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Vanessa Keitges stepped into the role of CEO at Columbia Green Technologies (CGT) in 2010, growing it to become the dominant green infrastructure and green roofing materials supplier on the West Coast. The Portland, Oregon-based company offered customizable green roofing systems that harnessed nature-based technologies to mitigate the damage caused by stormwater runoff. With 2500 roof garden installations under her belt Keitges wanted to scale her sales and marketing operation to capture the emerging opportunity across the North American market. The green roofing industry was projected to experience a CAGR of 16.2%, building to a $5.37 billion global opportunity by 2030. Working with her executive team, Keitges was preparing for a Q1 2023 Series C funding round to finance the major rollout of her business. The immediate question was where to locate CGT's expanded sales force and how to prioritize the targeted geographic markets. Compelling business rationale, as well as opportunity framing to mitigate the known gender bias in VC funding, would need to be reflected in the eventual funding pitch.

Spreadsheet Suppliment for Case NA0794

By fourth quarter, 2019, Lisa Sedlar, CEO of Green Zebra turned her attention to revenue and margin growth for the Oregon-based, healthy convenience-store (c-store) chain she founded six years earlier. Feedback from investors convinced her to push her startup closer toward profitability, before expanding her three-store Portland operation. To help with her planning, Sedlar brought on a veteran of the local tech sector, Lenka Jelinek, to evaluate Green Zebra's operational readiness to scale. Jelinek's first assignment involved an evaluation of Zebra Cash, the customer loyalty program launched in 2013. As Sedlar explained, "Frankly, I haven't designed our loyalty card program well. My guess is there's more we could do there." Although LPs had become a growing trend among c-store competitors, Sedlar had nagging concerns about their cost effectiveness. She needed an objective analysis of the Zebra Cash revenue and margin potential, an assessment made more urgent by the fact that she had cash in the bank to fund operations only through Q1, 2020. Although Sedlar realized that an optimized LP wouldn't solve all her cash flow challenges, the question was whether it could relieve some of the short-term financial pressure. Beyond the cash flow impact, there was also the question of whether the Zebra Cash program had strategic value given future expansion plans.

Spreadsheet supplement for case NA0643.

The CEO of Green Zebra weighs the implications of growth for a small chain of innovative, organic neighborhood grocery stores. The firm was at the forefront of both healthy food and convenience trends but faced fierce competition from larger players entering the market. A rapidly diminishing cash position forces the CEO to compare how two investing-financing alternatives contribute to growth and to reducing the cash burn of current operations. A slow growth option requires less financing and may allow the company to achieve a positive cash flow more rapidly. The alternative, rapid expansion into a new market, has the potential to rapidly scale operations and enhance competitive position. Students develop financial forecasts, calculate the weighted average cost of capital (WACC), estimate cash flows, prepare net present value (NPV) and evaluate financing alternatives. This is an integrated case that illustrates the financial implications of growth and the capital rationing issues faced by small firms. It can be used as a final exam case for an MBA-level course in corporate finance and as a vehicle for structured case analysis in an upper division undergraduate course in finance or entrepreneurship.

Student spreadsheet for case NA0619.

CEO Lisa Sedlar was two weeks from the start of meetings with venture capital funders to raise $10 million for a West Coast expansion of her urban, convenience-store startup - Green Zebra Grocery. Delivering a healthy take on the traditional c-store assortment, Sedlar was positioned to leverage growth trends that signaled a shift from the traditional fuel fill-ups that defined the c-store industry, toward urban food retailing. However, a massive oversupply of retail square footage dedicated to grocery, had made investors skittish about putting money behind another brick and mortar retail chain. On top of that, Amazon had just announced plans for a 3,000-store national rollout of Amazon-Go, their high-tech, self-serve concept store, described as the future of c-store retailing. To preempt investor concerns, Sedlar was considering using a content analysis of customer reviews to let shoppers speak for themselves. She needed evidence that either validated the Green Zebra 'healthy convenience' positioning or customer insights that would help her decide how to pivot her customer value proposition to create a differentiated positioning relative to key c-store competitors.

CEO Emma Mcilroy and her team weighed the merits of two distinct business models, as they prepared for a funding pitch to scale Wildfang, a menswear-inspired fashion brand built around a badass tomboy image. The funding pitch would hinge on the resource and process gaps the company would need to address in its business model coupled with the outcome of a customer lifetime value (CLV) analysis. Tools for scenario testing, including CLV modeling and the Business Model Canvas (BMC) template are used to contrast a bricks-and-clicks private label strategy with a multisided fashion platform. An Excel supplement included with the case, allows students to analyze segment-specific CLV and weigh financial versus business model design assumptions in order to decide which expansion strategy to recommend. This case illustrates how the descriptive modules of a firm's BMC can be linked to the financial implications of business model design using lifetime value modeling techniques.

Student spreadsheet for case NA0460.