Scaling Swagbucks (A)

Jeffrey F. Rayport; Matthew G. Preble

Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2018

Scaling Swagbucks (A)

by Jeffrey F. Rayport and Matthew G. Preble

Abstract

In early 2014, Chuck Davis (HBS '86) has joined Swagbucks as its first professional CEO to scale a successful and profitable brand promotion and consumer research business. Davis came into the job while serving as a venture partner at TCV, a growth stage VC firm, concurrent with TCV’s $60 million investment in the company. As a hired-gun CEO, Davis had grown and sold Shopzilla (formerly Bizate) to Scripps and then, again as CEO, Fandango to Comcast, so he had a well-honed playbook for scaling tech companies. But Swagbucks was different. Its founder Josef Gorowitz had grown Swagbucks by sourcing talent from family and friends – literally. The result was an organization built around a culture based in the deeply-held religious beliefs of the founding employees, nearly all of whom were ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jews. This presented challenges, starting with the requirement that the company shutter operations every week in observance of the Sabbath and throughout the year for major and minor Jewish holidays. Davis was on board to scale the business, but he wrestled with how exactly to mainstream its culture without breaking the thing that had made Swagbucks successful.

Keywords: loyalty management; scaling; Scale; Entrepreneurship; Human Resources; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Design; Leading Change; Growth Management; Religion; Technology; Online Technology; Internet; Transition; Leadership; Web Services Industry; Technology Industry;

Language: English

Format: Print

22 pages

Educators

Citation:

Rayport, Jeffrey F., and Matthew G. Preble. "Scaling Swagbucks (A)." Harvard Business School Case 818-070, January 2018.

Chef Wolfgang Puck oversees a disparate business empire that includes fine dining restaurants, a catering business, and various licensed products that run from cookware, to soup, to fast-casual restaurants. His businesses activities are divided between three separate entities—Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group, Wolfgang Puck Catering, and Wolfgang Puck Worldwide—that share some formal and informal linkages. But the key person holding this all together is Wolfgang Puck himself. Now in his late 60s, Puck wonders what he needs to formalize—in terms of systems, processes, and management—to ensure that his different businesses will endure long after he is no longer involved in the day-to-day management of these three businesses.

Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2017 (Revised January 2019)

FJ Management Inc.

Lynda M. Applegate and Matthew G. Preble

In late 2015, Crystal Call Maggelet, president and CEO of FJ Management, is working with her investment committee to help set the company’s strategic direction. Maggelet, daughter of the company’s founder, has led FJ Management since 2009 when she stepped in as CEO following an unexpected bankruptcy. At that time, FJ Management was known as Flying J. Flying J owned and operated hundreds of truck stops—which it called Travel Plazas—nationwide and was a growing multi-billion dollar business, but broader problems in the oil and credit markets in late 2008 forced it to declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Maggelet, who had been serving on Flying J’s board, became its new CEO and was able to successfully manage competing stakeholder demands, keep the business running, and ultimately paid back every dollar it owed to its creditors by selling the company’s core assets—its travel plazas—to its main competitor in 2010. Since that time, the company had returned to a healthy financial position, diversified its holdings, and made investments in diverse industries to determine how to grow the company, since renamed FJ Management. In 2015, Maggelet now wants to set a clear path forward for the company.

Keywords: turnaround; family business; transformation; Volatility; change management; entrepreneurship; ethics; moral sensibility; Values and Beliefs; Cash flow; insolvency and bankruptcy; financial liquidity; financial management; governance; corporate governance; governance controls; company history; leadership; leading change; crisis management; negotiation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; family ownership; business and stakeholder relations; Business Strategy; Family Business; Transformation; Volatility; Change Management; Entrepreneurship; Ethics; Moral Sensibility; Values and Beliefs; Cash Flow; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Financial Liquidity; Financial Management; Governance; Corporate Governance; Governance Controls; Leadership; Leading Change; Crisis Management; Negotiation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Family Ownership; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Business Strategy; Energy Industry; Travel Industry; Retail Industry; Service Industry; Utah;

Citation:

Applegate, Lynda M., and Matthew G. Preble. "FJ Management Inc." Harvard Business School Case 818-028, September 2017. (Revised January 2019.) View Details

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Railroad magnate Jay Gould, a controversial figure in the history of U.S. capitalism, was a disruptive influence on an industry that had previously relied on formal and informal agreements to move traffic long distances across lines operated by different companies. Gould and his competitors replaced these agreements with consolidation and system-building, a process which led to the rise of government regulation of railroads in the 1880s and to widespread railroad bankruptcies in the 1890s. This case explores the growth of early American railroads, places Gould’s career in context (including his famous attempt to corner the U.S. gold market), and demonstrates the implications of his activities on competitive dynamics in the railroad industry.

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Scaling Swagbucks (A)

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