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This case examines the scale-up of the startup Eureka.com, an online customized gift shop. Started by a female entrepreneur in Turkey, Eureka has been the platform for providing customized gifts to individual buyers, offering professional marketing products for corporate clients, and serving designers and artists to market their creations. The case examines Eureka's financial and market position. It describes the application of managerial accounting and operations management, analyzes the performance of a startup, and investigates the necessary financial and operational decisions that the startup will have to make to scale up. This case is designed to be used in either managerial accounting or operations management courses related to entrepreneurial ventures. It contains topics important to both disciplines: contribution margin, return on invested capital, operations planning and inventory management, and performance management. The case provides an opportunity to focus solely on topics of concern to one of the specific courses or to integrate materials from both.

This case presents the startup and growth of Preserve, a sustainability-driven business and B Corp, in the circular economy. The company has grown over the years as a housewares and personal care consumer goods company in the retail industry with a closed loop business model on #5 plastics. With this operational model, Preserve managed to create social and commercial value by attaining strategic growth while meeting its social mission. To serve dual purpose (social and commercial), Preserve helped its partners achieve sustainability goals, but these investments did not necessarily add to the financial bottom line and short-term growth of the company. The case focuses on the meaning of "growth" as the strategic intent for a sustainability-driven business. It explores to what extent a purpose-driven business like Preserve could meet the challenge of simultaneously being a social value leading business and keeping financial sustainability with the current business model. The case examines Preserve's founding mission and organizational values, and it discusses the tradeoff between social mission and economic goals any growth-driven sustainable company would face. It puts into perspective the importance of stakeholder collaboration and communication for sustainability and growth. The case introduces the framework of SEERS - Social, Environmental, Economic Responsibility and Sustainability - for evaluating Preserve's sustainability strategy. The SEERS framework contains four elements: (1) identifying purpose and strategic intent, (2) engaging stakeholders, (3) developing metrics, and (4) implementing cascading innovations. It provides opportunities for considering strategic decision-making with respect to economic and social value generation and social responsibility.

The GOLD Group, an international for-profit Italian holding company, has long fostered an entrepreneurial tradition of entering into new markets with innovative business models. GOLD launched Goldlake, a mining industry investment company, through its subsidiary Eurocantera in Honduras. Goldlake considered its organizational goals to be commercial viability and the environmental and social impacts of its business decisions on reputational and financial value. This case focuses on how Goldlake developed values based on principles of human and environmental sensitivity, and how it turned the social innovation of community inclusiveness into a competitive advantage. The case demonstrates how social responsibility applies to organizational practices by placing environment and people at the center of a business model and how sustained competitive advantage depends on stakeholder involvement in the supply chain. The case reveals the organizational complexity and rewards of social innovations and suggests a strategic perspective for social and commercial value generation.