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In June 2021, Mumbai-based WhatKnot Wedding Photography faced a critical decision between pursuing high-value celebrity weddings or maintaining their focus on mid-size clients. A potential celebrity wedding contract posed a significant opportunity for both revenue and exposure. However, this venture required extensive senior management involvement, redirection of resources, and potential strain on existing client relationships. The company’s co-founders held opposing views: while one favoured consolidating their position in the mid-size market, prioritizing stability, and client relationships, the other advocated for pursuing high-value contracts to gain prominence and higher revenue. The dilemma highlighted the trade-off between pursuing high-value opportunities and maintaining existing business models. This decision would shape the company’s future direction and market positioning, with implications for both short-term gains and long-term sustainability.

Phumlaphi Rita Zwane, founder of Busy Corner, a thriving Shisanyama (African barbeque) business in Thembisa, South Africa, faced a pivotal decision amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Motivated by aspirations for business expansion and the pursuit of new opportunities, Zwane established a company-owned restaurant in the Mall of Thembisa. However, insufficient consideration of crucial factors during the decision-making process led to an alarming debt of $825,971, as of February 18, 2023, posing a significant threat to the business's survival. At this juncture, Zwane grappled with the dilemma of whether to close, sell, or franchise the Thembisa Busy Corner location, underscoring the critical need for a strategic resolution to secure the future of her entrepreneurial venture.

Eugenia Kuyda launched Replika AI in 2017 as an empathetic digital companion to combat loneliness and provide emotional support. The platform surged in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, offering non-judgmental support to isolated users. By 2023, Replika boasted 10 million users, with 40% engaging in romantic partnerships with their Replikas. Kuyda's strategy of prioritizing users' emotional well-being over engagement metrics was successful: 85% users reported improved mood post-interaction. However, as users ventured into more intimate conversations with the AI, Kuyda faced a pivotal decision: Should she restrict these exchanges or embrace them as the platform's natural evolution? This choice was complicated by the need to safeguard Replika's brand, prevent misuse, while satisfying its diverse user base. The case explores the ethical boundaries of AI-human relationships and the evolving role of AI in addressing loneliness. It is suitable for courses in technology, entrepreneurship, AI, and ethics.

After a personal journey and interest in Alzheimer's Disease (AD) by Bill Gates, Gates Ventures set out to find the best way to accelerate innovation in the field of AD. In partnership with the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation, Gates Ventures created the Diagnostics Accelerator (DxA) to fund innovations as a venture philanthropy fund. The AD field had seen rapid advances in therapeutics, and as such, large corporations were hesitant to take venture funding which meant potentially losing control and having other opinions on the Board. Instead, these companies were turning to other non-dilutive sources of funding. The DxA, and GV, sat at a crossroads and needed to determine where to go next to fulfill their mission.

Blockchain pioneer Stellar Development Foundation oversees one of the earliest and largest crypto networks (Stellar) and the management of its native token XLM. The foundation partnered with cross-border payments provider MoneyGram to help on and off-ramp cryptocurrencies between the Stellar Network and cash. In one case, the partnership enabled the United Nations to distribute funds to refugees.

George Mason University's Lei Gao and his co-researchers-Macquarie University's Jianlei Han, Zheyao Pan, and Huixuan Zhang-collected birthplace data on 1,777 U.S.-born CEOs and determined how many decades each leader's hometown had spent on or near the frontier during the country's westward expansion. Examining accounting and patent databases, they found that firms led by CEOs from longtime frontier counties were awarded more patents than other firms-and those patents were cited more frequently and had greater value in the marketplace.

In a recent study of European start-ups, one technique consistently boosted performance: the scientific method, a centuries-old discipline of formulating, testing, and tweaking hypotheses. Ventures employing it generated more revenues than those that didn't and were also more likely to pivot away from unviable ideas, a necessity for early-stage firms. The key to pivoting is focusing not on your ideas but on the answers to your experiments, which should provide insight into customer demand and industry pain points. That approach helped Osense, a start-up focused on technology for tracking carbon emissions, find its successful model. Its first idea was for peer-to-peer product rentals, and its second was for a platform for renting e-vehicles. If it hadn't applied the scientific method, "we would have ended up with a product that wasn't viable," says cofounder Cosimo Cecchini.

The case presents Independiente del Valle Specialized High-Performance Club, an Ecuadorian sports club focused on soccer. It competed in the third division until 2007 when a group of businessmen led by Michel Deller assumed ownership. Since then, the club has offered housing, meals, and education to children aged 13 and older in its Specialized High-Performance Center in Quito, where they learn the fundamentals of soccer and refine their skills. Applying this holistic approach to player development, the team has been the leading contributor since 2012 to all of Ecuador's youth teams and the national squad. Additionally, the club rapidly became the second-most laureated Ecuadorian team internationally with three regional trophies. The club's ability to attract, nurture, and develop talent caught the attention of international teams looking for rising stars and generated a consistent revenue flow through transfer fees. To ensure model sustainability, the Board of Directors decided never to include this income in the annual budget of the first division team to avoid short-sighted decisions that could consume the income in a few years. This commitment would be tested as Independiente increasingly competed with clubs with higher fan bases and historic sponsorship appeal, making it hard to cover the first-division team expenses through matchday income, sponsorships, and broadcasting rights. The case allows students to compare different business models in the global soccer industry and the challenges presented by a strategy for developing top football players.

(B2): Dharmesh Thakker confidential information for term sheet negotiation.

(B1): Matthew Scullion confidential information for term sheet negotiation.

