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Founded in 2016, DeepMap developed high definition (HD) mapping software and localization services for Level 4+ autonomous vehicles. Traditional navigational maps were accurate to a few meters, which was sufficient for drivers, but not for machine-driven vehicles which required centimeter level accuracy. Autonomous vehicles required a new form of map that was highly precise, produced a 3D representation of the surrounding area, enabled vehicles to locate themselves within the map, provided information for how to navigate safely using the correct rules of the road, and was updated continuously as road conditions changed. DeepMap was not selling a static mapping database, but rather licensing its software under a software-as-a-service model. As a startup with limited resources navigating a nascent market, DeepMap faced uncertainty across several dimensions: the timing of overall AV market adoption, which countries would adopt fastest, which AV segments would move most rapidly, which sensor technologies would become standard, and what impact regulation would have. They also faced the challenge of serving customers on a global scale. As DeepMap looked ahead, it had to decide how and where to focus and allocate its funding in order to achieve its short and long-term objectives.

This case follows Lebanese entrepreneur, Hind Hobeika, an engineer and competitive swimmer who spends seven years trying to launch a wearable heartrate monitor and motion sensor to help swimmers track their performance while swimming. While the Beirut-based entrepreneur gained initial traction soon after founding her company Instabeat in September 2011, winning $150,000 in prize money from business plan competitions and raising $100,000 from a local venture capital firm, Hobeika soon faced a series of set-backs in trying to manufacture the product. Given the complexity of the hardware product she was trying to build, Hobeika had invested a significant amount of capital in the manufacturing design and had faced continuous delays. In addition, the product was not proving to be economically viable. By early 2016, Hobeika was out of money and had to let her team go. The business issues had also taken a toll on her personal life. However, Hobeika saw a potential path forward. The VC who had originally backed her was closing a new round of funding and was willing to discuss another potential round. More importantly, while in London, she had recently met Alex Asseily, a prominent Lebanese-British entrepreneur who encouraged her to stay the course. He suggested that she relocate to San Francisco, where he would soon be based, and offered to help her. Would it be worthwhile to leave everything behind, relocate, and rebuild the business? Hobeika had to decide: should she continue or not? If so, under what circumstances? If not, what would she do next?

Wade Watts has won control of the OASIS - a futuristic, immersive virtual reality game world. He must decide on rules, rights, and marketplace design, balancing the founding principles of the OASIS with the platform's potentially negative externalities.

Founded by a team of hedge fund and NGO alumni, OpenInvest launched its platform in 2015 to enable retail investors to tailor their portfolio to their personal values in an automated way, for instance by screening out weapon manufacturers stocks or overweighting LGBTQ friendly companies, while still closely tracking the overall stock market performance. Bolstered by $3.25M in seed funding from Andreessen Horowitz, in 2017 OpenInvest was also preparing to launch an app targeted at millennials customers that would include a novel proxy voting feature that allowed clients to vote on shareholder resolutions with a simple swipe. With this technological addition OpenInvest was well on its way towards realizing its mission of democratizing SRI investing, bringing transparency to the financial services market, and enabling retail investors to invest their capital in a way that aligned with their values. However, getting to scale and profitability in the crowded robo-advisors space was a critical challenge. The case closes with the founders contemplating expanding or migrating their model from B2C to B2B in order to achieve scale and profitability faster. The case is an opportunity to discuss the theoretical underpinning of creating impact in public markets, to explore how portfolio performance may be affected by Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) screens; and to understand drivers of demand for impacting investing more broadly. The case also explores the challenges the founders face when aiming to design a new product to meet an emerging need, and which distribution channel to choose for doing so.

In 2017, management at Shift, an online marketplace that uses a "high touch," concierge approach to buy and sell used cars, was formulating plans for the San Francisco-based startup's next phase of expansion. One option was to preserve Shift's current business model and grow through geographic expansion. Another option was to decentralize more tasks to sellers and/or buyers, for example, management of inspections and repairs. While decentralizing tasks would reduce Shift's labor per transaction and thereby improve the venture's unit economics and its scalability, Shift might risk undermining users' trust by handing off responsibility for critical tasks.

This short case updates the earlier Intuit case on transitioning from a product company into a platform company. In addition to provided information on the recent successes and challenges of the business, it also explores a new challenge of building a platform with a branded third party solution or a "white label" solution, which would hide the third party brand.