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Sometimes we desire change, a break from the same or an opportunity to fulfill different aspects of our needs. Noting that consumers seek variety,...
Abstract. Over the past decade "freemium" (free + premium) has become the dominant business model among internet start-ups for its ability to acquire...
- May 2021
- Case
Headspace vs. Calm: A Mindful Competition
By: Ayelet Israeli and Anne Wilson
By 2021, the mindfulness app wars reached their apex. Over 2,000 meditation apps were available to consumers, but two apps, Headspace and Calm, dominated the space, jointly holding about 70% of the total market. Headspace had established itself as the approachable...
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Keywords:
Marketing Communication;
Integrated Strategy;
Brand;
Brand ＆ Product Management;
Brand Communication;
Brand Differentiation;
Brand Building;
Brand Management;
E-commerce;
E-Commerce Strategy;
Ecommerce;
App;
App Development;
Applications;
COVID;
COVID-19;
Pandemic;
Pricing;
Pricing Strategy;
Subscription Model;
Subscription;
Partnerships;
Strategic Partnerships;
B2B Vs. B2C;
B2B;
Health ＆ Wellness;
Wellbeing;
Digitization;
Commoditization;
Mobile App;
Mobile App Industry;
Mobile Healthcare;
Mobile Marketing;
Digital Brand;
Digital Health;
Digital Marketing;
Consumer Health;
Apps;
Online Business;
Online Competition;
Online Community;
Online Entertainment;
Entertainment And Leisure;
Meditation;
Marketing;
Marketing Communications;
Brands and Branding;
Price;
Strategy;
Competition;
Competitive Strategy;
Competitive Advantage;
Partners and Partnerships;
Health;
Well-being;
Mobile Technology;
Communication;
Communication Strategy;
Disruption;
Consumer Behavior;
Online Advertising;
Health Industry;
Technology Industry;
Communications Industry;
United States;
North America;
United Kingdom
- May 2021
- Supplement
Hello Alfred: Come Home Happy — Operating the Business Model Exercise, Instructor Version
By: Joseph B. Fuller and Christopher Payton
On a mission to "automate the on-demand economy," Harvard Business School classmates Marcela Sapone and Jessica Beck launched Hello Alfred in 2013 to provide subscribers with an "Alfred" to complete various chores for a monthly fee. In early 2016, the company has built...
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- April 2021
- Case
Social Media War 2021: Snap vs. Facebook vs. TikTok
By: David B. Yoffie and Daniel Fisher
This case explores the competitive war between Snap, Facebook, and TikTok in 2021. The strategic focus is on Snapchat: how should it respond to the emergence of TikTok, and how should it compete with the dominant competitor in its space—Facebook. The case examines...
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- April 2021
- Case
Codecademy: Where to Next?
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Max Mailman and Sarah Ascherman
In March 2020, Zach Sims, co-founder and CEO of online education platform Codecademy, prepared for a meeting with his Chief of Staff Kunal Ahuja to discuss the company’s goals. Codecademy billed itself as the largest online resource for computer science literacy and...
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Keywords:
Monetization Strategy;
Business Model;
Change Management;
Venture Capital;
Leading Change;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Growth Management;
Management Teams;
Marketing Channels;
Product Marketing;
Network Effects;
Product Development;
Organizational Change and Adaptation;
Strategic Planning;
Online Technology;
Technology Platform;
United States
- 2021
- Working Paper
Diagnosing Quality: Learning, Amenities, and the Demand for Health Care
By: Achyuta Adhvaryu, Emilio Gutierrez, Anant Nyshadham and Jorge Tamayo
We study the role of amenities in increasing demand for underutilized healthcare services. We evaluate the offer of a high-amenity diagnostic consultation for cataracts with a randomized price and find that a lower price for the high-amenity consultation increases...
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- April 2021
- Teaching Note
Drinkworks: Home Bar by Keurig
By: Sunil Gupta and Jonathan Levav
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 521-010. In the summer of 2018, Drinkworks CEO Nathaniel Davis needed to make a number of go-to-market decisions ahead of his company’s upcoming product launch. Formed through a joint venture between Keurig Dr. Pepper and Anheuser-Busch...
