Chief

Katherine B. Coffman; Jeffrey J. Bussgang; Kathleen L. McGinn; Julia  Kelley; Amy  Klopfenstein; Katherine  Chen

Teaching Plan | HBS Case Collection | June 2020

Chief

by Katherine B. Coffman, Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Kathleen L. McGinn, Julia Kelley, Amy Klopfenstein and Katherine Chen

Abstract

Teaching Plan serves as a supplement to the case for “Chief: Role for Carolyn Childers” (920-019), “Chief: Role for Lindsay Kaplan” (920-020), and “Scaling at Chief” (920-021).

Keywords: Negotiation; Negotiation Tactics; Negotiation Participants; Agreements and Arrangements; Business Ventures; Business Startups; Business Model; Business Growth and Maturation; Demographics; Gender; Ownership; Ownership Stake; Strategy; Business Strategy; Expansion; Competition; Finance; Capital; Venture Capital; Service Industry; Technology Industry; North and Central America; United States; New York (city, NY); New York (state, US);

Language: English

Format: Print

21 pages

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Citation:

Coffman, Katherine B., Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Kathleen L. McGinn, Julia Kelley, Amy Klopfenstein, and Katherine Chen. "Chief." Harvard Business School Teaching Plan 920-033, June 2020.

Laura Behrens Wu, CEO of software start-up Shippo, prepares her pitch for a Series A funding round following a successful seed round. Customer adoption of Shippo’s e-commerce dashboard application, which allows small and medium retailers to compare delivery rates between shipping providers and print package labels, has been steady in the nine months since it went live. But traction with the firm’s developer friendly product, an API that allows large enterprise customers to automate their shipping needs, had initially been slow until one customer single handedly tripled the API label volume in late August. Now in November 2014, with nine months of runway remaining, Behrens Wu must decide where to direct the company’s limited resources. Should Shippo stay focused on the app while raising the next round of funding, pivot to an API-focused strategy, or pursue both products?

By August 2015, two-year-old mobile imaging software startup Lightricks had developed and released two best-selling paid mobile apps, grown to a team of 30, earned a revenue run rate of nearly $10 million, and achieved modest profitability. The bootstrapped company had explored raising funds, met with venture capital firms, and was presented with a term sheet. The cofounders believed the financing would allow them to scale up quicker, but they also worried about losing control of their company.

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