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This supplemental case to SawStop (A) advances the narrative to 2012.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article.

Human genomics promises to be a wellspring of innovation, diagnosis, and treatment--but it needs an industry cluster if it's to reach its full potential. How and where is such a cluster likely to arise?

The world needs more entrepreneurs--the people who make innovation real and advance the "frontier economy." It's a failure on the part of society if their ranks are too thin. But imagination in how to educate entrepreneurs seems to be lacking. Startup Weekend and The Launch Pad are two programs that show what works.

In 2010, the U.S. retail market value for next-generation non-handset wirelessly-enabled devices was just over $1 billion. By 2011 it had grown 1,141% to $13.2 billion and was forecast to reach $24.7 billion in 2015. At the same time, user demand for data was surging with the popularity of mobile Internet, e-mail, and messaging, which left carriers scrambling to increase network capacity. To capture more revenue in the data market, AT&T formed the Emerging Devices Organization (EDO) in 2008 as a distinct internal initiative to identify and partner with manufacturers developing the next generation of mobile broadband devices - from eReaders to tablets, to implanted medical devices, to supply-chain tracking devices, to dog collars and many more. AT&T executives believed that these partnerships would position the company for its next "winning play," following the path it blazed in 2007 with Apple for the iPhone. The EDO was run by Glenn Lurie, who had led the team that partnered with Apple. He knew from experience that to capture the market with the next game-changing device, his team would need to develop a new partnership model, both inside AT&T and with the ecosystem of partners who were poised to lead the global mobile broadband revolution. Doing so within a company the size of AT&T would be tough, but Lurie believed his group was up to the task.

Atavist, a start-up founded by journalists, publishes enhanced ebook singles as well as the software to create enhanced ebooks. The company is currently engaged in both publishing and software development, but as they raise funding and grow, must decide whether to focus on one or the other.

Ari Medoff's (HBS '11) goal was to control his own professional destiny by owning his own company. His search identified a suitable acquisition in Home Nursing of North Carolina, and he had negotiated a purchase price of $3.5 million, or 4.2x trailing EBITDA. Medoff had completed his due diligence, arranged financing, and completed the legal documents required to complete the acquisition and anticipated closing the transaction in just a few weeks. But then the sellers surprisingly asked to renegotiate the terms of the note they had agreed to early in the acquisition process. Medoff must decide whether to renegotiate the debt or abandon the transaction.

In 2009, an entrepreneur believes in the potential of Readeo, his idea for a website that combines the love of reading with video calling. He sees Readeo as a solution that would allow, for example, his son to interact and spend quality time connecting with his grandparents. The entrepreneur has several important factors to consider as he works to launch his website. The case explores the challenges that he faces in the midst of uncertainty. While he knows he wants to start the business, the real question is how he should go about doing this.

In February 2007, Jonah Nobleza started Marina Gana Vida ("MGV") in the Davao coastal area in the Philippines, which historically had been the home of many subsistence fishermen living in poverty. MGV sold hatchery-bred fry fish seed stocks, fresh fish and packaged fish products produced in its own processing plant. The main social objective of MGV was to help the poor living in the area through job or business opportunities so that some day they could lift their households out of poverty. Since 2009, MGV had been gradually meeting its social, environmental and economic goals. It provided direct and indirect employment to many poor households. Nobleza faced conflicting goals as he tried to scale up MGV's production. Should he replace the women workers with machines that could produce more jars of processed fish products per day? Without a sizable business, he would have trouble proving his successful business model to those who would be willing to provide the much-needed funds to MGV. What could he do to balance his philanthropic and business goals in a social enterprise such as MGV?

Examines the career of Marc Rich, the world's leading commodity trader before his criminal indictment in the United States in 1983. The case surveys the historical growth of commodity trading, especially in metals, from the late nineteenth century, and its evolving forms as governments intervened in markets after 1945. Rich joined Philipp Brothers, then the largest commodity trader, in 1954. He formed his own firm two decades later. He was instrumental in the creation of a spot market in petroleum, and assumed a pivotal role in the industry during the 1970s by selling Iranian oil to Israel and South Africa. The case provides a means to explore the rationale and advantages of giant commodity traders, as well as enabling students to debate corporate use of tax havens.

Annapurna Mahila Mandal (AMM), Mumbai, is a trust that provides micro credit and other services to poor working women. It was established in 1975 by a veteran Goa freedom fighter and social entrepreneur and her late husband, a union leader, in the wake of a decade-long millworkers’ strike in Mumbai. Though AMM was a pioneer in the field of urban microfinance, by 1982 it slowly started losing its focus on microfinance and diverted to other social activities, which were difficult to scale up and thus started to turn unviable. In 1993, when AMM’s chairperson began looking after the operations, she realized that the external environment was evolving quickly with changes in regulations, rising competition, rising aspirations of microfinance clients, etc. If not tackled on time, these potential threats could jeopardize the survival of the organization. AMM needed to develop a very clear vision as to which direction it should grow in in order to become sustainable without losing its focus on the core objective — the empowerment of poor women.

Venture capitalist Atul Kapadia was inclined to provide seed funding for Sujeet Kumar and Michael Sinkula to found Envia Systems, a lithium-ion battery company. Admittedly, Envia was little more than the founders' vision of an affordable electric vehicle and the potential of playing in a very large market. But for Kapadia, it was precisely these two key ingredients that made Envia attractive and akin to other early-stage investments he had made at Bay Partners.

