HSA 65th Anniversary Book

fy
12
FEBRUARY 1, 2011 –
JANUARY 31, 2012
A new Tutoring agency helps
HSA finally make a profit
PRESIDENT
Ethan
Waxman
OFFICES
67 Mt. Auburn St.
17 Holyoke St.
52 JFK St.
Holyoke Center Arcade
LET’S GO TITLES
• Europe
• Israel
• Europe Top 10 Cities
• Budget London
AGENCIES
HARVARD
STUDENT
AGENCIES
After years of cuts, expenses were as low as they could go,
and still the company had not turned a profit in recent
years. It was time to focus on growing revenue. Two ideas
from FY11’s internal innovation challenge moved ahead.
President Ethan Waxman worked for six months to bring
a late-night food truck to campus, but after granting
preliminary approval, the university got cold feet. (Two
years later, Harvard finally invited food trucks to vend in
Science Center Plaza — without HSA’s involvement. They
proved wildly popular.) HSA also gained a marketingconsulting
agency as HSA Publications (whose ad-salesbased
business model, it had become apparent, was a relic
of a bygone era) metamorphosed into HSA Marketing.
The HSA Marketing account managers.
The agency partnered with Distribution to help outside
businesses craft holistic packages to best reach Harvard students. The Marketing crew dished out the
rebranded Best of the Unofficial Guide to Harvard and seven other colleges, redesigned its other publications,
and won the office award for “Most Patriotic Team” for their all-American summer barbecues.
• Budget Paris
• Budget Berlin
• Budget Prague
• Budget Rome
• Budget Florence
The trend of modernizing agencies caught on. HSR formally split into three different agencies: HSA Bar
Services, HSA Tutoring, and HSA Translation. (Profitable temp services such as research and serving
were folded into Bar Services.) As a result, managers no longer divided their attention between the various
components of HSR, and the sovereign agencies were free to focus on their own growth. The split was instantly
successful, especially for the Tutoring agency, the fastest-growing segment of the company. Originally just
a small slice of HSR, a newly unencumbered Tutoring added courses to fill every weekend, began private
subject-test tutoring, and quintupled its revenue to $100,000. Rover also grew rapidly, branching out from
iPhone apps to become a full-service development agency for iOS, Android, and the web. HSA Dorm Store
rose from the dead as HSA Dorm Essentials, reanimated by a new pact that allowed HSA to resume selling
dorm furniture but delegated inventory and delivery to Student Logistic Services.
Two entirely new agencies also had their premieres. After a two-year effort, HSA.tv finally brought cable
TV to Harvard dorms thanks to technology developed by Tivli, a startup founded by two recent grads that
was now incubating on the fourth floor. The online streaming service took its first paid customers in the fall,
but Tivli soon became Philo and packed up for more silicon-colored pastures. The i3 gave HSA Video its
big break, and HSA’s 14th agency began offering video services to local clients. Three Hasty Pudding actors
crooned, “If you liked it, then you should have put a [One Ring] on it,” in one of their first projects, a Harvard
Shop promotional video that went viral across campus.
• Budget Madrid
• Budget Barcelona
• Budget Istanbul
• Budget Amsterdam
• Budget Athens
OTHER TITLES
• Best of the Unofficial Guide
to Life at Harvard
• The Unofficial Guide to
Prefrosh Weekend
• The Harvard Guide to
Summer Opportunities
• Best of the Unofficial Guide
to Student Life in Boston
• Unofficial Guide to Summer
at Harvard
Waxman, Vice President Libby Shuman, and
Publishing Director Joseph Molimock ’11.
The early 2010s were not a pretty time for HSA’s online presence. Its websites had been moved to different platforms for three
consecutive years, and the company was losing revenue from recurrent crashes, the result of its patchwork of websites across
four platforms. At last, HSA said enough was enough and migrated its more than 10 sites to one third-party gateway without
interruption.
FY12 also introduced a new position to HSA: the Managing Director. Instead of the President and Vice President supervising
every agency themselves, managers now reported to a handful of “super-managers” who each oversaw their own cluster of agencies,
such as Cleaners and Dorm Essentials, Marketing and Distribution, and the ex-HSR agencies.
The result of all these changes? Revenue leapt forward by more than $1 million over
FY11. Incredibly, the company had made a profit — and a sizable one at that. After years
of losses, HSA was back in the black.
After three years of breakneck growth, The Harvard Shop had outgrown the management
size and structure of a traditional agency. This year, The Harvard Shop nearly doubled
its corps of managers to seven and got its own Managing Director to oversee them.
After years of volatility, the Harvard Shop website was finally endowed with a clean user
interface and smoother functionality. A new five-year agreement with Trademark Tours
(formerly Unofficial Tours) was negotiated, and the shop broke $1.5 million in sales for
the first time, turning its highest profit to date. The influx of cash funded a much-needed
facelift of 52 JFK St. The original Harvard Shop closed for a full month in December
and emerged almost unrecognizable, with new flooring, lighting, signage, and colors. A
decadent bash at Weld Boathouse toasted both Doris Jones’s retirement and the 10th
anniversary of The Harvard Shop joining HSA.
Lauren Xie ’13, Gorick Ng ’14, MBA ’18
Andre Gonzalez ’14, and Ali Evans ’13, MBA ’19.
Doris Jones and seven former
Harvard Shop managers.
Let’s Go did something it hadn’t accomplished in years — it came in under budget! Seventeen RWs shot reinvigorated copy back
to 18 staffers at Let’s Go headquarters. Full color returned to the covers of the series’s 14 books, which included the new Let’s Go:
Europe Top 10 Cities and a new line of pocket-sized, red-and-yellow Budget Guides to 11 cities. Eleven were part of the new line of
budget guides — pocket-sized, more colorful, and devoted to individual cities. The
web also got its own dedicated team of RWs who traversed the U.S. and Canada in
search of the hottest blog content and the most awkwardly hilarious videos. With
help from Rover, Let’s Go dipped its toe into the world of mobile in the fall with
five free city-guide apps for the iPhone or iPod Touch.
• HSA Cleaners
• Let’s Go Publications
• Harvard Distribution
• Cronin Center for Enterprise
• The Harvard Shop
• Rover
• HSA Talent
• HSA Marketing
• HSA Dorm Essentials
• HSA Bar Services
• HSA Tutoring
• HSA Translation
• HSA.tv
• HSA Video
The renovated Harvard Shop at 52 JFK St.
96 HSA 65th Anniversary History Book 97