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Keywords:
Marketing;
Marketing Strategy;
Product Marketing;
Product Launch;
Product Positioning;
Markets;
Bids and Bidding;
Demand and Consumers;
Consumer Behavior;
Market Design;
Distribution;
Distribution Channels;
Product;
Product Design;
Product Development;
Business Model;
Customers;
Customer Value and Value Chain;
Decision Making;
Decisions;
Goods and Commodities;
Innovation and Invention;
Technological Innovation;
Business or Company Management;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Research;
Research and Development;
Strategy;
Adoption;
Competitive Advantage;
Segmentation;
Technology;
Hardware;
Value;
Value Creation;
Consumer Products Industry;
Consumer Products Industry;
North and Central America;
United States
- April 2021
- Article
Homing and Platform Responses to Entry: Historical Evidence from the U.S. Newspaper Industry
By: K. Francis Park, Robert Seamans and Feng Zhu
We examine how heterogeneity in customers’ tendencies to single-home or multi-home affects a platform’s competitive responses to new entrants in the market. We first develop a formal model to generate predictions about how a platform will respond. We then empirically...
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- March 17, 2021
- Other Article
Beyond Pajamas: Sizing Up the Pandemic Shopper
By: Ayelet Israeli, Eva Ascarza and Laura Castrillo
A first look at how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted e-commerce apparel shopping in the US and the UK. Extensive analysis and interactive graphics utilizing millions of transactions.
While the pandemic is still playing out, our preliminary investigations... View Details
While the pandemic is still playing out, our preliminary investigations... View Details
Keywords:
Retail;
Retail Analytics;
Consumer;
Pandemic;
COVID;
COVID-19;
Apparel;
Ecommerce;
E-commerce;
Online Shopping;
Online Apparel;
Online Sales;
Returns;
CRM;
Customer Retention;
Customer Experience;
Customer Value;
Digital;
Customer Focus and Relationships;
Customers;
Health Pandemics;
Consumer Behavior;
Customer Relationship Management;
Online Technology;
Behavior;
Retail Industry;
Apparel and Accessories Industry;
Technology Industry;
United States;
United Kingdom
- March 2021
- Teaching Note
Afterpay U.S.: The Omnichannel Dilemma
By: Antonio Moreno and Anibha Singh
In 2018, Nick Molnar, the founder of the Australia-based online payment service Afterpay began its expansion to the U.S. market. The service had gained a loyal following in Australia by enabling customers to pay for online purchases through four interest-free...
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Keywords:
Online Advertising;
Business Startups;
Business Growth and Maturation;
Business Model;
Business Organization;
For-Profit Firms;
Change Management;
Customer Value and Value Chain;
Customer Relationship Management;
Customer Satisfaction;
Financing and Loans;
Microfinance;
Global Strategy;
Marketing Strategy;
Market Entry and Exit;
Market Platforms;
Multi-Sided Platforms;
Product Development;
Supply Chain Management;
Business and Stakeholder Relations;
Networks;
Network Effects;
Online Technology;
Financial Services Industry;
Technology Industry;
United States;
Australia
- 2021
- Working Paper
Information Spillovers in Experience Goods Competition
By: Zhuoqiong Charlie Chen, Christopher Stanton and Catherine Thomas
When experience goods compete, consuming one product can be informative about value for similar untried products. We study a two-period model of duopoly competition in markets that have this feature and where firms can price discriminate between consumers based on...
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- February 2021 (Revised May 2021)
- Case
SafeGraph: Selling Data as a Service
By: Ramana Nanda, Abhishek Nagaraj and Allison Ciechanover
Set in January 2021, the CEO of SafeGraph, a four-year-old startup that sold Data as a Service, looked to the future. His aim was to become the most trusted source for data about a physical place. The company provided points of interest (POI) and foot traffic data on...
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- February 2021 (Revised July 2021)
- Case
TikTok in 2020: Super App or Supernova?
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Dan Maher and Dan O'Brien
TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, was launched in 2012 around a simple idea – helping users entertain themselves on their smartphones while on the Beijing Subway. In less than a decade, it had become one of the world’s most valuable private companies, with investors...
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Keywords:
Business Model;
Business Startups;
Business Organization;
Change Management;
Disruption;
Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues;
Global Strategy;
Health Pandemics;
Innovation Strategy;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Growth Management;
Brands and Branding;
Marketing Strategy;
Marketing Channels;
Network Effects;
Two-Sided Platforms;
Product Design;
Product Development;
Partners and Partnerships;
Opportunities;
Social Issues;
Mobile Technology;
Online Technology;
Value Creation;
United States;
China
- February 2021
- Teaching Plan
Soofa: Displaying the Right Path?
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Amy Klopfenstein
This teaching plan serves as a supplement to the case “Soofa: Displaying the Right Path?” HBS 820-098. The case explores the tension between two different financing and expansion plans for a startup, and explores issues related to business model pivots and industry...
