How to Expand Beyond a Direct-to-Consumer Strategy

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) businesses play an outsize role in disrupting industries. Think of eyeglasses and Warby Parker or mattresses and Casper. But after that initial disruption, industry competitors often adapt.

Harvard Business School professor Len Schlesinger and Matt Higgins, the co-founder and CEO of private investment firm RSE Ventures, studied the teledentistry company SmileDirectClub and wrote a case study about its challenges as it scaled.

In this episode, they break down how SmileDirectClub invested in strategic innovation and ultimately moved beyond DTC channels in order to thrive.

Key episode topics include: strategy, business models, entrepreneurs and founder, strategy execution, scaling, direct-to-consumer, DTC, innovation, dental care, disruption, retail strategy, growth strategy.

HBR On Strategy curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

• Listen to the original HBR Cold Call episode: SmileDirectClub Looks Beyond Direct-to-Consumer Marketing (2020)
• Find more episodes of Cold Call
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