How to Get a Slice of Harvard's Billion Dollar Case Study Industry | My First Million #222

About this video

Sam and Shaan discuss several business topics including Harvard Business School’s surprisingly large publishing revenue (Harvard Business Review generates ~$262M annually, mostly from case studies), the ethics of ‘fake it till you make it’ culture exemplified by Theranos and Nikola Motors, and how investors often do minimal due diligence. They also mention Shaan’s NFT auction of ‘five minutes of fame’ on their podcast that sold for ~$33,000, and touch on Canva’s founder story.

Key takeaways

• Harvard Business Review generates approximately $262M annually (mostly from case studies to universities), making it more profitable per employee than The New York Times or The Economist; the entire Harvard Business School enterprise is worth ~$50B+ including endowment, making it one of the most valuable educational businesses despite operating as a non-profit
• The ‘fake it till you make it’ mentality in tech has enabled fraud (Theranos, Nikola, HeadSpin), but most investors do minimal financial due diligence and rely heavily on founder reputation and basic product testing; however, long-term reputation matters more in traditional venture capital than in crypto or other industries
• There’s a business opportunity to create niche-specific case studies and community platforms (similar to Gartner’s model) targeting industries with high-wallet decision-makers, particularly crypto, where enterprises would pay $25-100K annually for curated intelligence and executive education

Episode details: published September 29, 2021 · 11K views · 1:05:33 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. The business ideas, figures and results discussed are the hosts’ and guests’ own claims, shared as brainstorming and entertainment — not verified facts and not investment advice.

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