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In May 2010, Forbes Technosys Limited (FTL) was not doing well. After more than a year, the company’s bill payment kiosk business was losing money and no longer seemed viable. The time had come to re-evaluate all aspects of this business line and make decisions regarding FTL’s future course of action. Accordingly, FTL’s chief executive officer proposed an idea regarding prepaid mobile recharges using the existing bill payment kiosks, along with a new technology platform for this purpose. He hoped that handheld terminals could be used by retail-level franchisees to sell recharges to prepaid mobile users. Essentially, FTL had three options: should the company persist with or pivot the service provider business model, or “perish” the complete solution provider idea entirely and revert to being a product manufacturer? Whichever strategy FTL chose, it would have to limit and balance both operating and capital expenses.

In April 2014, the founder of SecureNow met with one of his classmates who was now an angel investor. The two had recently met socially and the founder had briefed his classmate on SecureNow’s online business-to-business insurance marketplace. The classmate was now expressing interest in investing in SecureNow but his valuation was much lower than the founder’s expectation. The founder was confident of SecureNow’s future growth, but he wanted funds to expand. His classmate would provide him with the kind of relationship he was seeking with an investor, but the founder wondered how he and his classmate arrived at such different valuations. He also wondered whether he should accept the funds at a low valuation, consider other options, or just postpone his expansion plans.

Quilts of Denmark was a Danish start-up company founded in 2000 with the goal of producing high-quality, functional quilts and pillows that contributed to healthy sleep. The company’s open innovation with a space agency and technology company resulted in an “intelligent” quilt that regulated body heat, providing users with an elusive but much-desired experience: a good night’s sleep. Selling a premium product in a commodity market was a challenge, and competitors were close behind. In 2010, Quilts of Denmark was preparing to introduce a new generation of temperature-regulating quilts, and the company's founders needed to decide how to introduce their newest innovation to the market.

Quilts of Denmark was a Danish start-up company founded in 2000 with the goal of producing high-quality, functional quilts and pillows that contributed to healthy sleep. The company's open innovation with a space agency and technology company resulted in an "intelligent" quilt that regulated body heat, providing users with an elusive but much-desired experience: a good night's sleep. Selling a premium product in a commodity market was a challenge, and competitors were close behind. In 2010, Quilts of Denmark was preparing to introduce a new generation of temperature-regulating quilts, and the company's founders needed to decide how to introduce their newest innovation to the market.

Greg Simpson was the chief executive officer of Simpson Seeds Inc. (SSI). He and his two brothers, second-generation owners of a family farm, had started the seed company. From humble beginnings in Moose Jaw, SSI had grown to be the largest privately owned lentil exporter and seed retailer in Saskatchewan, Canada, distributing pulses to nearly 80 countries worldwide. Simpson and his brothers had recently added a new red lentil–splitting plant to the family business; however, the new plant required leadership. The brothers were also considering how to continue the family legacy. Transitioning management and leadership of SSI would not be easy. Five of nine cousins from the third generation worked at SSI. Would the new plant be the ideal launching pad for the third generation, allowing them to learn how to lead and manage a segment of the family business? Simpson and his brothers were scheduled to meet on Monday, when Simpson was to deliver a proposal for succession planning.

Supplement to case SMU271. It was May 2016, and Desmond Lim, CEO and co-founder of QuikForce, a moving and logistics company based in Boston, U.S., had just concluded a five-hour long meeting with his team. QuikForce had been founded to simplify the stressful moving process for both the customer and movers, by acting as an intermediary that provided a technology platform which would pair potential customers with suitable moving companies based on their moving requirements. Ten months had flown by since the QuikForce website was first launched, and within two months of its launch, QuikForce was profitable. The meeting left two questions on Lim's mind. First, given QuikForce's initial success, should he begin to establish a presence in his home country, Singapore, or at least in Asia? The meeting with his team saw opinions split among three options-(a) broadening the service offerings in the company's existing U.S. locations (Boston, New York and Miami), (b) expanding to new cities in the U.S., or (c) pursuing expansion into Asia. Lim knew that a decision was looming. Second, was his present team the 'dream team' that would be able to take this company forward to the next level?

Environmental & Best Safety (EBS) China was the subsidiary of an American mid-sized firm in the safety products and services industry. Between 2000 and 2015, it had employed at different points a variety of strategic approaches to the Chinese market, including local market exploration and learning, autonomous local research and development (R&D), the transfer of local knowledge to centralized R&D, and the return of localization. The global business of EBS had experienced a continuous downturn over the last five quarters. The situation in China was even worse, with sales significantly under the initial target for the Chinese market, which had been the fastest-growing market for EBS over the last 10 years. In 2015, the global EBS president and the head of EBS China needed to make a decision about the next stage in the business strategy of EBS China. The meeting would be critical for EBS China to re-position itself within EBS worldwide.

