Assignment

CASE: E-197

DATE: 10/12/05

DESTINATION-U:

COLLEGE COUNSELING ON THE INTERNET

Everyone in our company comes to work thinking, “How can we provide the best matches to high

school students evaluating colleges?”

—Toby Waldorf, Board Chair, Destination-U, in an interview on June 13, 2005

INTRODUCTION

In early July 2005, as Greg Waldorf, board member and founding CEO of Destination-U,

prepared for the company’s board meeting just days away, he knew it was time to reach

consensus on a number of key business decisions. Toby Waldorf would be at the meeting. She

was not only the company’s board chair, public spokesperson, and co-founder, but also Greg

Waldorf’s mother. Destination-U’s three other board members (a senior vice president at

Rosetta Marketing Strategies, one of the company’s two lead investors, and a well-known

observer of the computer industry) were also expected to attend. Given the company’s positive

social mission and personal ties, the Waldorfs had little trouble assembling this group upon

Destination-U’s founding in April 2004. Nevertheless, with the heart of the college selection

season just a few months away, the board would have to decide how best to capitalize on the first

full busy season for the start-up. Despite Waldorf’s relatively conservative financial

management of the company, Destination-U could not afford to come up short.

The Waldorf Family

In the early 1970s, Greg’s father, Bob Waldorf, founded a promotional products sales company

called Idea Man and grew it to become one of the largest distributors of its kind in the U.S. Bob

filled the Waldorf’s Los Angeles home with entrepreneurial and creative energy. Born of a

Mike Harkey prepared this case under the supervision of Professor Garth Saloner, Jeffrey S. Skoll Professor of

Electronic Commerce, Strategic Management, and Economics and Jim Ellis, Lecturer in Management, as the basis

for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective...