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In March 2021, the wholesale distributor of home décor products SBO Distributors Ltd. (or SWISSBO), based in Vancouver, Canada, was considering an opportunity for strategic analysis. The firm was at a crossroads in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic had led to a setback in the company's revenues and margins-seemingly, a temporary setback. The wholesaler was now facing a make-or-break dilemma that involved a new growth opportunity to move up the value chain toward retailing.

Chai Point was an Indian food and beverage company focused on chai. It started in 2010 as a retail store network but soon expanded to corporate offices by developing an IoT-enabled automatic tea and filter coffee machine. By 2023, Chai Point had 170 stores and 5000 machines nationwide. However, it was still a fraction of India's vast tea market. With ambitions for greater scale, Chai Point launched a promising third vertical, MyChai Corner, to aggregate the unorganized chai market via a tech platform. MyChai Corner was in its pilot stage, but its expansion would require significant capital expenditure and an aggressive pricing strategy. How should ChaiPoint allocate its resources between its various verticals? Which vertical would help it achieve the maximum growth? How could the company create synergies between them?

In September 2022, The Commons Project Foundation (TCP) CEO Zhenya Lindgardt and her team met on a Zoom call to discuss building tools to help Rwandans manage their health data. They believed that helping Africa build digital infrastructure would improve much-needed healthcare service delivery. TCP had started in the U.S. with health data, building tools and protocols that would allow people to access, store, and share their medical information. This was difficult given privacy concerns, obsolete storage methods, interoperability problems among providers, and strict legal requirements. Leaders in less-developed markets in Africa saw the value of TCP's person-centered approach to health data. TCP considered how to reach its goal and scale, and how to fund its ambitious vision. Who should pay for digital infrastructure that was a public good? Were the answers the same in the U.S. and in Africa?

In July 2020, the chief executive officer and board chair of Essential Coffee Group based on the Gold Coast, Australia, was perusing the company’s financials. After continuous company growth and a distressed coffee consumption industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was the perfect time to explore inorganic growth opportunities. To continue to compete at a high level in the Australian coffee industry, Essential Coffee Group had to move fast by exploring opportunities to expand horizontally, such as acquiring the analogous coffee bean roasting company Coffee Time Pty Ltd. To determine the feasibility of the transaction, the Essential Coffee Group financial team would need to undertake comprehensive external, internal, and financial analyses. They would also have to complete a discounted cash flow valuation and a precedent transactions analysis to determine an appropriate offer price for the targeted firm.

Spreadsheet to accompany product W32150.

Instructor Spreadsheet to accompany product W32151.

Vikrant Kadian founded Cherrygrocer Pvt. Ltd. (Fresherry), an online app and delivery service for fruits and vegetables, in February 2021 in Gurgaon, India, and was joined in the venture by three friends. In January 2023, Kadian was still the majority shareholder. The venture promised its customers better prices, convenience, an alternative to physical inspection of the produce, and traceability. However, the company had no defined target market and insufficient capabilities to straddle two main market segments, and the bootstrapped venture was suffering from wastage and inefficient resource allocations and facing high operational losses. Kadian had to choose from among the options available: Should he target a specific market or continue to straddle two segments and invest in capabilities? If he decided to choose a target market, should he chase the premium or budget segment? Should he continue bootstrapping the firm or bring in an external investor to implement a marketing strategy? Realizing the importance of his entrepreneurial dream and the principle on which he started his venture, Kadian had to decide the way forward without losing time.

Born out of a desire to bring technological advances in enterprise software into the healthcare vertical, Peter Gassner and Matt Wallach founded Veeva to bring life sciences companies into the digital age for data management in both the commercial and R&D sectors. Over the course of years of growth, the company expanded to take a commanding share of the market and become the nearly-uniform "operating system" for life sciences companies. Veeva also became the first Public Benefits Corporation (PBC) in the U.S. to enshrine their objectives for the industry within their business model and as one of five stakeholders, along with shareholders, as a for-profit company. Veeva is now at a crossroads and must decide where to go to ensure compliance with their objectives as a PBC, continue their growth and expansion, and ensure they maintain market share. What should the company do?

This supplement provides background on abortion in the U.S. It is meant to accompany "Hey Jane: Delivering Abortion Pills to the Doorstep" (case no. 724-408) and would be especially useful for students new to the U.S. healthcare context.

This case tells the story of Hey Jane, a telehealth clinic founded in 2020 that provides virtual medication abortion services to eligible patients in nine U.S. states. By January 2023, the company had served more than 20,000 patients and raised nearly $10 million in venture capital, all while navigating an ever-evolving regulatory landscape. At the time of the case, Kiki Freedman, Hey Jane's CEO and founder, is considering expanding the company's holistic support model to another highly stigmatized reproductive health need-maternal mental health.

This supplement provides an early investor pitch deck for Hey Jane, a telehealth medication abortion provider. It is meant to accompany "Hey Jane: Delivering Abortion Pills to the Doorstep" (case no. 724-408).

