Valentine’s delivery: 14 million roses
February 14, 2011 by Brahm Canzer
Filed under Part 4: Marketing Management
Description: Valentine’s Day orders bring 20 percent of annual revenue for ProFlowers.
Source: CNNMoney.com – video report
Date: 02/11/2011
Link: http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2011/02/11/n_valentines_day_proflowers.cnnmoney/
Questions for discussion:
- Who is the target market and describe their buying behavior.
- How important is the Internet for this business?
- What do you think is the message intended and received when roses are sent on Valentine’s Day?
Surfer’s calendar site gives back
December 27, 2010 by Brahm Canzer
Filed under Part 1 Business in a Global Environment, Part 2 Starting and Growing Your Business
Description: Custom calendar site CalendarLink.org raises funds and spreads awareness for the California Surf Life Saving Association.
Source: CNNMoney.com – video report
Date: 12/22/2010
Link: http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2010/12/22/n_cc_tides_of_giving.cnnmoney/
Questions for discussion:
- How is this business socially responsible?
- Who are the target customers?
- What makes this business service unique?
- Describe the product strategy and how the Internet allows for customization to match local customer needs.
Getting the message out on Facebook
December 27, 2010 by Brahm Canzer
Filed under Part 2 Starting and Growing Your Business, Part 4: Marketing Management
Description: Small businesses are leveraging their profiles on Facebook to boost their business by keeping in close contact with customers.
Source: Reuters.com – video report
Date: 12/21/2010
Link: http://www.reuters.com/news/video/story?videoId=170540599&videoChannel=6
Questions for discussion:
- How does Facebook allow small businesses to better serve their target customers?
- How does Facebook differentiate itself on the Internet?
Groupon reportedly spurns Google’s billions
December 6, 2010 by Brahm Canzer
Filed under Part 2 Starting and Growing Your Business, Part 4: Marketing Management, Part 6 Managing Financial Resources
Description: Groupon Inc. has walked away from a Google Inc. acquisition offer worth as much as $6 billion, according to reports late Friday, appearing to set the stage for a Groupon IPO as soon as next year.
Source: Marketwatch.com – video report
Date: 12/04/2010
Link: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/groupon-reportedly-spurns-google-merger-2010-12-04
Questions for discussion:
- Do you think Groupon is overvalued in this proposed deal?
- How would you evaluate Groupon’s fair value from an acquisitions point of view?
- Why would the acquisition affect the value of Google shares?
Pirate Bay appeal falls on deaf ears
November 29, 2010 by Brahm Canzer
Filed under Part 1 Business in a Global Environment, Part 2 Starting and Growing Your Business, Part 4: Marketing Management
Description: In another blow to online file-sharing, a Swedish appeals court upheld on Friday the copyright convictions of three of the four founders of The Pirate Bay–perhaps the world’s most well-known and notorious file-sharing Web site.
Source: CNET.com
Date: 11/26/2010
Link: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20023915-93.html
Questions for discussion:
- What are the legal and ethical issues surrounding file-sharing?
- Do you agree with the comment made in the article suggesting that file-sharing will be finished in a couple of years?
- What drives file-sharing?
- What solutions are available to copyright holders?
digits: The Beatles Invade iTunes
November 22, 2010 by Brahm Canzer
Filed under Part 1 Business in a Global Environment, Part 2 Starting and Growing Your Business, Part 4: Marketing Management
Description: Beatles songs are finally available in Apple’s iTunes store. But ATD’s Peter Kafka says that iTunes is all about apps these days, while digital music sales have flattened out – and even the Fab Four may have a hard time changing that.
Source: Marketwatch.com – video report
Date: 11/16/2010
Questions for discussion:
- Who do you think will benefit more by the distribution of The Beatles music on iTunes?
- Who is the target customer for these songs?
- In the second report on iPads: how would you characterize the different groups of customers?
- How do you think customers will choose amongst the brands?
Start a small biz with $500
November 15, 2010 by Brahm Canzer
Filed under Part 1 Business in a Global Environment, Part 2 Starting and Growing Your Business, Part 4: Marketing Management
Description: Tweezerman founder Dal LaMagna says his company grew by being frugal with money and keeping stakeholders interests at heart.
Source: CNNMoney.com – video report
Date: 11/11/2010
Questions for discussion:
- Explain the global success of this game?
- What does its success suggest about consumer behavior?
- What need does this product satisfy for consumers?
- How do you explain the appeal of Monopoly in this age of electronic gadgetry?
Newsweek’s Printing Press Was a Top Draw for Diller
November 15, 2010 by Brahm Canzer
Filed under Part 2 Starting and Growing Your Business, Part 4: Marketing Management
Description: Barry Diller, who has spent the better part of a decade amassing a collection of Internet companies — a search engine here, a dating Web site there — has figured out how to help make the Internet work a little better for him. He is going into the magazine business.
Source: NYTimes.com
Date: 11/12/20
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/13/business/media/13mag.html?ref=business
Questions for discussion:
- What are the pros and cons of this merger?
- Do you think there are good synergies between the two organizations that suggest they can succeed?
Turning Customers Into Creators
October 25, 2010 by Brahm Canzer
Filed under Part 2 Starting and Growing Your Business, Part 4: Marketing Management
Description: A FEW young women are gathered around a conference table dotted with bottles of colorful vitamin drinks, iPod cables and slender laptops. A whiteboard with lime-green writing almost swallows a wall in the room.
Source: NYTimes.com
Date: 10/23/2010
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/business/24ping.html?ref=business
Questions for discussion:
- How is this sort of research superior to other forms of research into investigating customer behaviors?
- Do you think the participants are being truly honest in their feedback?
- Are there any drawbacks to this method of interacting with customers?
Startup Lessons Learned From a 20-Year-Old CEO
October 11, 2010 by Brahm Canzer
Filed under Part 2 Starting and Growing Your Business
Description: Meet Jessica Mah: The 20-year-old chief executive who’s on startup No. 3. She’s the CEO of InDinero, a Website that lets small businesses automatically track their finances with no data entry required. Barely a month after finishing the Silicon Valley startup incubator program Y Combinator, she scored $1 million in seed funding. Next on her to-do list: Find more paying customers, keep the 5,000 existing ones happy enough so they’ll tell their friends, and — per the advice of her Y Combinator adviser Paul Graham — not “screw things up.”
Source: BNET.com
Date: 10/04/2010
Questions for discussion:
- What did you learn about entrepreneurship by reading this interview with Jessica Mah?
- Does she fit the typical profile of an entrepreneur?
- What did you learn about starting up a business?
- After reading this interview, do you feel more motivated to consider starting up your own business?
