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In 2021, IPI celebrated its tenth anniversary since its inception as a public-funded innovation intermediary in Singapore, a city-state with a strong focus on innovation as an economic growth strategy. Among the many initiatives promoted by the government agencies is open innovation - an approach that enables firms, both large and small, to pursue innovation with the help of external expertise or partners, as few could innovate effectively on their own. As a neutral party facilitating collaboration between the local SME community and technology innovators in developing new products, services, and processes, IPI is the missing element that plugs the gap in the local innovation ecosystem. Its value proposition includes reaching a wider network of partners, acquiring industry-specific knowledge insights, and identifying and catalysing new market opportunities for licensing technology by a multidisciplinary team. Over the past decade, IPI has grown into a trusted intermediary for thousands of companies that are either seeking or offering innovative solutions. However, IPI is still unknown to many among the 300,000 plus SME community in Singapore. Wong Lup Wai, who took the helm as CEO in 2019, has set out to rebrand IPI's identity and strengthen its service offerings. He concedes there is still much work to be done. What factors will help IPI succeed in the next decade? How can IPI scale its key services to create an even more vibrant innovation community for SMEs?

In this case study, students will explore some of the differences and considerations that may emerge when entrepreneurs evaluate and choose between multiple financing offers from venture capital investors. The case follows the two founders of a fictional company, All Hands, as they raise a Series A financing round. The founders have received term sheets from two venture capital firms that differ not only in the valuation of the firm's equity but also in other important financial and non-financial ways, including preference structures, dividends, anti-dilution protection and governance. Students will put themselves in the position of the founders to identify differences across the two term sheets, evaluate potential economic and governance tradeoffs, and develop a point-of-view on which offer they would accept.

Two women entrepreneurs co-founded a profitable direct-to-consumer apparel brand called Suta. In June 2021, as the business owners were planning to increase advertising expenditure and scale up operations, they were confronted with a declining return on advertising spend on social commerce and other digital platforms. The co-founders needed to make use of marketing analytics to examine the effectiveness of their online store in converting visitors into customers and decide whether adopting a conversion rate optimization strategy could help improve performance.

Student spreadsheet to accompany Ivey product no. W28030.

Two women entrepreneurs co-founded a profitable direct-to-consumer apparel brand called Suta. In June 2021, as the business owners were planning to increase advertising expenditure and scale up operations, they were confronted with a declining return on advertising spend on social commerce and other digital platforms. The co-founders needed to make use of marketing analytics to examine the effectiveness of their online store in converting visitors into customers and decide whether adopting a conversion rate optimization strategy could help improve performance.

Spreadsheet Supplement for Case W28030

The case titled ""Scaling Niramai: Disrupting Breast Cancer Detection using Artificial Intelligence"" describes the relentless efforts of Dr. Geetha Manjunath, the founder of Niramai, to improve early-stage breast cancer detection in women. India was plagued by a lack of medical facilities, poor access to early-stage cancer screening programs, and a lack of awareness of breast cancer in rural areas. These were the primary causes of the high rate of death due to cancer among women, of which breast cancer was a major contributor. The case study explores the different stages of Niramai's journey and poses the key question of what Niramai should do to scale its innovative and crucial offering for marketplace success. Manjunath, a healthcare research scientist, developed an innovative thermal-analytics-based solution to detect early-stage breast cancer. Niramai's innovative product received global recognition; it was the only Indian start-up to be listed on the global business data intelligence platform CB Insights. She had the noble vision of providing an affordable early-stage breast cancer solution to women, especially the underprivileged in the hinterland of the country. Manjunath considered her start-up to be much more than merely a business. The company raised US$7 million from investors for business expansion and growth. Given the potential upside, the opportunities to raise funds and scale globally created a plethora of dilemmas and challenges for Niramai's senior management team. It was a challenge for Niramai to simultaneously balance social impact and financial goals. The case ends with Manjunath and her team contemplating various options to scale Niramai. From an analysis of the case, students will appreciate the need for an organization to develop a framework that helps it analyze the company's current situation, identify opportunities, and make key strategic decisions to boost growth.

Fostering psychological safety isn't enough to succeed at innovation if managers don't pay particular attention to creating conditions for healthy debate. If leaders can balance psychological safety with open, honest debate, they gain the benefits of both. The authors describe the factors most important to establishing this balance and outline what leaders can do to create a high-performance learning and innovation culture.

The Organic Mandya (OM) case explores the journey of Madhu Chandan, a successful entrepreneur who gave up his comfortable life in the United States to return to his home state, Karnataka, in India and set up OM, a first-of-its-kind organic movement led by farmers in Mandya. Over the years leading up to his return to his roots, Chandan had observed certain disturbing trends such as increasing farmer suicides in Karnataka, the reduced life expectancy of the rural population, and large-scale migration of youth to cities for employment opportunities. He began to delve deeper to understand the problems faced by these farmers. He observed that the adoption of chemical farming in Mandya over the past few decades had led to an increase in lifestyle diseases and reduced life expectancy-a phenomenon hitherto unheard of within rural communities. OM was born out of Chandan's journey to change consumer and farmer behavior and encourage farmers to revert to traditional and more ecologically friendly farming practices. The case examines the challenges that Chandan encountered in convincing farmers to revert to sustainable farming practices, while simultaneously attempting to change the mindset of urban consumers by encouraging them to seek health-promoting, organically grown farm produce. This case will help students understand the traits that an entrepreneur driving a socially oriented business and led by a strong sense of purpose will need for success, as well as the challenges and opportunities in building a community-based enterprise. The case is set in August 2020, when Chandan was forced to reflect on the sustainability of OM's business model in the rapidly changing social context and increasing competition from big players. Consumer preference for online shopping for foodstuff was making it imperative for Chandan to continue to innovate OM's business model and to identify new opportunities to continue to stay relevant.

