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This course is rooted in the belief that there is a large opportunity for creating value and solving large public problems if there are more inventors and builders inside government and more inventors and builders outside government, building for it. The course was created to advance that opportunity. It is designed for students who anticipate founding or joining private startup companies that sell to (or around) government to solve public problems; for students who plan to be extreme innovators inside government; and for students who may lead in different parts of the connected ecosystem, as investors, advisors, etc.

After a successful career in research and academia, Joel Dawson, decided to pursue entrepreneurship in the semiconductor industry. Together with several others, Joel Dawson co-founded Eta Devices in 2014 based on new technology developed at MIT to improve the efficiency of radio transmitter devices.

In December 2009, Fedore Cooperative (Fedore), a worker cooperative in a major city in Western Canada, was at a critical juncture. A general meeting comprising all members had been convened to resolve conflicts that had been brewing for some time and threatening the survival of the business. The members were inspired by the ideals of participation and equality, and had always made decisions based on consensus. Unfortunately, they had become deeply split over the poor financial performance of the business. There was a fundamental disagreement between two influential members about how to solve their problem. The situation had stalled their cooperative decision-making process, and Fedore’s future was at risk. The question was how to present the issues so that Fedore’s members could come to a consensus about how to work their way through the problem and find a solution.

In December 2009, Fedore Cooperative (Fedore), a worker cooperative in a major city in Western Canada, was at a critical juncture. A general meeting comprising all members had been convened to resolve conflicts that had been brewing for some time and threatening the survival of the business. The members were inspired by the ideals of participation and equality, and had always made decisions based on consensus. Unfortunately, they had become deeply split over the poor financial performance of the business. There was a fundamental disagreement between two influential members about how to solve their problem. The situation had stalled their cooperative decision-making process, and Fedore's future was at risk. The question was how to present the issues so that Fedore's members could come to a consensus about how to work their way through the problem and find a solution.

Tech Talk is an electronic content publishing portal that publishes articles on information and communication technologies. The articles cover specialized areas such as business analytics, e-governance, e-commerce, web technologies, big data analytics, software project management, telecommunication systems, business management theories, service science, e-payments, and Internet marketing. As a growth strategy, the co- founder of Tech Talk wants to draw traffic by creating a larger social media presence. He wants to use established strategies, and has the following questions: How should he strategize the interaction with readers on social media? With so many platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, which ones should he focus on? Should he manage the social media marketing in-house or outsource it?

Supplement for product 9B17C024.

Tech Talk is an electronic content publishing portal that publishes articles on information and communication technologies. The articles cover specialized areas such as business analytics, e-governance, e-commerce, web technologies, big data analytics, software project management, telecommunication systems, business management theories, service science, e-payments, and Internet marketing. As a growth strategy, the co- founder of Tech Talk wants to draw traffic by creating a larger social media presence. He wants to use established strategies, and has the following questions: How should he strategize the interaction with readers on social media? With so many platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, which ones should he focus on? Should he manage the social media marketing in-house or outsource it?

In the spring of 2016, the chief executive officer of Agoda Company Pte. Ltd. (Agoda), a subsidiary of The Priceline Group, Inc., wanted to transform the firm’s human resource practices using data analytics. The idea was not just to get more data, but to use this data to help managers gain insights to make better decisions. The three main focal areas of this exercise were recruitment, performance evaluation, and compensation. As key executives worked at transforming Agoda into an organization that emphasized people and development, they faced various challenges related to collecting, managing, and leveraging large volumes of data.

In 2008, the marketing manager for Nestlé Japan’s confectionery business and his team were struggling to redefine the KITKAT brand within the Japanese market. KITKAT as a brand faced a real threat as the retail environment rapidly shifted toward increasingly powerful convenience store chains and consumer preferences shifted toward more novel consumable products. With more than 200 companies competing within Japan’s crowded and relatively stable confectionery market, Nestlé Japan was facing the harsh realities of Japan’s famed position as the world’s toughest consumer market. To address these challenges, Nestlé Japan worked over 15 years to instill deep meaning in the KITKAT brand and then, based upon this foundation, created a comprehensive product portfolio. How can KITKAT capitalize on its past success as it moves forward?

Supplement for product 9B17A037. The KITKAT team had experienced great success over the past few years by building a powerful and resonating brand and enhancing their production capabilities to enable them to adapt to changing demands from their channel partners. However, the harsh realities of a changing market demographic, and increasingly powerful convenience store chains, created a clear sense of urgency for creative solutions to continue their growth. The KITKAT team leaders felt that the ideas that had been generated in the closing months of 2007 held enormous potential to create growth through a previously overlooked retail channel. As they sat down to review the strategies, they wondered: Had they overlooked any important details that could affect their 2008 year?

Supplement for product 9B17A037. In the spring of 2009, the KITKAT team was fresh from a successful marketing campaign targeting students. After reviewing recent figures however, they realized that they had a critical decision to make regarding the fate of the overall KITKAT brand portfolio: was KITKAT too sweet for some of their older customers? How could they address this issue of taste without undermining the overall brand that they had worked so hard to create through their recent postal service campaign?

