Jonathan King and Jim Stott, the founders of Stonewall Kitchen, started out in 1992 with a simple business selling jams and jellies at local farmers' markets. By 2004, they had grown the company into a $25 million organization with 250 employees. They expanded their range of services to include high-end specialty food manufacturing and wholesaling, as well as retailing through free-standing stores and catalogs. King, who serves as president and CEO, set an aggressive growth goal: to quadruple the business to $100 million within the next five years. Challenges students to consider product/market issues as well as organizational and cultural implications. Raises questions about the impact on the business and the founders of taking on new partners.

The Leveens started a high-end catalog business as a small home-based venture in 1987. It grew into a nationally recognized, $60 million company, offering products that ranged from unique pens and pencils to leather briefcases and fully furnished offices. In 1999, it reached saturation in the U.S. marketplace, and the owner-founders must consider new avenues of growth, including expansion of the catalog business into international markets; private labeling products for a large, national retailer; retailing in partnership with others; or retailing through company-owned, free-standing stores.

Mavens & Moguls is a "virtual" marketing-consulting firm of approximately 40 professionals. Examines the processes by which its founder, Paige Arnof-Fenn, learns the business, builds a power network of industry experts and potential customers, and uses this expertise to build a new company that fulfills her career and life goals and also provides a wide range of work options to the consultants. Drawing on her experience and her network, she creates a high-quality marketing consulting operation that offers her and her stable of consultants challenging work, rewarding income, personal autonomy, and flexibility. Because Arnof-Fenn is at the nexus of almost all the deals, rapid growth has the potential to challenge the business model and threaten the fundamental values of the organization.

The development of a new venture partnership and the challenges associated with raising its first fund are chronicled. The decision to focus on early-stage investments, the determination of the appropriate size of the fund, the fund-raising process, and the steps in closing are all examined. Also presents information on the relationships among the five partners, the division of responsibilities, and the compensation package. Provides personal background on each of the partners and explores their motivation for choosing this career change at this particular moment in their lives.

The managers of British business forum planner, Richmond Events, are struggling to expand their conference offerings into new territories. At the same time, they are trying to decide how product managers, who are critical to event success, should be hired, trained, managed, and retained. There is a philosophical disagreement between managers about how to take Richmond Events to the next level. Founder Mark Rayner wants to stay the course and give project managers as much autonomy as possible. He asserts that autonomy leads to priceless innovation and argues that normative controls will prevent product managers from going too far astray. Marketer Deborah Parkes wants to streamline the production process and build hierarchy into the system to promote consistent service quality. As management considers leveraging its service platform and expanding into Asia, these working tensions intensify.

This case provides a career retrospective as of 2003 on Goldman Sachs strategist Abby Joseph Cohen. It reviews Cohen's career path and progress through key decision points.

Almost immediately upon being appointed CEO of The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Steve McCormick undertakes a radical reorganization of this global institution. TNC is the largest and, by most measures, the most successful environment organization in the world, with revenues in excess of $650 million and a strong balance sheet. Nevertheless, after an in-depth analysis using the McKinsey-developed 7-S model, McCormick contends that the current structure, a U.S. organization with overseas offices, must be transformed to a truly global entity to fulfill its mission. Most of the staff and volunteers at TNC agree with the proposed change but protest its speed and scope. With the plan half implemented, McCormick must decide whether to slow down or forge ahead, knowing there are significant potential consequences to either decision. This case explores how a nonprofit measures success, how the content and process components of change must intersect in a carefully planned fashion, the tensions between the benefits of local autonomy, and the need for organization-wide standards and oversight.

In 2002, Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, the recognized world leader in the breeding and training of guide dogs, was in the midst of broadening its reach and providing additional mobility services. Chief Executive Geraldine Peacock was concerned that systemic problems, such as competition among organizations serving the visually impaired, program redundancy, and lack of optimum resource utilization this case prevented services from being delivered to many visually impaired people who needed them. Chronicles this nonprofit organization's attempt to leverage resources beyond traditional organizational boundaries and collaborate with competitors to deliver a wider range of services to its users.

Circles, a corporate concierge company on the verge of profitability, must make a decision whether to take a D-round venture capital despite ever-changing and ever-worsening terms. A four-year-old company with several major clients, it has met its business plan projections and finds itself only a month or two away from profitability. Co-founder Janet Kraus works with her board and management team to consider alternatives to taking venture capital money. Together, they weigh the pros and cons of different types of funding and growth strategies and, ultimately, they must decide which path to pursue.