The case follows the design and creation of a software innovation lab at Volkswagen. Particular issues explored include the role and structure of internal innovation groups, establishing culture and defining business models for innovation, and developing strategy for innovation in an established enterprise environment.

From quitting a stable post-MBA job and starting FINDMINE, a start-up in the retail technology space, to finally negotiating venture capital investment offers, Michelle Bacharach-and FINDMINE-had come a long way. Two years of uncertainty with virtually no outside capital raised, a pivot from B2C to B2B, two accelerator programs, and numerous meetings with potential investors and customers had made her an entrepreneur who was comfortable with difficult times and choices. However, none of that had prepared her for the decision she faced in March 2016. After over two years of scraping by, Bacharach had finally found investors interested in putting in much-needed funding to help move FINDMINE forward. Just hours before signing the deal, however, one of the investors had requested additional terms at the last minute: he asked for advisory shares and, most importantly, he wanted to add pernicious terms that seemed very unusual. Bacharach's decision was bound to define the future of FINDMINE and, ultimately, her own career as an entrepreneur.

The unexpected passing of Dave Goldberg in May 2015 triggered the most difficult period in the history of SurveyMonkey, a global online survey software company headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area. In a state of emotional shock, the team was forced to find answers to complex strategic questions, navigate a convoluted process of CEO succession and, ultimately, reinvent the company. Over three years later, the company was starting a new chapter with an IPO, and faced a mix of old and new challenges, including reinventing its product portfolio and brand; expanding internationally; attracting a larger share of large clients-the "Enterprise" customers; navigating an ever-changing competitive landscape; and incorporating new technological innovations such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. The company had come a long way-that was unquestionable-but there were still obstacles ahead.

From his time as a young engineer at Microsoft in 1993, to the challenge of building Glassdoor from the ground up until it reached a valuation of over $1 billion, in 2018, Robert Hohman had come a long way. Now, from his spacious office with a picturesque view of Richardson Bay in Mill Valley, California, Hohman confronted one of the most important decisions of his life. Glassdoor, the company he cofounded in 2007 with Rich Barton and Tim Besse, had grown consistently over the years. It had been fueled by multiple different investors and VC firms, under various circumstances and deal structures. Like most start-up founders, they expected to take the IPO route at some point. Then, in early 2019, when it seemed that the company was finally ready to go public, one of its largest competitors placed an offer that was hard to refuse.

From his time as a young engineer at Microsoft in 1993, to the challenge of building Glassdoor from the ground up until it reached a valuation of over $1 billion, in 2018, Robert Hohman had come a long way. Now, from his spacious office with a picturesque view of Richardson Bay in Mill Valley, California, Hohman confronted one of the most important decisions of his life. Glassdoor, the company he cofounded in 2007 with Rich Barton and Tim Besse, had grown consistently over the years. It had been fueled by multiple different investors and VC firms, under various circumstances and deal structures. Like most start-up founders, they expected to take the IPO route at some point. Then, in early 2019, when it seemed that the company was finally ready to go public, one of its largest competitors placed an offer that was hard to refuse.

After selling SeaMicro, Inc. to AMD, in 2012, Andrew Feldman started a process he called "lightly sifting", trying to stay updated on the ideas and businesses being built in Silicon Valley. Eventually, he started spending more and more time with four of his former colleagues from SeaMicro: Gary Lauterbach, Michael James, J.P. Fricker, and Sean Lie. The casual conversations quickly evolved to regular ideation sessions in which the group discussed and tried to find an idea that would allow them to "do something big." In March 2016, after a few months of ideation, the team stumbled on an idea that was as exciting as it was risky: a computer chip that would be 60 times bigger than the biggest chip ever made, specialized in machine learning. "It is the most audacious hardware product that most people have ever seen," Feldman explained at the time. Now, it was time to decide: Should they pursue the business concept?

