HSA 65th Anniversary Book

fy
13
FEBRUARY 1, 2012 –
JANUARY 31, 2013
HSA’s alum network
formally organizes
fy
14
FEBRUARY 1, 2013 –
JANUARY 31, 2014
The Harvard Shop adds a
third store and its own Board
PRESIDENT
Kirk
Benson
OFFICES
67 Mt. Auburn St.
17 Holyoke St.
52 JFK St.
Holyoke Center Arcade
HARVARD
STUDENT
AGENCIES
As snow fell on the first days of FY13, HSA staffed an ice rink in Science Center Plaza, renting skates,
selling hot chocolate, and hosting events. Rover’s first comp attracted 60 computer-science students; they
hired “only” 14. The weather warmed, spring sprung, and a once-again blossoming HSA set out to rebuild a
company that had suffered years of cutbacks. Seventy-seven more students were hired than the previous year,
for a total of almost 500. The reorganization of HSR was refined with the return of HSA Temp Agency,
which buoyed a waterlogged HSA Translation. After a successful pilot program in FY12, Cleaners began
offering all its customers the option to have their laundry delivered right to their door for a nominal fee.
By the end of the year, over half of laundry-plan-holders were taking advantage of the new delivery service.
An internal need for a designer revived the long-dormant idea for a design agency. HSA Design shared
Harvard students’ mad Adobe skills with outside clients for the first time since FY04. Rover released new
Unofficial Guide apps and reworked the Unofficial Guide website. A new comp process for vetting prospective
managers attracted scads of wannabe HSAers and kept the outgoing team engaged. After years of discussion,
five alums finally wrote bylaws and partnered with the Harvard Alumni Association to found HSA Alumni,
a formal organization of HSA alums. Nine alums were elected to the inaugural Graduate Board.
A timeless emblem of school tradition, the H sweater returned to The Harvard Shop and quickly became a
Harvard Shop signature product. The team also launched the branded Vineyard Vines clothing line, added
student models to the website (creating quite the buzz on Facebook), and grew Custom Orders by over 30%.
Rover refined the Harvard Shop website to feature all-new product pages and custom sites that made it
easier than ever for student groups to order custom apparel.
It was the final year of Let’s Go’s partnerships with Avalon and Travora (formerly TAN). A year-long
collaboration with Rover yielded 25 free “Explore” iOS apps, which teased fans with walking tours of
individual cities. Soon, the Explore apps expanded to Android and Nook, but the crème de la crème of the app
line was the official Let’s Go iOS app, through which globetrotters could purchase full guides and interact
with them on their phones. Nook users got in on the fun with 15 city-specific apps that also featured full
book content. Rover followed that up with an overhaul of the Let’s Go website, which gained a fresh look,
more intuitive navigation, and Facebook integration. Visitors to the new site also found PDF copies of the
print guidebooks on sale for the first time.
PRESIDENT
Patrick
Coats
OFFICES
67 Mt. Auburn St.
17 Holyoke St.
52 JFK St.
Holyoke Center Arcade
65 Mt. Auburn St.
HARVARD
STUDENT
AGENCIES
HSA continued to hum along, posting its third straight profit and
putting the dark days of the recession farther in the rearview mirror.
Revenues once again topped $4 million, and the ranks of student
employees swelled again, to nearly 600. Success never tasted so
good: HSA brought liquid-nitrogen ice cream to crowds and rave
reviews on Science Center Plaza. The Harvard Bartending Course
celebrated its 50th anniversary with cake and (real!) booze at the
Cambridge Queen’s Head, the course’s classroom; the alums who
made it back also participated in HSA Alumni’s first alum weekend, which included panel discussions and
a reception with students. Marketing hosted an advance premiere of season three of Game of Thrones, which
ended much better for HSA than it did for the Starks. HSA Cleaners augmented its delivery offerings to
include a full pickup and delivery service; thankfully, Cleaners was able to handle the resultant huge spike in
demand with a workforce now 100 students strong.
