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• Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | July 2019

  Arlan Hamilton and Backstage Capital

  Laura Huang

  Teaching Note for HBS No. 419-029. Frustrated by an inability to convince existing venture capital firms to invest in companies led by women, people of color, and LGBT founders, Arlan Hamilton started her own firm, Backstage Capital, in 2015. Hamilton understood the untapped potential of companies run by underrepresented founders, a group historically excluded from venture capital funding, and was eager to demonstrate the significant returns on investment in such companies. This case explores Hamilton’s nontraditional VC background and her mission to fund startups where at least one founder of the company identifies as a woman, person of color, or LGBT. Now, three years after its founding, Hamilton is considering launching both an accelerator and a fund that will invest exclusively in Black women.

  Keywords: black leadership; LGBTQ; people of color; Entrepreneurship; Mission and Purpose; Venture Capital; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Identity; Personal Characteristics; Prejudice and Bias; Social Issues; Diversity; Gender; Race;

  Citation:

  Huang, Laura. "Arlan Hamilton and Backstage Capital." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 420-010, July 2019.  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2019 (Revised June 2019)

  SoundCloud: Subscription Streaming?

  Ashish Nanda, Eric Van den Steen, Andy Wu, Jeffrey Boyar and Bonnie Bennett Slater

  Established in 2007, SoundCloud already boasted the second largest number of active music listeners among all streaming services and was recognized as the go-to platform for new artists by early 2014. Yet, its founders were questioning the robustness of the firm’s current focus on serving as a lab for emerging musical artists. They were wondering if the firm should instead enter the booming mainstream music streaming market.

  Keywords: audio; recording; artist; music; music downloads; streaming; radio; subscription; subscription model; mainstream; Growth; lawsuit; licensing; customers; platform; Pivot; Music Entertainment; Strategy; Leadership; Business Model; Decision Making; Advertising; Music Industry; Europe; Germany; Sweden; United States;

  Citation:

  Nanda, Ashish, Eric Van den Steen, Andy Wu, Jeffrey Boyar, and Bonnie Bennett Slater. "SoundCloud: Subscription Streaming?" Harvard Business School Case 719-430, January 2019. (Revised June 2019.)  View Details

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• Technical Note | HBS Case Collection | May 2019

  Nascent Platform Strategy: Overcoming the Chicken-or-Egg Dilemma

  Andy Wu, David R. Clough and Sasha Kaletsky

  This note provides a framework for addressing the classic chicken-or-egg dilemma facing entrepreneurs launching nascent multi-sided platforms. There are several conditions that lead to a difficult chicken-or-egg problem: strong network effects, high multi-homing costs, limited differentiation, and high other barriers to entry. To overcome this challenge and create competitive advantage by reaching critical scale in network size, there are three categories of solutions to the problem: increasing value, decreasing cost, or subsidizing value for the platform participants. For a multi-sided platform, there are also dynamic considerations for addressing whether to stage one side of the platform first or build both simultaneously.

  Keywords: Multi-Sided Platforms; Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Market Entry and Exit; Problems and Challenges; Competitive Advantage;

  Citation:

  Wu, Andy, David R. Clough, and Sasha Kaletsky. "Nascent Platform Strategy: Overcoming the Chicken-or-Egg Dilemma." Harvard Business School Technical Note 719-507, May 2019.  View Details

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