The case is set in 2017 and covers the journey of Fluid AI. Fluid AI is a five-year-old artificial intelligence (AI) startup that emerged as a pioneer in offering various AI-based products to solve various business problems. Its customers were primarily international and domestic (Indian) banks that generated and held enormous data but struggled to make sense of it. These banks needed help in solving problems such as predicting which customers they should lend money to, having an effective collection mechanism with reduced reliance on human decision-making, and using AI as modern technology to enhance the overall quality of customer experience. High cost-to-income ratios in banks provided another business imperative for building AI-based solutions to automate various operational processes in banks. Recognizing these needs, Fluid AI's founders-Raghav and Abhinav Aggarwal-built a core set of products powered by deep technical expertise and knowledge of AI algorithms. Enthused by the success from their first banking customer, the duo invested heavily in creating a two-pronged AI value proposition: predictive AI capabilities and conversational bots, with the ability to deploy solutions both on the customer's premises and on the cloud. This unique capability put Fluid AI in a formidable position to compete with more established AI startups, including some large IT service providers and product companies. The brothers did all of this in a completely bootstrapped mode, allowing the Fluid AI team full freedom to make technology, architectural, and business model decisions. They reached a critical mass of customers as more banks signed up and started using Fluid AI's products. A turning point came when Forbes magazine approached Fluid AI to help create a virtual avatar of Warren Buffett. This case traces Fluid AI's journey from being a startup, including its young founders and their dreams.

This case traces the life of Steve Jobs who throughout his career flaunted convention and chose an unusual path to success. The case describes how Jobs, as young man, acquired an appreciation for aesthetics and the liberal arts, but was also quick to recognize and capitalize on new information-technology innovations. The case also describes how his demanding personality and continuing quest for perfection influenced those around him and led to the growth and success of Apple, one of the most valuable companies in history. Students will learn how Steve Jobs navigated life's choices to leave a lasting impact on the world.

Sarah Kunst knew the elements of a successful startup from her tenure at venture capital firms. In April 2018, however, her own app - Proday, a home fitness platform featuring exercises filmed by professional sports stars - was floundering. Kunst theorized that Facebook algorithm changes had ruined her marketing plan, but needed to be confident in her diagnosis before allocating resources to a solution. She thought back to Proday's launch two years earlier to see if she could pinpoint where it all went wrong.

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 Supplement for Case W32150

In late 2020, Lynn Wilson, a social entrepreneur and chief executive officer of SparqU, Inc., gave himself one year to turn his company around. SparqU, which offered digital literacy training to underserved and underrepresented communities, had been funded by a workforce grant. But when the grant expired, Wilson left his academic teaching position to focus full-time on SparqU and fulfill his passion for helping Colorado’s people of colour, low income, and underserved to become digitally literate and improve their job opportunities. Wilson was all in. But he wondered, would his current promotional strategy targeted towards those needing to build digital literacy skills eventually be profitable ? Or should he consider other segments?

Many start-ups experience enormous popularity and runaway growth, but only a few go on to become stable giants. What separates them from the pack? They all go through a developmental stage called extrapolation, say three business school professors. This stage isn't part of traditional organizational theory, which holds that businesses begin in exploration mode (testing out hypotheses about how they'll solve problems and learning whether people will pay for their solutions) and then move into exploitation mode (as growth slows and they fine-tune their business models to sharpen their advantage). But between those two well-known stages is the crucial extrapolation stage. During it, a company both explores and exploits. And most significantly, it works to ensure that each new customer brings in additional revenue while incurring only marginal cost-the secret to lasting, profitable growth. A new enterprise needs multiple strengths to navigate this phase-such as a proven monetization approach, a strong go-to-market strategy, network and density effects, and capital. It also must systematically identify and remove internal business-model constraints on growth that could prevent it from achieving scale.

Entrepreneur Pau Bach, who has tetraplegia, built Batec Mobility with an inclusive business model in which profit and purpose are tightly integrated. A personal mobility device company, Batec was created by people with disabilities, employs people with disabilities, and that aims to revolutionize mobility for people in wheelchairs. In June of 2019, Bach is considering an offer to purchase his company. Accepting the offer is one of three available courses of action; he could also leverage the offer to speed negotiations with a pair of Spanish impact investors, or work to persuade his current investor to reinvest and sell for a higher price in the future. He must evaluate which course of action will best address his main goals: ensuring the continued growth of the business and its positive social impact, providing an acceptable exit to his current investor, and meeting his personal and family needs. Leading up to this moment, the case reviews the company's stages of development, the funding it has received, and the process Bach has undertaken to sell the company. In this way, students explore the opportunities and challenges of developing, funding, and selling an inclusive business.

Sara Ferrer launched Zoey Koko in 2017 with the idea of designing bath and body products for young girls and "tweens" (ages 5-12). From the start-up of her venture through the end of 2020, Ferrer had worked as a medical esthetician at a Boston spa as an independent contractor, developing Zoey Koko after work and on the weekends. Ferrer had persevered through a series of setbacks, but not without enduring a lot of stress. After three years of marginal financial performance and zero compensation for her hard work, she had reached a turning point at the end of 2020. Ferrer was unwilling and financially unable to go through another year like 2020. She was committed to deciding by the end of January 2021 whether to continue with Zoey Koko full-time or to wind down her company and pursue a full-time job.