Fogdog

This case examines the growth and development of Fogdog, an online sporting goods retailers, from its inception, through several rounds of venture capital financing to IPO and ultimately its sale to Global Sports – one of its publicly traded competitors. The Fogdog history in the late 1990s when the Internet economy was virtually exploding with new opportunities. Built to capitalize on the new medium of the Internet, Fogdog faced a number of specific questions to the unique economic climate sur … Read more »

This case examines the growth and development of Fogdog, an online sporting goods retailers, from its inception, through several rounds of venture capital financing to IPO and ultimately its sale to Global Sports – one of its publicly traded competitors. The Fogdog history in the late 1990s when the Internet economy was virtually exploding with new opportunities. Built to capitalize on the new medium of the Internet, Fogdog faced a series of questions specific to the unique economic climate around the company at the time. But the company also faces a number of timeless themes that many aspiring business experience as board composition and development, communication between a company and its officers and their respective positions and responsibilities of management and a company’s investors, when have the company difficult decisions be made. Woven throughout the case are further topics of recruitment management, capital raising, and the formation of strategic alliances. It ends with the “forced” sale of Fogdog by the Board of the Company at a time when the short-term outlook for Internet-related companies was uncertain. This sale took place despite the declared intention of the management continues to be the management of the company.
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from
John W. Glynn Jr.,
Christopher S. Flanagan
Source: Stanford Graduate School of Business
21 pages.
Publication Date: Aug 29, 2001. Prod #: E100-PDF-ENG
Fogdog HBR case solution