announced plans to open source the technology. Now, in early April, TraceTogether was a beta for the world. Whether the system would really help in Singapore, and whether other countries should adopt it was still a wide-open question

Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | August 2019 (Revised February 2020)

Sidewalk Labs: Privacy in a City Built from the Internet Up

Leslie John and Mitch Weiss

Email mking@hbs.edu for a courtesy copy.

The case serves as a microcosm of issues of digital privacy: the availability of data – personal data in particular – has tremendous potential to improve people’s lives and commercial endeavors alike, but it also introduces a host of privacy perils. How can the benefits of this availability of personal data be realized while mitigating the pitfalls? Concern over firms’ use and misuse of consumers’ data has been increasing, fueling a debate surrounding the regulation of online privacy. In this case, students debate this question, and devise a framework of different approaches to resolving these issues.
The case provides a ripe area of inquiry for privacy issues: so-called “platform” companies, and especially platforms that run adjacent to, or even in public space. Cities are among the most ancient type of “platform,” providing a foundation for users of all types (individuals, organizations, companies) to interact, exchange, and innovate. Where platforms rely on users to generate and share data, privacy issues abound; Sidewalk Toronto is no exception.

Keywords: privacy; privacy by design; Privacy Regulation; platforms; data; data security; behavioral science; Data and Data Sets; Safety; Entrepreneurship; Business and Government Relations; Consumer Behavior;

Citation:

John, Leslie, and Mitch Weiss. "Sidewalk Labs: Privacy in a City Built from the Internet Up." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 820-023, August 2019. (Revised February 2020.) (Email mking@hbs.edu for a courtesy copy.) View Details

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