Mike Maples Jr. founded the micro-VC firm Floodgate in 2006, after a successful career as an entrepreneur with two startup IPOs under his belt. At the time, he had identified a group of overlooked founders in Silicon Valley: those who wanted to raise only $1 million or less, a growing group since costs involved in launching a company had been declining significantly as a result of technological advancements and innovative management approach, such as "lean startup". In the following decade, he invested in a stream of successful companies, including Twitter, Digg, Chegg, Twitch.tv, Demandforce and Weebly. In the mid-2010s, however, the Micro-VC category, which Maples had helped create, was quickly becoming crowded. Additionally, the sources for early-stage funding multiplied: angel investors, "super-angels", crowdfunding platforms and traditional later stage VCs expanding into seed investing turned into competitors. The combination of intense competition and high availability of investable funds had one natural consequence: founders could command higher valuations and choose from many potential investors - it was an entrepreneurs' market. Determined to preserve his position as a thought-leader and successful investor in Silicon Valley, Maples set off to understand how he could, once more, positively influence the VC industry through an entrepreneurial approach. Based on deep analysis of past investments, he developed a suite of frameworks to help entrepreneurs navigate their companies' trajectories at a time when getting to the next funding round and commanding ever-richer valuations became an obsession in the entrepreneurial community.

This case recounts Uber's experience in four cities at different points in time. This approach offers a way to examine Uber's strategy for market entry and evaluate the performance of that strategy in these four cities, as well as elsewhere in the world. The cases included here help frame the discussion on the future of Uber's expansion, and extract lessons for how a firm can successfully navigate the beyond-market business environment.

Andrea Jung became CEO of Avon Products Inc. in 1999 - the first woman to ever hold the position since the foundation of the iconic cosmetics company, in 1886. In a few years at the helm, Jung tripled the company's profits, modernized its culture and was elected one of "The World's 100 Most Powerful Women" by Forbes. By 2005, however, Avon had become bloated with too many hierarchical layers and profits came up flat for the first time in five years. In order to address the looming crisis, Jung was forced to make a difficult decision: Avon would lay off one-third of all employees in middle and senior management positions, which represented approximately 12,000 jobs in total. Even more challenging than making the decision, however, would be executing it successfully while confronting an array of hard questions. How should the CEO announce the layoff to the company? Who should be in the room when she informed some of her direct reports that she would have to let them go? How should she deal with one of her most important executives when that person begged to stay? What was the best way to address questions related to gender and race in the context of the layoff? Should she make any exceptions to the process? There were no easy answers.

Stride was founded in April 2016 and offered a software that gathered data from disparate sources and organized such data in one platform with a simple interface, with the goal of enabling marketing teams to more easily develop and launch personalized marketing campaigns. Elise Bergeron, the start-up's cofounder and Chief Operating Officer, had been confronted with multiple difficult decisions since the early days of the company. Some of the most pivotal of those decisions involved the sales aspect of the business. First, she and her cofounders needed to figure out what should be the company's target market. One potential approach involved evaluating the benefits and challenges presented by small, mid-sized and large. It was not uncommon for start-ups to first focus on small customers and gradually seek larger ones, as it expanded its product's feature sets, but Bergeron and her cofounders were not sure such approach would be the best for Stride. Alternatively, they could choose based on a use case standpoint: marketing teams in B2B and B2C companies had different needs for the product - should Stride focus on one or the other as its target market? Bergeron was not convinced. Second, Stride's leadership needed to define its sales model. At the product's price point, direct sales seemed to be a necessity. But how about the indirect channels? Bergeron was doubtful about the benefits of relying on third party platforms - such as Salesforce - or system integrators at such an early stage of the start-up's journey. The answer was not obvious, however. As of the second half of 2017, Stride's sales cycle had finally developed some patterns and its cofounders felt increasingly confident about their sales choices. Unexpectedly, however, an opportunity that could take the incipient business to the next level appeared.

