The chief executive officer of Zoomcar, an Indian car-rental company, had recognized that the costs of vehicle ownership were high for many individuals who needed vehicles only sporadically. The venture capital-funded, entrepreneur-driven business had launched in 2013, gone through three changes in its business model between 2016 and 2019, and identified a gap in the market with adequate demand to be fulfilled. Having adjusted its business model twice to circumvent the issue of supply, in 2020 it believed that it had identified the perfect product-market fit that would solve consumers’ concerns over owning versus hiring vehicles. The business's shared-mobility model would allow customers to reduce the total cost of vehicle ownership by offering their vehicles for short-term hires to other users on the Zoomcar platform. Now, it needed to resolve three issues: First, how could it get more cars on the platform? Second, even if it had the cars, how could it get people to adapt to a shared-mobility ecosystem? Third, how could it manage all of this while maintaining viable unit economics and ensuring long-term profitability?

Droom Technology Private Limited (Droom), a used-automobile marketplace platform based in India, had identified a big-ticket item with an average selling price of ₹200,000–₹600,000 and harnessed its innovative technology to build an online ecosystem. In doing so, it had stayed clear of inventory management by following a marketplace model like that used by Flipkart Internet Private Ltd. and Amazon.com, Inc. in India, bringing all participants—including used-vehicle dealers, individual buyers and sellers, and financiers—into the online marketplace. Subsequently, Droom created functional, monetary, time, and psychic values for its customers through its various automobile inspection, valuation, records search, insurance, and other services. Droom went from having a single revenue source to having six independent revenue sources through its subsidiaries, which each offered a unique combination of values and collectively created a tough barrier for competitors to penetrate. By April 2020, the start-up had enjoyed some success, but looking to increase its growth, it faced some questions: Was it offering too much for too little? Was its pricing justified by the value offered? Were its performance metrics commensurate with the value provided? Finally, what strategy would successfully shift Droom from a hybrid to a completely online model ready for listing on the Nasdaq exchange?

The chief executive officer of Zoomcar, an Indian car-rental company, had recognized that the costs of vehicle ownership were high for many individuals who needed vehicles only sporadically. The venture capital-funded, entrepreneur-driven business had launched in 2013, gone through three changes in its business model between 2016 and 2019, and identified a gap in the market with adequate demand to be fulfilled. Having adjusted its business model twice to circumvent the issue of supply, in 2020 it believed that it had identified the perfect product-market fit that would solve consumers' concerns over owning versus hiring vehicles. The business's shared-mobility model would allow customers to reduce the total cost of vehicle ownership by offering their vehicles for short-term hires to other users on the Zoomcar platform. Now, it needed to resolve three issues: First, how could it get more cars on the platform? Second, even if it had the cars, how could it get people to adapt to a shared-mobility ecosystem? Third, how could it manage all of this while maintaining viable unit economics and ensuring long-term profitability?

Droom Technology Private Limited (Droom), a used-automobile marketplace platform based in India, had identified a big-ticket item with an average selling price of ₹200,000-₹600,000 and harnessed its innovative technology to build an online ecosystem. In doing so, it had stayed clear of inventory management by following a marketplace model like that used by Flipkart Internet Private Ltd. and Amazon.com, Inc. in India, bringing all participants-including used-vehicle dealers, individual buyers and sellers, and financiers-into the online marketplace. Subsequently, Droom created functional, monetary, time, and psychic values for its customers through its various automobile inspection, valuation, records search, insurance, and other services. Droom went from having a single revenue source to having six independent revenue sources through its subsidiaries, which each offered a unique combination of values and collectively created a tough barrier for competitors to penetrate. By April 2020, the start-up had enjoyed some success, but looking to increase its growth, it faced some questions: Was it offering too much for too little? Was its pricing justified by the value offered? Were its performance metrics commensurate with the value provided? Finally, what strategy would successfully shift Droom from a hybrid to a completely online model ready for listing on the Nasdaq exchange?

The case follows social entrepreneur Wilma Rodriguez's journey of three decades as she creates and grows Saahas Zero Waste. Wilma wants to address the social issue and seeks various forms of solutioning, partnership, and organizational structure to take advantage of whatever opportunities arise along the way. The case spotlights Saahas when it faces the challenges of increasing scale as part of achieving product market fit. Saahas delivers value that cannot easily be quantified, to first-time large customers who do not understand the quantum and impact of the waste they generate. Saahas needs to communicate the value it delivers. It also needs to determine how to scale further.

The case is about inflation and how it is computed in the category of food price indexes. The case also covers the tracking and the value of using price data from online sources. The case extends to understanding if it was better or not to formulate inflation through a median CPI. The case provides learning stimulations through rich data sources.

The case describes the journey of Rolocule, a mobile gaming company based out of Pune, India. An early entrant into the mobile gaming space, Rolocule's fortunes go through many ups and downs as the nascent mobile gaming industry experiments with various business models. Rolocule responds by being nimble and flexible, rapidly developing multiple games and pivoting as the industry changes. Product-market fit always seems within reach but each time, an external event derails the company's plans to scale. The case is positioned at a low-point in the company's journey where it must decide whether it wants to continue to play in the B2C gaming space or shift into the B2B space. The case provides rich material to discuss the challenges of building a venture in a rapidly evolving industry and analyze the consequences of adopting different business models.

