Founded in 2008, Floodgate pioneered the "micro-VC" category, a new type of investment firm that raised smaller funds and made earlier, smaller investments in technology startups than traditional venture-capital firms. By 2015, Floodgate had raised three funds totaling $225 million and achieved outsize success with investments in high profile startups like Twitter, Twitch, Cruise Automation, and Lyft. Floodgate measured success in terms of its coverage of the top 10-15 exits in any given year. These "Thunder Lizards," which had the potential to change the business landscape and grow to Godzilla-like scale, accounted for 97% of returns. With increasing competition from micro-VCs and alternatives like crowdfunding, opportunity funds, and incubators, partners Ann Miura-Ko and Mike Maples wondered how Floodgate could continue to compete successfully in a rapidly changing venture-capital landscape. Should Floodgate stay with the micro-VC model it helped invent, or raise more capital, leveraging its successful track record to make investments at the scale of more traditional VC firms? In selecting a path, they needed to consider Floodgate's dual responsibility to entrepreneurs and LPs.

Garrett Moran joined Year Up (a workforce development program) in late 2013. Tasked with systematizing and scaling operations, Moran spearheaded a number of changes that allowed Year Up to serve 3,000 youth in 2016 up from 1,800 youth annually when he started. While preparing for the future, he expected that Year Up would soon have the ability to serve 10,000 students annually by 2021. This goal would demand a pace of growth that YU had not yet experienced - increasing annual growth from an already accelerated 400 students per year over the past three years to an average of 1,000 students per year through 2021. The path forward was complicated and this case covers the challenges and opportunities of reaching scale by expanding their direct service program and exploring other ways to close the opportunity gap.