Monisha Perkash cofounded Lumo Bodytech during an incubation program organized by Innovation Endeavors - the venture capital firm started by Eric Schmidt - in 2011. At the time, she had barely met her cofounders and the team was expected to launch a business after six months of design thinking and prototyping efforts. The result was a start-up focused on improving posture and helping solve the common problem of back pain. As of 2018, Lumo Bodytech was still alive and thriving, but the journey had not been free of obstacles and difficult decisions for the CEO. Even before the conclusion of the incubation phase, one of the cofounders had expressed his dissatisfaction with the direction of the ideation process and threatened to quit if nothing changed. He was an accomplished software engineer who had become a friend in just a few months of work. Additionally, the equity for the new business had already been split among the four cofounders, which could further complicate any exit negotiations. Around a year later, Lumo Bodytech had successfully launched but the wearables fever was dying down and the financial needs of the young start-up became more pressing by the day. That was when Perkash was approached by a large Asian manufacturer who would be willing to invest if the company implemented a significant change in its strategy, from focusing on a single product to adopting a platform approach to its product line. It was a hard decision to face so early in their trajectory, but Perkash knew she had to make a choice. The challenges related to financing the company would knock on Perkash's door once again in mid-2014, when the company had to decide between raising venture debt or settling for a smaller round of equity financing. To make matters worse, there seemed to be a central misalignment between the cofounders and one of the board members about how to approach the issue.

AB InBev, the world's largest beer company, faced serious challenges in 2017. First, large food and beverage companies were under-pressure due to shifting consumer preferences towards healthier products and increasing price pressure from retailers. The beer category, in particular, showed signs of stagnation in developed markets, such as the United States and Europe. Moreover, several major trends - e.g. localization of consumption and rise of craft beers- were quickly transforming the industry. Finally, technological innovations, such as e-commerce platforms and deep data-analysis enabled new players and emptied the effects of mass-marketing. The strategy designed by the owner of legendary brands like Budweiser, Stella Artois and Michelob Ultra, was multifaceted. On the one hand, the importance of renovating the core business was undeniable, especially via improvements to the portfolio and modernization of sales capabilities. On the other hand, the company needed to catch up on the new trends and become a disruptor itself; craft beers, e-commerce, home-brewing, and innovative business models were some of those. All while preserving its powerful internal culture and keeping its shareholders satisfied.

In 2017, significant changes were sweeping the global automotive industry: the rapid growth of electric vehicles, the race to develop commercially reliable autonomous cars and the ride-sharing phenomenon. Those trends were magnified by technological advancements around connectivity between drivers and their vehicles, as well as changes in consumer preferences, especially related to waning interest in car ownership. Additionally, China's increasing influence in the global markets and aggressive push for automotive innovation were shaking the industry. Daimler, manufacturer of Mercedes-Benz cars and one of the long-standing industry pioneers, started to react in order to preserve its leadership. Wilko Stark was made CEO of a new business unit called CASE, in charge of developing solutions to address the new trends. The multifaceted efforts in research, product development, strategic planning and technology investments faced several challenges, however. Notably, issues emerged regarding need for new talents and skills, relationship with labor unions, brand preservation, experimentation with new sales and distribution models and intense competition from traditional and new players.

This case recounts Uber's experience in four cities at different points in time. This approach offers a way to examine Uber's strategy for market entry and evaluate the performance of that strategy in these four cities, as well as elsewhere in the world. The cases included here help frame the discussion on the future of Uber's expansion, and extract lessons for how a firm can successfully navigate the beyond-market business environment.

This case recounts Uber's experience in four cities at different points in time. This approach offers a way to examine Uber's strategy for market entry and evaluate the performance of that strategy in these four cities, as well as elsewhere in the world. The cases included here help frame the discussion on the future of Uber's expansion, and extract lessons for how a firm can successfully navigate the beyond-market business environment.

This case recounts Uber's experience in four cities at different points in time. This approach offers a way to examine Uber's strategy for market entry and evaluate the performance of that strategy in these four cities, as well as elsewhere in the world. The cases included here help frame the discussion on the future of Uber's expansion, and extract lessons for how a firm can successfully navigate the beyond-market business environment.