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In January 2020, