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Case HBS Case Collection August 2019 Rand Fishkin at Moz (A) |
In 2016, senior management at Moz, a venture capital–backed startup providing software tools for digital marketing professionals, must decide how to address a looming cash flow crisis precipitated by failed efforts to broaden its product line. Seattle-based Moz had originally focused only on search engine optimization (SEO) software. Aiming to accelerate growth, the startup had launched products targeted at content marketers, social media marketers, and small local businesses over the past three years. Adoption of these new products had been disappointing, and the resource drain and distraction of launching them had reduced the growth of Moz's core SEO product. Management was wrestling with whether to either 1) shut down or sell the new products or 2) double down on the new products, funding further investment in them by selling the core SEO business or milking it as a "cash cow."
Keywords: Startups; scaling; Entrepreneurship; Failure; Business Startups; Diversification; Growth Management; Technology Industry;
Eisenmann, Thomas R. "Rand Fishkin at Moz (A)." Harvard Business School Case 820-002, August 2019.
