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Established in 2013, Glints was an online job search service for new graduates, marketing itself as "LinkedIn for youth." The Singapore-based company was founded by three 21-year-olds who chose to put their university education on hold and forfeit their scholarships in order to pursue their entrepreneurial ambitions. Using the lean start-up approach, Glints pivoted its business model several times before finding a suitable position in a resegmented job-search market. As a young company, Glints' biggest challenge was growth. Having raised seed capital of SG$475,000 from its investors, Glints was expected to sustain its exponential growth in revenue base and the number of subscribers. Its young co-founders had to identify ways to make that growth happen.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 315046.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 316154.

Laura Behrens Wu, CEO of software start-up Shippo, prepares her pitch for a Series A funding round following a successful seed round. Customer adoption of Shippo's e-commerce dashboard application, which allows small and medium retailers to compare delivery rates between shipping providers and print package labels, has been steady in the nine months since it went live. But traction with the firm's developer friendly product, an API that allows large enterprise customers to automate their shipping needs, had initially been slow until one customer single handedly tripled the API label volume in late August. Now in November 2014, with nine months of runway remaining, Behrens Wu must decide where to direct the company's limited resources. Should Shippo stay focused on the app while raising the next round of funding, pivot to an API-focused strategy, or pursue both products?

In June 2016, the founder and chief executive officer of Parentune.com, a rapidly growing online parents’ community based in Gurgaon, India, was feeling the pressure of keeping his parenting support service relevant to the changing needs of millennial parents. Parentune.com supported parents at all stages of parenting by networking parents and experts. Since Parentune.com launched in November 2012, more than one million parents had become members of the community, with another 6,000 added every month. Parentune.com was trusted by parents for its personalized, validated, and state-of-the-art parenting resources. However, many similar platforms began entering the niche segment of digital parenting services, capitalizing on growing Internet reach and social media penetration. In the wake of evolving parenting needs and mounting competition from look-alike platforms, Parentune.com needed to evaluate its plan for continuous improvement in its service delivery.

In 2016, a personal threat was made against the managing director of Multistrada Agro International, an Indonesian industrial forestry firm. The permits for the firm’s new rubber plantation overlapped with an existing palm oil plantation and the activities of local villagers, and also drew concern from outsiders who claimed to have rights over the land or wished to protect the environment. In sum, the venture altered the delicate balance of conflicting local interests. The managing director knew that unless she managed to work with local stakeholders, she would never be able to successfully operate large-scale rubber plantations. How should she handle this latest threat? What tactics could she use to deal with a variety of stakeholders with divergent interests?

Château Qanafar was a small Lebanese winery, operating as a family business since its inception in 2005. By 2015, Château Qanafar had managed to produce one of the best wines of the Middle East and obtain international acclaim. However, despite this success, the company’s founder understood that the general business environment in Lebanon was characterized by many uncertainties related to a weak institutional environment and high political and economic risk. Moreover, Lebanon represented a very small domestic market for wine producers. Château Qanafar’s capability to produce well-crafted boutique wine would not be enough to ensure its success in the market. Its founder was also looking to transfer leadership to the next generation of the family. How could the business sustain and grow its operations in the future?

Leader Healthcare India (LHC) was a medical devices importer firm that dealt primarily in respiratory and anesthetic devices. The company imported medical devices from U.S. manufacturers and, for the most part, performed its own marketing, sales, and service activities. In 2016, the director of LHC was concerned about LHC’s multiple failed efforts at market expansion. The company wanted to grow, but its attempts had been unsuccessful. Lack of highly trained personnel, supervisory control, and sufficient financial resources had been the key reasons for the failure. Market expansion was even more critical as LHC wanted to launch a 24/7 service in the respiratory devices business, and success with this service depended on the size of LHC’s existing customer base. How could LHC grow?

In April 2015, two years after launching Sattviko, a casual dining restaurant, the venture had three restaurants in Delhi. The two entrepreneurs who had established Sattviko wanted to continue growing but were feeling cash-constrained. Meanwhile, the online technology-based food industry in India was growing with an influx of venture funding. The entrepreneurs could take advantage of this wave and pursue venture capital, but they might have to shift their business focus to do so. Should they shift the Sattviko value proposition and brand positioning to grow their business?

A few months after launching a new fitness technology product, the small staff of New York startup Classtivity gathers on a Saturday in April 2013 to take stock. With one successful pivot under their belt, Classtivity is finally generating revenue and enthusiasm among customers. But cofounder and CEO Payal Kadakia has some doubts. There are signs that customers love the offering, but studios are less enthusiastic. Efforts to get customers to return to the studios after their monthly packs expire have largely failed. Kadakia must decide, preserve the product or pivot to a new business model?

