At 25 years old, Terence Hon found himself spending most of his time thinking about how to retain the young staff in his company. As a second-year student at the University of Hong Kong, Terence had cofounded GreenPrice, Hong Kong's first sustainable supermarket, with teammates Allison Chan, Ben So, and Cherissa Hung. The venture had found its target customer base among middle-class consumers who were attracted to the concept of purchasing short-dated products at heavily discounted prices. Each GreenPrice store had 1,000 to 1,200 stock-keeping units (SKUs) at any given time, and the supermarket chain saved over 2.55 million items that were set to expire annually. While the eight stores in GreenPrice's retail network were profitable, the high turnover rate among the nearly 100 employees at GreenPrice was keeping Terence awake at night. Terence and his cofounders pondered whether they should have emphasized GreenPrice's social mission more in the recruitment and retainment of its staff, since the commitment to sustainability could be a means to attract young people. They needed to determine whether GreenPrice should favor those who were most capable but were not interested in sustainability or those who were less capable but cared deeply about the environment.

At the height of the COVID-19 crisis, Terence Hon, cofounder of Hong Kong's first sustainable supermarket, GreenPrice, had the option of selling pandemic necessities that were in high demand in addition to his core business of selling short-dated products. Having founded the venture several years ago with teammates Allison Chan, Ben So, and Cherissa Hung when they were still university students, Terence and his cofounders pondered whether they should accept an offer that was tempting for its high margins, even as they needed to determine whether it contributed to their business objectives and their social mission as the first supermarket chain in Hong Kong that sold short-dated products that otherwise ended up in landfills. In addition, while GreenPrice had faced the challenge of high rents in the expensive, real estate-driven city, the ongoing health crisis caused vacancies in shopping malls to go up, resulting in a significant decrease in shop rental fees. Terence and his cofounders needed to make strategic choices on whether to enter the market for pandemic products while determining the optimal locations for expanding their retail network and the customer segments that they should target.

This case follows the entrepreneurial journey of Tommie Lo, Founder and CEO of education platform Preface, as he pioneered an innovative business model that provides up-to-date education in coding and tech skills, specializing in concepts like blockchain, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and the metaverse in the fast-developing field of Web3, as well as AI-related topics such as machine learning and ChatGPT. While its Business-to-Consumer (B2C) segment targets schoolchildren from well-resourced families or senior executives who are willing to pay a premium for flexible and convenient courses, Preface's clients in the Business-to-Business (B2B) segment include leading brands in financial services, technology, and luxury goods. Headquartered in Hong Kong, Preface differentiates itself in multiple ways. First, in contrast to traditional classrooms or purely online learning, Preface matches students with teachers for training sessions that could be online or offline, anytime and anywhere. Second, Preface's instructors are top engineers from leading tech companies who are passionate about computer science and teach at Preface as a second career, with Preface tapping into a high-quality resource pool. Third, Preface opened physical food & beverage outlets to offer exclusive events and foster a sense of community among its clients, contributing to a cultural shift toward lifelong learning.

This case follows the entrepreneurial journey of SmartHR founder Shoji Miyata as he led his company to become the leading cloud player in the human resources space and one of only a handful of tech unicorns in Japan. By automating, digitalizing, and streamlining traditional HR functions such as onboarding new employees and managing social insurance, SmartHR was at the forefront of reducing manual HR-related paperwork in the country. Among the 1.87 million business entities in Japan, most of which still relied on manual paperwork in their HR processes, SmartHR's product offerings quickly gained traction and the company experienced exponential growth. SmartHR grew to a 45.8% market share in the labor management cloud space overall and a 71.7% market share in the enterprise segment. Although Miyata felt it was an honor to have led SmartHR, he saw the merits of voluntarily relinquishing the CEO role and passing the baton to a successor as the company became larger and might seek an IPO in the future. He felt that he could not adapt to the changes in the macro environment, ultimately deciding to let go and focus on a new venture in a rare move in business succession.