Grameen Koota (GK) is a micro finance institution (MFI) that offers several socially focused loans for poor and low income households. Its collateral-free loans and other services are targeted at women from poor and low-income households to improve their economic opportunities for inclusive development. Udaya, CEO had set GK on a strong foundation for growth after a period of consolidation and was planning to accelerate growth. GK was growing at 2x but needed to grow at 4x. CEO was facing a dilemma as to whether GK should set up new branches and increase the customer base for lending operations or mine their existing branches. GK had started expanding beyond South and Western India by setting up operations in Central India. The case describes the strategies adopted by GK to consolidate and grow. It raises potential issues and opportunities including transitioning from microfinance to broader financial services, growing through rapid acquisition and expansion of customer base as well as lending operations. Should they retain borrowers merely as customers of a commercial, financial service or aim to make these poor borrowers financially self-reliant? The case also highlights the strategic options for GK to achieve its 2020 aspirations.

This case elucidates the need for water for businesses, with a focus on beverage companies. The global scarcity of water as a resource and the conflicts that surround its usage is elaborated. The water footprint of the cola companies and two other major companies of Nestle and Unilever are highlighted along with the strategies they have used to try and circumvent the problem, since they rely extensively on water as it is the main ingredient in their final products. The case also provides rich data to discuss and analyze the risks associated with water usage be it financial social, reputational etc.

The case describes Videocon's experiences of in film branding of the Bollywood film titled "Sultan". It was a film with a crowd puller, popular Hindi actor called Salman Khan. The film touches upon the Digital Addressable System, mandated by the Government of India for DTH operators, and how few players scrambled for a larger piece of the market pie. The case highlights various branding options opted for by Videocon in the film and how Videocon hoped to capture a larger subscriber base through this non -traditional form of in film placements.

The case as the title reveals is about a collaborative program called ACE which combines technology, with a social need through a creative business model to empower the autorickshaw driver community to improve their livelihoods. Launched in Bangalore South India, the empowerment of the auto driver community is through paid advertising panels fixed at the back panel of the autos. The autos are monitored with real time feeds and forwarded to advertisers. With traditional advertising media fast losing credibility and patronage by big brands, ACE aimed at providing advertisers visibility, transparency and capabilities to plan and predict campaign outcomes better. The case details how the unique and novel initiative provided a non-disruptive, cross-sector ecosystem for the auto community.

The case on BharatMatrimony.com elucidates the business model of a matching platform, one that matches the users on one side with those on the other side. The case describes the entrepreneurial journey of the firm and its founder, elaborates on the business model, and its attempts at diversification. Key issues for discussion using this case include sustainability of the matching platform business model and identification of the specific industry conditions where such business models could be extended (and where it could not be).

The caselet on Just Dial elucidates the business model of a matching platform, one that matches the users on one side (consumers) with those on the other side (local, small and medium businesses). The case elaborates on the business model, and elucidates the evolution of Just Dial's business from a simple local search platform, to a search & transact platform. The case ends with questions on the sustainability of the business model and the extension to product ecommerce. Key issues for discussion using this caselet in conjunction with the BharatMatrimony.com case and the Practo caselet include sustainability of matching platform business models and identification of the specific industry conditions where such business models could be extended (and where it could not be).

The case on Tarnea Technology Solution is about a startup focused on providing supply chain solutions to the Indian pharmaceutical retail industry with a business model that connected distributors with retailers through a cloud-based interface, enabling real-time data access. In building an equivalent of a stock exchange at the pharmaceutical retail value chain (the last mile of the supply chain), Tarnea had developed the product and completed the pilot project. The case is set at a time when Tarnea had to decide on (a) pricing for both sides of the platform (retailers and distributors), (b) import of data from legacy products onto the Tarnea platform, (c) issues of direction of growth (whether to expand geographically first, or to diversify into other products), and (d) in their race to acquire customers, whether to outsource application development or not. The case discussion would help students to understand why and how platforms need to race to acquire customers as an insurance against envelopment.

The case on IndiaMART enumerates important decisions that are made in platform business models with regards to the pricing of the different sides of the platform. Discussions on the case would encompass the role of pricing in creating and leveraging network effects analyze the ''penguin problem'' and how firms could overcome manage and resolve the same. The case is set in 2013-2015 and describes the evolution of IndiaMART, the challenges they faced while addressing four major concerns at the turning point at which the organization was: namely, the speed of customer acquisition, arresting customer churn, responding to the opportunity of the increasing penetration of mobile phones for a platform such as IndiaMART and the decision to venture into new markets such as the B2B business.

This case on Tally Solutions Pvt. Ltd. traces the evolution of the firm and highlights how the product has evolved from a ubiquitous accounting software into an all-encompassing platform, with the launch of Tally.ERP.9. The case is poised at a time when the company has to consciously make the shift from being a product sales and service company to repositioning itself into an enterprise software company (with the product still being sold in the shrink-wrapped form), and therefore begin encountering the forces of network effects and platform dynamics.