This exercise provides students with an engaging two-person negotiation between an employer and a job candidate over the details of a sales role with The Peak, a small but rapidly growing news-media start-up in Canada. The Peak's co-founder and chief executive officer wants a new salesperson who is willing to take on responsibilities outside the scope of a typical salesperson and to work with little supervision. The candidate is a seasoned professional with an entrepreneurial spirit and a desire to join a small start-up, where she can take more ownership over her work and liaise with the co-founders to grow the company. By role-playing as the employer or the candidate, students will determine how best to achieve satisfactory job-offer terms.

This exercise provides students with an engaging two-person negotiation between an employer and a job candidate over the details of a sales role with The Peak, a small but rapidly growing news-media start-up in Canada. The Peak's co-founder and chief executive officer wants a new salesperson who is willing to take on responsibilities outside the scope of a typical salesperson and to work with little supervision. The candidate is a seasoned professional with an entrepreneurial spirit and a desire to join a small start-up, where she can take more ownership over her work and liaise with the co-founders to grow the company. By role-playing as the employer or the candidate, students will determine how best to achieve satisfactory job-offer terms.

This exercise provides students with an engaging two-person negotiation between an employer and a job candidate over the details of a sales role with The Peak, a small but rapidly growing news-media start-up in Canada. The Peak's co-founder and chief executive officer wants a new salesperson who is willing to take on responsibilities outside the scope of a typical salesperson and to work with little supervision. The candidate is a seasoned professional with an entrepreneurial spirit and a desire to join a small start-up, where she can take more ownership over her work and liaise with the co-founders to grow the company. By role-playing as the employer or the candidate, students will determine how best to achieve satisfactory job-offer terms.

Sri Sabari Engimech Private Limited (SSEPL), a firm founded in 2001, provided contract-based staff for the operations and maintenance (O&M) of plant and machinery (P&M), mainly in the petrochemical sector. The founder reaped profits from the first month onward. In 2008, his son took over SSEPL as director of operations and expanded the company's services and clientele to increase profits. In 2019, the company encountered loss for the first time because of, among other reasons, malpractice by its former CEO, the ex-CEO starting his own O&M outfit and taking with him some of SSEPL's employees, the entry of new players into the market, and the 2019 novel coronavirus pandemic. However, SSEPL managed to bounce back with low profit margins the following year, leading the director of operations to contemplate the way forward for the company.

Sri Sabari Engimech Private Limited (SSEPL), a firm founded in 2001, provided contract-based staff for the operations and maintenance (O&M) of plant and machinery (P&M), mainly in the petrochemical sector. The founder reaped profits from the first month onward. In 2008, his son took over SSEPL as director of operations and expanded the company’s services and clientele to increase profits. In 2019, the company encountered loss for the first time because of, among other reasons, malpractice by its former CEO, the ex-CEO starting his own O&M outfit and taking with him some of SSEPL’s employees, the entry of new players into the market, and the 2019 novel coronavirus pandemic. However, SSEPL managed to bounce back with low profit margins the following year, leading the director of operations to contemplate the way forward for the company.

When they are posed with two intriguing offers on the fund-raising television show Shark Tank India, the co-founders of Menstrupedia Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (Menstrupedia), Aditi Gupta and Tuhin Paul, are faced with a tough decision. Should they forgo the social brand they have built over several years to pursue the seemingly smart business decision of becoming a sanitary napkin producer, or should they scale up their comic business despite so many competitors in the menstrual awareness landscape, or should they do both? Menstrupedia Comic is an educational comic book about menstruation for adolescents created by Gupta and Paul in 2009. Its aim is to shatter deep-rooted, widespread menstruation myths. Although Menstrupedia has started out as a comic book producer, the company’s social impact has been enormous, with Gupta having been recognized for her social outreach efforts by organizations such as Forbes Media limited liability company and British Broadcasting Corporation. By 2022, the co-founders seek to grow their impact, and the need to scale up Menstrupedia propels them to appear on Shark Tank India. Two “Sharks” (members of a panel of potential investors) each offer them a different avenue for growth. The first Shark is in agreement with the co-founders’ vision of social change and growth, while the other suggests that they diversify their business by manufacturing and selling sanitary napkins, an immensely profitable endeavour, while using their comics as a complementary product.

When they are posed with two intriguing offers on the fund-raising television show Shark Tank India, the co-founders of Menstrupedia Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (Menstrupedia), Aditi Gupta and Tuhin Paul, are faced with a tough decision. Should they forgo the social brand they have built over several years to pursue the seemingly smart business decision of becoming a sanitary napkin producer, or should they scale up their comic business despite so many competitors in the menstrual awareness landscape, or should they do both? Menstrupedia Comic is an educational comic book about menstruation for adolescents created by Gupta and Paul in 2009. Its aim is to shatter deep-rooted, widespread menstruation myths. Although Menstrupedia has started out as a comic book producer, the company's social impact has been enormous, with Gupta having been recognized for her social outreach efforts by organizations such as Forbes Media limited liability company and British Broadcasting Corporation. By 2022, the co-founders seek to grow their impact, and the need to scale up Menstrupedia propels them to appear on Shark Tank India. Two "Sharks" (members of a panel of potential investors) each offer them a different avenue for growth. The first Shark is in agreement with the co-founders' vision of social change and growth, while the other suggests that they diversify their business by manufacturing and selling sanitary napkins, an immensely profitable endeavour, while using their comics as a complementary product.

Nathan Seidle, the chief executive officer (CEO) of SparkFun Electronics (SparkFun), was contemplating stepping down from his role. Based in Colorado, SparkFun was founded in Boulder in 2003 and had grown to generate an annual revenue of US$32 million with 146 employees. SparkFun's commitment to open-source principles had shaped its business model, facilitating a mutually beneficial and collaborative relationship between the company and its users, with community contributions driving rapid innovation and product development. As Seidle stepped down from his CEO role, would SparkFun remain open source?

Spreadsheet supplement for case TB0712