It was a decisive year for HSA’s youngest agencies. HSA Talent took its final bow and exited stage left,
where HSA Temp Agency managed its lingering gigs for one more year. HSA Design hitched up with
Marketing; their shotgun marriage lasted two more trips around the sun. Rover buckled under the weight
of costly preexisting contracts and stopped pursuing outside clients. Reduced to an internal web and mobile
development role, the agency went into hibernation at the end of the year. The winner in this game of
Survivor: HSA was HSA Video, which had grown from two friends with a camera to dozens of student
employees. This year alone, they added a live-event service for recording lectures and performances, signed a
contract with Pfizer, and produced some LOL-worthy Housing Day videos.
The irrepressible Harvard Shop conquered its third domain. On September 5, the new location opened in
a spacious storefront at 65 Mt. Auburn St. — right next to Burke-McCoy Hall. The store was designed to
evoke an idyllic Harvard dorm (the kind no one actually has) and inched the stores closer to those ever-sovaluable
tour buses. Additionally, The Harvard Shop changed its inventory-accounting and sales system
to a cloud-based point-of-sale system called
Vend, making operations more efficient and
accurate.
It was a digital-heavy year for Let’s Go as the print series slimmed down to a trim seven titles. Only eight
RWs ventured forth from Cambridge, but the Let’s Go gospel was still spread thanks to the campus teams
initiative. Recruits from colleges around Boston and the Northeast set up their own local Let’s Go fan clubs
whose members got famous blogging on www.letsgo.com. Only one new guide (Let’s Go: Paris, Amsterdam
& Brussels) joined the stable, but all seven now sported the red-and-yellow covers of the previous year’s
Budget Guides.
All the changes paid off, as The Harvard Shop
broke $2 million in revenue for the first time.
With record holiday sales, online revenue grew
year over year by more than 40%. The Harvard
Shop’s own distinct Board of Directors became
active and welcomed its first unique member.
LET’S GO TITLES
Past and present Harvard Shop honchos at the opening of the new store.
Rose Wang ’13, Ryley Reynolds ’15, MBA ’21, Meagan Hill ’11, MBA ’16, and Caroline Davis ’14.
• Europe
• Italy
• Spain & Portugal
• Ireland
AGENCIES
• London, Oxford & Cambridge
• Rome, Venice & Florence
• Paris, Amsterdam
& Brussels
OTHER TITLES
• Unofficial Guide to Life
at Harvard
• Unofficial Guide to Visitas
• The Harvard Guide to
Summer Opportunities
• Unofficial Guide to Student Life
in Boston
• Unofficial Guide to Summer
at Harvard
• The Unofficial Parents’ Guide
to Visitas
• Inside Harvard
LET’S GO TITLES
• Europe
• Budget London
• Budget Paris
AGENCIES
OTHER TITLES
• Unofficial Guide to Life
at Harvard
• Unofficial Guide to Visitas
• The Harvard Guide to
Summer Opportunities
• Unofficial Guide to Student Life
in Boston
• Unofficial Guide to Summer
at Harvard
• The Unofficial Parents’ Guide
to Visitas
• HSA Cleaners
• Let’s Go
• Harvard Distribution
• Cronin Center for Enterprise
• The Harvard Shop
• Rover
• HSA Talent
• HSA Marketing
• HSA Dorm Essentials
• Harvard Bartending Course
• HSA Tutoring
• HSA Translation
• HSA Video
• HSA Temp Agency
• HSA Design
• HSA Cleaners
• Let’s Go
• Harvard Distribution
• Cronin Center for Enterprise
• The Harvard Shop
• Rover
• HSA Talent
• HSA Marketing
• HSA Dorm Essentials
• Harvard Bartending Course
• HSA Tutoring
• HSA Translation
• HSA Video
• HSA Temp Agency
• HSA Design
98 HSA 65th Anniversary History Book 99