In early 2016, David Sin, founder of the Singapore-based private equity group SIN Capital and chairman of its primary holding, Fullerton Health, was deeply involved in preparations for taking Fullerton public on the Singapore stock exchange. Three years after SIN Capital had invested in Fullerton, a provider of enterprise health management, and two years ahead of the original plan, it had attained a valuation of over S$1 billion. Listing the company would provide a number of important benefits as the management team and the investors expanded the operation throughout South Asia. This case describes the benefits and drawbacks of Fullerton's planned IPO, along with the strategy that had propelled its impressive growth. It also presents David Sin's vision for SIN Capital as a different type of private equity firm.

The case charts the growth of Blk71 and related developments in Singapore's startup scene. It explores the factors that came together to help the startup hub grow from 2011 to 2015. The focus is on how a startup ecosystem can be nurtured; in particular, why Blk71 and government schemes from the late 2000s took off when earlier schemes have met with limited success.

In 2016, the chief operating officer (COO) of InteraXon Inc., a Toronto-based technology start-up in the health and wellness sector, needed to put together a revised supply chain that was consistent with the company’s new strategic plan. InteraXon’s flagship product was a lightweight headband called Muse, aimed at measuring the wearer’s brain activity. The COO needed to keep in mind two major requirements of the new plan: a) the company would be relocating the production of Muse from China to the United States and b) it needed to quickly scale up its manufacturing and marketing operations. What plan of action should the COO develop?

In 2015, the executive director of Furniture Bank had successfully managed the Toronto social-service agency by turning a $300,000 net loss two years prior into a $100,000 net income. He had employed a variety of strategies and information technologies to integrate and rationalize business processes that resulted in significant productivity and performance improvements. However, Furniture Bank, which collected unneeded furnishings from donors and distributed them to those in need, had been a victim of its own success; it had maximized its capacity and was struggling to meet growing demand for its services. The executive director had to explore growth opportunities, specifically those accessible by leveraging information technology (IT), and choose from among four likely options.

NeoGenius Co., Ltd. (NeoGenius) was an early-stage entrepreneurial venture based in South Korea. Founded in February 2000, NeoGenius provided a wide range of business-to-business (B2B) e-business software and related services. In June 2001, the company was up and running, but it faced competition from larger firms, and the effects of a global economic downturn; as a result, its financial performance was falling short of expectations. NeoGenius had received significant offers from three different entities: a business partner, a competitor, and a venture capitalist. The chief executive officer had only a short time to choose from several options, including growth and exit.

The case talks about Hind Tea Pvt. Ltd (HTPL)-a small and medium enterprise (SME) in India that is 100% owned by Wadhwa family. HTPL procures processed tea from auctions and sells it to distributors under its own brand names. The case describes the journey of two brothers and how the next generation of the family takes over and aspires to make the company a national level player. These aspirations pose new demands on the owners and the business; the case talks about decision making in the family under such a scenario. The case poses interesting questions related to governance, professionalization, succession, and decision making in the family.

As a small-scale hospital located in the city of Faridabad in northern India, Drishti Eye Center (Drishti) had recently expanded its operations by diversifying into pharmaceutical sales. The founder and managing director of the hospital soon faced conflict among the members of his sales force when a young sales representative received a poor performance evaluation, which he viewed as unfair. In response to this situation, the salesman decided to join a union, a move that was completely unprecedented at Drishti. Facing a high-performing team that now found itself operating in a hostile environment, the hospital’s director had to decide how best to manage the conflict.

Otis Gates has built a successful affordable housing firm. Along the way, he and his partners have engaged in large amounts of community service in the neighborhoods wherein they own properties. Now 80 and ready to retire, Gates is creating a request for proposal for his firm. In doing so, he has to evaluate his firm's total value and decide whether their social-good mission is helping or harming their bottom line.

The case documents the evolution of an eye care hospital promoted by not-for profit organization located in Mandvi, District-Surat, close to the tribal community of Gujarat state, India. In a short span of five years (as of 2016), the trust has evolved as a community hospital. The value proposition of the trust is a portfolio of activities, which includes awareness by education, prevention of eye care diseases through eye screening camps, treatment, and rehabilitation on need basis and addressing direct and indirect healthcare needs of the community. The managerial challenge before the board of trustees is to carefully balance (a) The purpose for which the trust was created, (b) the gap between the ground realities and the need in the relevant tribal community (c) the accomplishments of the eye hospital so far.