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Keywords:
Business Ventures;
Business Model;
Business Plan;
Business Startups;
Entrepreneurship;
Decision Making;
Decisions;
Judgments;
Ethics;
Geography;
Geopolitical Units;
Finance;
Investment;
Markets;
Market Entry and Exit;
Demand and Consumers;
Media;
Society;
Urban Development;
Sustainable Cities;
Technology;
Hardware;
Technology Platform;
Strategy;
Business Strategy;
Expansion;
Relationships;
Capital;
Venture Capital;
Advertising Industry;
Technology Industry;
Media and Broadcasting Industry;
North and Central America;
United States;
Massachusetts;
Cambridge
- 2021
- Working Paper
Consuming Contests: Outcome Uncertainty and Spectator Demand for Contest-based Entertainment
By: Patrick J. Ferguson and Karim R. Lakhani
Contests that are designed to be consumed for entertainment by non-contestants are a fixture of economic, cultural and political life. In this paper, we examine whether individuals prefer to consume contests that have more uncertain outcomes. We look to...
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- 2021
- Working Paper
The Health Costs of Cost-Sharing
By: Amitabh Chandra, Evan Flack and Ziad Obermeyer
We use the design of Medicare’s prescription drug benefit program to demonstrate three facts about the health consequences of cost-sharing. First, we show that an as-if-random increase of 33.6% in out-of-pocket price (11.0 percentage points (p.p.) change in...
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- January 2021
- Supplement
Bespoken Spirits: Disrupting Distilling
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher
On October 7, 2020, Bespoken Spirits publicly announced it had received $2.6 million of seed funding for its “sustainable maturation process,” a process that could produce award-winning whiskeys in just days rather than years using a novel technology and data science. ...
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Keywords:
Business Ventures;
Business Strategy;
Competitive Advantage;
Disruption;
Entrepreneurship;
Environmental Sustainability;
Cash Flow;
Disruptive Innovation;
Innovation Strategy;
Brands and Branding;
Business Model;
Consumer Products Industry;
Consumer Products Industry;
Consumer Products Industry;
United States;
California
- January 2021
- Case
Bespoken Spirits: Disrupting Distilling
By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher
On October 7, 2020, Bespoken Spirits publicly announced it had received $2.6 million of seed funding for its “sustainable maturation process,” a process that could produce award-winning whiskeys in just days rather than years using a novel technology and data science. ...
View Details
Keywords:
Business Ventures;
Business Strategy;
Competitive Advantage;
Disruption;
Entrepreneurship;
Environmental Sustainability;
Cash Flow;
Disruptive Innovation;
Innovation Strategy;
Brands and Branding;
Business Model;
Consumer Products Industry;
Consumer Products Industry;
Consumer Products Industry;
United States;
California
- January 2021 (Revised March 2021)
- Case
Arçelik: From a Dealer Network to an Omnichannel Experience
By: Ayelet Israeli and Fares Khrais
Arçelik Turkey, the country’s market leader in household appliances, was at an omnichannel crossroads in January 2020. Arçelik was a B2B player utilizing a dealership network with an umbrella of brands and had one of the largest brick-and-mortar store networks in...
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Keywords:
Digital Transformation;
Digital Marketing;
Bricks And Mortar;
Franchise Management;
Franchising;
Dealer Network;
Dealers;
B2B;
B2B2C;
Tradition;
Culture Change;
Cultural Adaptation;
Omnichannel;
Omnichannel Retail;
Omni-channel;
Omnichannel Retailing;
Sales Channels;
Sales Channel Development;
Channel Management;
Channels Of Distribution;
Marketplace;
Platforms;
Collaboration;
Online Channel;
Online Data;
Online Sales;
Online Shopping;
Online;
Retail;
Retailing;
Disruption;
Transformation;
Franchise Ownership;
Change Management;
Partners and Partnerships;
Consumer Behavior;
Sales;
Online Technology;
Marketing Strategy;
Conflict and Resolution;
Conflict Management;
Organizational Culture;
Distribution Channels;
Consumer Products Industry;
Consumer Products Industry;
Consumer Products Industry;
Turkey
- January 2021
- Article
A Model of Relative Thinking
By: Benjamin Bushong, Matthew Rabin and Joshua Schwartzstein
Fixed differences loom smaller when compared to large differences. We propose a model of relative thinking where a person weighs a given change along a consumption dimension by less when it is compared to bigger changes along that dimension. In deterministic settings,...
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- 2021
- Working Paper
Inattentive Inference
By: Thomas Graeber
This paper studies how people infer a state of the world from information structures that include additional, payoff-irrelevant states. For example, learning someone’s effort from their observable performance may require accounting for the otherwise irrelevant role of...
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