In 2010, two entrepreneurs launched Joyful Frog Digital Incubator (JFDI), Southeast Asia’s first start-up accelerator in Singapore. They aimed to help develop Singapore’s start-up environment through a structured program that provided access to early stage funding and mentorship. More than 70 start-ups had graduated from the program, and more than half had raised substantial funding. However, five years later, in 2015, JFDI faced challenges as a result of Singapore’s small market size, the more than 20 accelerators that had entered the market, and an uncertain macroeconomic climate. The founders wondered whether JFDI should open up new revenue streams by diversifying into advisory and consultancy services, such as in-house accelerator programs in established corporations. Alternatively, should the company expand geographically to broaden its access to capital, talent, and new markets? Or were there still other options that the founders should pursue?

This note serves as an overview of the Entrepreneurial Management Unit's required curriculum course, "The Entrepreneurial Manager (TEM)." General management has been a core educational organizing framework at the Harvard Business School since its inception. Today TEM provides a powerful context in which to learn about general management. TEM seeks to build the knowledge, skills, tools, frameworks, and attitudes required to succeed as a manager. These tools and frameworks are built upon the foundation of other RC courses at HBS, including TOM, LEAD, LCA, FRC, MKTG, STRAT, and FIN. With an aim to "educate leaders who make a difference in the world," TEM integrates the lessons of your RC year into an overall framework to help general managers at all types of organizations (e.g., small companies, large companies, non-profits, and public servants) become more effective at enhancing the value of those organizations.

The founder of a digital media firm had to decide whether to list or to sell his company, PacificLink iMedia (PacificLink) in 2015. The founder had fielded more than 20 offers from various companies to acquire PacificLink since 2007–2008. He rejected all these past offers, because he was working to position the company to list on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. However, in 2015, the founder received an offer from Accenture that appealed to him because PacificLink was finally in a position to satisfy all listing requirements for the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. He knew that he must consider many criteria in making his critical decision to sell or list PacificLink. See also the first and second cases in the three-part series, 9B00M024 and 9B09M023.

In April 2016, the owner of Kreative Works, a small-scale furniture manufacturer in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India, decided to expand his company’s product line in response to increased market competition and a shift in consumers’ buying patterns and preferences. The intent was to extend the company’s market reach from its traditional target of educational institutes and offices to a consumer market by marketing a premium lounge chair and a family of dining chairs. The owner also wanted to expand the market geographically. Kreative Works did not have the capacity to open multiple retail outlets. Given these circumstances, should the company market its new product line in a single retail outlet or through an exclusive dealer or distributor (a centralized channel structure), or by distributing its products through multiple distributors or retailers (a decentralized channel structure)?

CircusTrix Trampoline Parks (CircusTrix) was started in San Francisco, California, in 2011 after the founder first experienced an indoor trampoline park. Less than five years later, the business had grown to more than 28 facilities worldwide, grossing US$24.5 million in 2014 alone. The company had originally expanded internationally to maintain its first-mover status in the emerging extreme recreation industry, but was now facing a problem that could derail the company’s international growth for years to come. A customer in the brand new CircusTrix park in Edinburgh, Scotland, had injured himself and blamed CircusTrix. As a result, city officials had shut down the facility, with another park scheduled to open in just over two weeks in Glasgow. The public relations issue was threatening to cost the founder not only his brand new operations in the United Kingdom, but likely also the additional upcoming locations in Germany, France, and Holland.

In 2012, a former crown attorney for Canada’s Department of Justice started Timeless Herbal Care, a company that was intended to capitalize on Jamaica’s deregulation of marijuana for medical purposes. The entrepreneur and his family relied on their ties to Jamaica and his legal expertise to create a legislative framework for Jamaica’s medical marijuana industry to meet international standards. Concurrently, Canada was readying legislation to allow qualified individuals to purchase and use medical marijuana. As one of about a dozen Health Canada-authorized licensed producers of the product, the new venture was entering uncharted space where legal and business issues would likely emerge within the next few years. The entrepreneur needed a strategy to combat the misconceptions about the use of marijuana for medical purposes and concerns regarding the importation of Jamaican marijuana product into Canada.