This case depicts the start-up and business development challenges faced by a streetwise entrepreneur who has invented a unique fishing rod. The capabilities necessary to invent, prototype, and bring to market a limited quantity of product versus the challenges of larger-scale commercialization and management of a growing business are illustrated. The case primarily addresses why some entrepreneurial ventures succeed and grow while others stay insignificant, and why a majority of entrepreneurial initiatives eventually fail. Indigenous constructs such as entrepreneur- and organization-specific factors and exogenous constructs such as industry, location, and time-specific factors that may predetermine the outcome of an entrepreneurial venture are illustrated. A business plan, which has attracted angel investment, is presented for critical assessment. The case’s background story shows that all businesses face resource constraints and trade-offs and that managers must continuously adapt and upgrade their business models, competencies, and management styles to match evolving market standards.

<p style="color: rgb(197, 183, 131);"><strong> AWARD WINNER - Emerging Chinese Global Competitors Category at European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) Case Writing Competition</strong></p><br>7 Days Inn, a leading hotel group in China, was established in 2005 and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2009. It now operates more than 1,000 hotels in 168 major Chinese cities and has enrolled more than 30 million customers in its membership club. Its success is largely due to its innovative business model and operations strategy, which includes designing product services with the vertical cutting approach, enhancing customer loyalty through a membership system and direct sales, managing a hotel chain with different governance structures and expanding a hotel chain with an innovative franchised-and-managed model. In particular, the case introduces the company’s shepherd management philosophy. However, as the company expands, it has become difficult for headquarters to manage and supervise all the hotels. In addition, the resignation rate of hotel managers has gone up to 30 per cent in the past few years. What should 7 Days Inn do to deal with these challenges? Does the company need to break the rules again and innovate its business model, operations strategy or operating model — or all of them?

Hong Kong Business Intermediary ("HKBI") was Hong Kong's first business brokerage company that specialised in small business sales. Leading the company was Edwin Lee, a young entrepreneur who took his every chance to drive the company to new levels of success. In November 2001, after realising that there were no business brokerage firms in Hong Kong, Lee set up HKBI and started to offer "matchmaking" services for prospective business sellers and buyers. As the company diversified into too many additional services without proper planning, the rising operation cost turned into a cash flow disaster for HKBI in 2005. Lee then restructured his business model into a more systematic and integrated way and successfully turned his company around, earning himself the award of Hong Kong's Innovative Entrepreneur of the Year 2007. HKBI's business model and efforts in promoting entrepreneurship had also received recognition worldwide. Meanwhile, local rivals began to tap into the under-developed sector in Hong Kong, and many of them were former HKBI employees. Lee knew when a blue ocean began to turn red, he needed to continue to reinvent his business to safeguard HKBI's market leader position. He envisioned HKBI to become a small business property developer in the future. How did Lee distinguish HKBI from others by associating the business brokerage operation with the finance, private equity and property markets in an innovative way? How did take it as his employees striking out on their own and becoming his competitors while one the objectives of HKBI was to promote entrepreneurship?

UrbanBaby is a newly developed smartphone application (app) that allows users to address the difficult task of finding activities, restaurants and other forms of entertainment for newborns to young teens. A number of issues must be addressed if it is going to be profitable. First, the app’s creators, Alex and Pavel, are unsure how to characterize the large potential target market, parents, or if there are other target markets that might be interested. This is critical, as the success of the app depends on the cultivation of a strong online community that will contribute content. Second, they have to find a reliable source of data to populate the app. Third, they must decide whether to focus on Apple's operating system, which is popular in North America, or put more of their energy into competing operating systems that are much more popular in the rest of the world. Finally, they have a number of strategic marketing choices to make and to prioritize, including whether to keep the UrbanBaby brand name and risk the ire of similarly named competitors, how to price the app, how to position and promote the app and how to time the rollout. How these initial choices will affect subsequent strategic and tactical decisions is also a matter of concern.

This case examines the powerpoint presentation that Ranjith Kumaran, founder of the start-up PunchTab, Inc., is using for his investment pitches to venture capital firms. Students can discuss the materials that Kumaran has included, his presentation style, and what they would retain or remove from the presentation.

Foro Energy developed proprietary and patent-pending fiber-laser technologies that could disrupt existing processes and services for the exploration and production of oil and natural gas. These breakthrough laser technologies were protected by a strong intellectual property (IP) portfolio, which provided Foro with the flexibility to pursue a number of different business models. The market potential for oilfield applications was large, as global spending in the O&G E&P industry was expected to approach $600 billion in 2012.

Economists disagree over whether the U.S. can keep driving the productivity gains that lead to higher incomes. To learn whether we're on track or in trouble, we should look at the number of business starts.

A young business student at a university in Ontario must decide whether to launch her entrepreneurial venture — selling women’s foldable flats — and how, in the Toronto market. Damn Heels (A) highlights the research done by the entrepreneur leading up to this decision, including the marketing (product, price, promotion, and placement) decisions she faces, consideration of the competitive retail shoe industry, and some of the first steps for a new business evaluation — unit contribution and financial profitability projections.