It was February 2009, when Eric Edelson wondered to himself how he had gotten into this situation. Less than two years earlier, Edelson had been an MBA student at the Stanford Graduate School of Business ready to market a footwear product to the elderly. Since then, he had been unemployed, fired from his first job, and had acted as an underpaid consultant for a series of small and struggling companies. At present, Edelson was an operator at Fireclay Tile, an insolvent tile manufacturer with revenues of less than $3 million. Much had changed for Edelson since his pre-GSB days at Lehman Brothers. As Edelson sat in Fireclay founder Paul Burns' car driving what would become a daily commute from his home in San Francisco, California, to Fireclay's headquarters in San Jose, California, he evaluated the challenges that lay before him. Edelson had initially been brought in by Burns and his partner to evaluate BottleStone, one of Fireclay's product lines. Over time, Edelson had become more involved in Fireclay's strategy development and operations, eventually helping Burns highlight Fireclay's inefficiencies and providing him with actionable recommendations on how to address them. Little did Edelson know then that his work would result in his potentially joining and operating the company. Edelson had provided Burns with his turnaround plan just a few weeks before with the expectation that Burns would execute the recommendations himself. Now, Edelson was in a position to take charge and assume the responsibility of turning around the flailing organization. Pulling up to Fireclay's headquarters in San Jose, and with his game plan in hand, Edelson knew he had his work cut out for him.

TwinMed was a nursing home supply business located in Los Angeles. This case details its humble origins and its development, and raises several strategic issues prevalent in Medicare-reimbursed businesses, business-to-business selling, and what to do when there is a sea change in government billing as there was in 1999, with the advent of Medicare's "PPS" model.

Bigpoint was a leading online gaming company with vast international operations. One country that it wanted to enter was the United States, where existing players EA and Zynga, as well as dominant social gaming platforms and the Apple App Store posed considerable challenges. It also needed to restructure its top management to better manage its growth.

This case tells the story of McAfee Associates, which was the leader in anti-virus software. The case gives extensive background on John McAfee, the founder, as well as the anti-virus software industry as it emerged in the late 1980's and early 1990's. John McAfee realized the potential opportunity in protecting computers from viruses and created a small software package that would help solve the problem. He distributed the product primarily by shareware, giving the product out for free to individuals. However, corporate customers were required to pay for the software. With this, McAfee Associates grew to be a $5 million revenue business with 90% operating margin, and had strong prospects for continued rapid growth. John was approached by the CEO of Symantec, which wanted to purchase McAfee, with an attractive acquisition offer. At about the same time, he was approached by two VC firms, which wanted to invest $10 million for 50% of the business. Now, he had to decide which of the financial offers, if any, to take.