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Using simple online psychometric tests at the start of the hiring regimen can reap a smaller, better applicant pool and save thousands of hours of managerial time.

The case explores the methodologies for valuing an early stage, IP based business. Endomagnetics is a university spin-off based on technology from University college London. By the time of the case the business has raised (and largely spent) a seed round and is about to raise 'Series A'. The new CEO, Eric Mayes, is in discussion with investors. There is some interest and he knows that he'll soon need to propose - and justify - a pre-money valuation. He has the usual set of base assumptions on market size and penetration along with information on similar businesses. The question is how he can assemble this information to produce a valuation. The case uses a series of spreadsheets (created by a MBA intern as it happens) that take us through all the alternatives from detailed bottom-up 'decision -tree' methods through to more sweeping market comparables, examining the strengths, practicalities and limitations of each approach.

It was nearly 10 years since Multi Media Mapping Ltd had gone live with the launch of the Multimap.com website and Sean Phelan, founder and majority shareholder, was facing the classic entrepreneur's dilemma. The company had a successful platform and business model that had made it the market leader in the UK and a highly profitable 'dot-com' survivor of the Web 1.0 generation, but the market was evolving quickly and Sean was convinced that the company's current technology platform didn't have a future. The choice was whether to raise the stakes and bet on the company again in the evolving online mapping industry and emerging Web 2.0 environment, or commit to a process that may lead to the sale of the business.

It was early October 2007 as Sean Phelan, founder of Multi Media Mapping Ltd, reviewed the previous 12 months. It had been a year of highs and lows that now set the scene for the most important decision in the company's 12-year history. At least he now had some options to consider - unlike this time last year, when the company had been facing technological oblivion and market-share meltdown. The Multimap technology team under Sean's direction had rebuilt the whole Multimap.com site from the ground up, while delivering over two billion map impressions worldwide and maintaining service to their eight million unique users in the UK and probably half as many again worldwide. Eric Brown, Multimap's new CTO, who had been brought on board to manage the project after masterminding the launch of the UK National Lottery online, described it as "... changing all four engines and the wings on a plane while it was crossing the Atlantic - at night!" At the same time, Sean's advisors had been in discussion with a number of financial and corporate partners. Three firm proposals had been made for either partial or full acquisition of the business. Now Sean had to decide which, if any, of these offers to pursue and effectively exit the business he had founded 12 years before, or whether to be a leading player in the consolidation of the on-line mapping industry.