In 2009, brothers Patrick and John Collison began working on a start-up called Stripe that made it simple for companies to send and receive money around the world. By the end of 2016, Stripe had expanded far beyond an online payment mechanism. Fueled by a belief that the Internet and developers would drive rapid economic growth across the world, Stripe created tools for social commerce and online marketplaces, as well as products to facilitate the creation and management of new businesses. Having raised nearly $450 million, Stripe was sufficiently funded to take advantage of a variety of industry tailwinds, including growth in global e-commerce, the proliferation of smartphones and mobile applications, and a rise in social media usage, among others. "Stripe: Increasing the GDP of the Internet" explores the challenges and opportunities faced by Stripe as it expanded from a small start-up to a company valued at $9 billion. Specific obstacles addressed in the case include: evaluating business opportunities, prioritizing new customers and markets, and assessing competition in a rapidly changing market. In a world with seemingly endless opportunities, the Collison brothers would have to be ruthless in prioritizing Stripe's product pipeline, geographical expansion, and partnerships, while continuing to provide value for Stripe's existing customers.

In June 2016, Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, wrestled with how to sustain Israel's strong innovation track record and the country's reputation as the 'startup nation.' Despite the economic miracle the country had wrought since its founding, he knew he could not be complacent. On the one hand, in 2015 Israeli start-ups raised record-breaking amounts of venture capital, and exits for the year totaled over $8 Billion. On the other hand, government expenditure on R&D had decreased and Israel's position in the Global Innovation Index had fallen. Several other indicators, such as achievement tests among elementary school students in math and science, painted a grim picture. Furthermore, in spite of the wealth created by many high-tech Israeli firms, socioeconomic gaps in the country had widened. A two-tier economy had formed. The long-term sustainability of the "innovation economy" was in doubt, as the sector faced increased competition from foreign innovation hubs, was being reshaped by the growth of Multinational Corporations (MNCs) locating R&D centers in Israel, and had to contend with a vexing shortage of human capital and low labor force participation among some groups. Netanyahu had to assess whether it was time to sound the alarm, and whether drastic and immediate measures were needed to right the innovation economy ship. Bibi mulled over which policies or interventions would best curb the erosion of Israel's competitive position as an innovation powerhouse and how best to promote social equality. He pondered whether public policy could make a difference or whether the market and societal currents, responsible for these trends, were too strong for him and his government to try to contend with.

In late 2012, the owner of the Ratnagiri Alphonso Orchard considered whether or not to purchase information from a climatology firm regarding the probability of unseasonable rains that could damage some or all of his family’s mango harvest. The owner needed to decide whether or not he should lease the orchard to a fruit merchant or keep the orchard for his family to harvest, despite the possibility of rain. Would the climatology firm provide helpful information, or should he make an independent decision? Regardless of whether he purchased information from the climatology firm, what was the best informed decision he could make?

By 2014, the Walton Group, an electrical goods manufacturer based in Bangladesh, sold its products in over 20 different countries. A decision to utilize the advantages of low labour costs in the company’s home country was made in the early 2000s, which led to an increase in value and permitted rapid international expansion. To achieve Walton’s mission of “Walton at every home,” the company established various specialized support units both inside and outside of Bangladesh. Government tax incentives in Bangladesh had boosted Walton’s cost competitiveness, but how else could Walton compete with other international brands to achieve is goals and become a household name worldwide?

Chocolate Remedies tells the story of an African American couple working together to build their own retail business specializing in sales of high-quality, hand-made, chocolate truffles. The case follows their path as they launch two coffee shops that fail after five years of slow growth and limited revenue, leaving them in debt. The couple returns to corporate positions and rebuilds their financial security. Next, they decide to invest their savings to develop a retail chocolate business. They establish a retail location but watch sales plummet after the first year, leading them to move to a new location and seek a business model that will bring them success. The case addresses the following topics. • The factors involved, personal as well as financial, in the decision to build rather than buy a business. • The relationship linking market research and analysis, to their choice of location, as it impacts the success of a retail business. • The importance of product lines, sales channels, and accurate financial monitoring in crafting a business model that produces revenues and profits.

SIGFOX is a provider of infrastructure services to the emerging Internet of Things (IoT) industry. The company has a homegrown solution to the problem of high energy consumption networks. Their low power consumption wide area network (LPWAN) will unleash the IoT industry by allowing companies to build viable solutions using IoT. Just as with operating systems, an infrastructure is only as valuable as the solutions that are available on them. A basic challenge needing to be overcome before gaining traction within IoT is that their infrastructure must become widely available. In one approach, the company can get third parties to buy their technology and use it to provide coverage. In the second approach, SIGFOX has to raise capital and do its own expansion of the infrastructure. In addition, they have also chosen a mixed approach: to deploy and operate by themselves in a minority of countries (France, Germany, US) and to deploy/operate via partners (SIGFOX Network Operators) in the rest of the world.