The problem was massive: two million hectares of African forests were lost annually to charcoal production for cooking, an area equivalent to 13 times Greater London, resulting in one billion tons of carbon emissions yearly. At the same time, an estimated 700,000 yearly deaths, primarily children under the age of five, were the result of poor indoor air quality from unclean cooking fuel. Forecasts suggested exponential demand growth for charcoal driven by rising population and increased urbanization in Africa. Eighty-three percent of sub-Saharan African households relied on charcoal or wood for cooking. Greg Murray (chief executive officer), Sagun Saxena (chief innovation officer), Nicholas Stokes (chief financial officer) and Micael da Costa (chief systems officer) had decided to do something about it. In 2014, they co-founded KOKO Networks (KOKO), a climate-technology company that built and operated clean fuel utilities enabling nations to transition away from deforestation-charcoal. KOKO partnered with the owners of existing liquids infrastructure, and then used its unique technology and operating platform to deliver low-cost ultra-clean bioethanol cooking to a dense network of high-tech "KOKO Point" Fuel ATMs located in corner stores across low-income neighborhoods, which it used to retail directly to households. The end result was a safe, clean and affordable fuel located within a short walk of home, and which delivered a modern cooking experience at a price point that was materially lower than charcoal. By August 2023, KOKO served over one million households across ten cities in Kenya and planned to expand further in Kenya as well as build greenfield utilities in Rwanda and other African nations. Yet, the co-founders knew that the road ahead was full not only of opportunities, but also of challenges.

Facebook Inc. (Facebook) rebranded to Meta Platforms Inc. (Meta) in October 2021, intending to break into the virtual world of immersive technologies. However, Meta soon found itself in trouble after an eventful year in the virtual reality industry. The number of Meta users was declining, and first-time Meta users were not coming back. Users were complaining about underdeveloped graphics, programming troubles, instability, and overall poor user experience. Meta’s struggle with technological glitches, disengaged users, and an unclear vision resulted in a sharp decline in its financial performance. The company was also attracting negative comments on social media platforms. What should Meta do moving forward? Should it continue spending on innovative technology and hiring additional talent, return to its roots as a social media platform (Facebook), or consider its competitive advantage via collaboration?

After pivoting from a focus on hardware to a focus on scientific data, TetraScience, led by veteran SaaS executive, Patrick Grady and Founder Spin Wang, has embarked on a journey from nearly cash-out to a player in the scientific data management space. This case focuses on challenges within the scientific data space today, including TetraScience's approach to building a two-sided network, and how the company plans to utilize the pivot as a way to address one or both sides of that network and build upon their desired new business model. Where should TetraScience look to expand their total addressable market (TAM) and capture market share in an industry where companies know they have a need to solve their data issues, but have a ton of inertia holding the industry within the status quo?

Facebook Inc. (Facebook) rebranded to Meta Platforms Inc. (Meta) in October 2021, intending to break into the virtual world of immersive technologies. However, Meta soon found itself in trouble after an eventful year in the virtual reality industry. The number of Meta users was declining, and first-time Meta users were not coming back. Users were complaining about underdeveloped graphics, programming troubles, instability, and overall poor user experience. Meta's struggle with technological glitches, disengaged users, and an unclear vision resulted in a sharp decline in its financial performance. The company was also attracting negative comments on social media platforms. What should Meta do moving forward? Should it continue spending on innovative technology and hiring additional talent, return to its roots as a social media platform (Facebook), or consider its competitive advantage via collaboration?

In March 2023, Garry Cooper, cofounder and CEO of Chicago-based Rheaply, needed to demonstrate that Rheaply's expanded vision could translate into building cash flows and metrics needed to raise a Series B and turn the business into a model for financial and environmental sustainability. The eight-year-old company had originally been founded as an asset exchange platform for surplus materials at university science laboratories. Over time, the company evolved well beyond its initial market and expanded into a circular economy marketplace where cities, enterprises, and academic institutions exchanged everything from lab equipment to furniture to building materials. Cooper needed to determine whether the strategic shift to sustainability was working, and what, if anything, needed to change.

Pitch deck explaining the early vision of the company that was presented by the CEO to potential investors.

Pitch deck explaining the later vision of the company that was presented by the CEO to potential investors.

After publicly declaring that they would not enter the contract research organization (CRO) business in 2017, Thermo Fisher purchased Pharmaceutical Product Development (PPD), one of the biggest players in the CRO space, in 2021. Much had changed in the intervening years, but questions still remained concerning the strategic about-face. Thermo Fisher, often referred to as the 800lb gorilla in the room, was already nearly a one-stop-shop for biotech and pharma companies. Now, with the acquisition complete, Thermo Fisher and its customers faced a bit of a reckoning, with many potential paths forward. What would the right path for Thermo Fisher and its customers be?

The concept of Jungle Bay Dominica (Jungle Bay) was created by Samuel Raphael on the island of Dominica in 1997 and first opened for business in 2005. Raphael’s philosophy was that he could profitably operate a luxury hotel with minimal disturbance to the surrounding natural environment that functioned as a tool to further the economic growth and social welfare of the local population. To its clientele, Jungle Bay offered a variety of experiences in a tropical setting, such as breathtaking views, spa treatments, lush gardens and orchards, adventure tours, and fresh organic food. For the Jungle Bay team, Raphael provided opportunities for learning new skills and a steady income, and he gave motivated individuals an opportunity to grow. However, a series of natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic had resulted in Jungle Bay struggling to achieve occupancy rates above 35 per cent. Raphael had to determine the best way to expand Jungle Bay’s marketing efforts, increase occupancy rates, and increase revenue.