Supplement for product 9B17A037. It was 2017 and the KITKAT brand in Japan was at a critical juncture. The KITKAT marketing leaders sat down for a special meeting to review how Nestlé Japan had been able to create meaning and value for their brand. However, as they began to discuss their options for future growth, they faced difficult decisions: Should they look to export the flavor variations that had become such big hits in Japan to overseas markets such as China, the European Union, or the United States? Travelers from these countries regularly bought a wide range of KITKAT flavor varieties during their trips to Japan to bring home. Or should they focus on expanding the e-commerce sales of premium KITKAT flavors?

The semester-long small business management class at Southern New Hampshire University had incorporated into the course a food truck under the brand name “Munchiez” as a catalyst for students to integrate and apply the concepts they learned about in various business classes. As such, Munchiez was a vital teaching tool at the school. However, with an 80 per cent turnover rate each semester, knowledge transfer and financial stability quickly became critical issues for the Munchiez team to assess. As of December 2016, Munchiez was operating at a deficit. Some team members suggested that Munchiez may need a general manager. In order to continue receiving financial support from the university, Munchiez’s management had to answer some difficult questions: How should Munchiez increase the transfer of knowledge from semester to semester? What strategies should be used in order to break even? Would the business benefit from a general manager? If so, how could the team find the right person for this position?

In early 2017, after launching its successful "Greenhouse-in-a-Box" pilot project in India with fifteen smallholder farmers, Kheyti, a non-profit agricultural technology (AgTech) social enterprise, was struggling with several decisions in developing and growing its business. Kheyti was launched in 2015 to help smallholder farmers battle poverty and income variability by providing affordable technologies bundled with services. Over eighteen months, the team had developed a low-cost and modular greenhouse product to which it added financing, inputs, training, and market linkages to create a comprehensive "full-stack" solution for small farmers. The pilot project was a success in many ways, but Saumya, Kheyti's co-founder and head of product, was concerned that it revealed shortcomings that could severely affect the viability and scalability of Kheyti's solution. Saumya had some important decisions to make. Should Kheyti redesign the product from scratch, or find other ways to reduce the cost for early adopters? Should it rely on upfront revenues from sales of the greenhouse, or consider developing an innovative financing or contract farming model? Kheyti's dwindling cash reserves meant that these decisions were urgent and critical. The path chosen now would determine whether the startup would move beyond the pilot stage and achieve its vision of serving 1 million farmers by 2025.

In late 2016, the executive director of Free Geek Toronto faced a challenge. Free Geek Toronto was a social enterprise based in Toronto, Ontario. It focused on recycling electronics waste and aimed to use its business profits to expand its scope of operations and deliver on its social mission of both reducing electronics waste going to landfill and employing at-risk and marginalized individuals. As a result, the executive director purposely hired individuals who had severe physical or mental disabilities, or both, and who had recently received, or were currently receiving, disability benefits, had poor health, or experienced general struggles with regular employment. The executive director’s challenges included juggling the financial and social goals of running a work integration social enterprise. In view of the constraints he faced, the executive director began considering whether to call on the assistance of volunteers—people who, despite their well-meaning intentions, might unwittingly disrupt the operation of the enterprise. Should he move forward with recruiting volunteers? If so, how could he ensure that doing so would not adversely affect the organization’s current culture or demoralize the current employees?

In late 2014, Dropbox, the San Francisco-based pioneering cloud-based file storage service, was at an important stage of its growth. Its user base had expanded into hundreds of millions of users globally, and the company was expanding its service offerings to organizations. At the heart of this expansion was the ever-increasing acquisition of customers in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. As Dropbox targeted larger customers, it needed to carefully allocate its limited resources and continually evaluate the appropriate sales approach because of the highly competitive nature of the cloud storage market. The head of the Strategic Finance team needed to recommend how Dropbox could most effectively invest its limited resources. Should it invest in the self-serve, inbound approach, or opt for the more proactive and costlier outbound approach?

In early 2017, the directors at Protospace, a makerspace in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, faced some challenges. The nine-year-old member-run organization operated as a “do-ocracy,” with a minimum of official oversight. However, the directors and some of the membership wondered whether Protospace could and should scale its growth by recruiting and accepting new members. Would a larger membership help or hinder the membership-driven makerspace? Should the organization hire a staff member so that members would have more time to work on their projects? What would be the implications of a having larger membership and a paid staff member?

In 2016, Pepperfry.com (Pepperfry) was India’s leading online retailer of furniture and home products. As a pioneer in the online furniture and furnishings space, Pepperfry had a first-mover advantage that led to the achievement of significant milestones within a short period. Online marketing, however, involved distinct challenges compared with traditional marketing practices. Improving customer experience at the different stages of a consumer’s purchase could be the foundational strategy to resolve these challenges. How could Pepperfry’s service design further enhance the customer experience and achieve a competitive advantage?

Entrepreneurship for All (EforAll) is a Lowell, Massachusetts-based nonprofit that hosts business accelerators for entrepreneurs in underserved communities. By mid-2017, EforAll has five office locations in Massachusetts, and its leadership and the Board of Directors must decide whether EforAll is ready to open its first out-of-state office. Students are asked to consider a variety of factors - including funding, hiring, population demographics, and distance from Massachusetts - to determine whether EforAll has the capacity to expand, and if so, which new city it should expand to first.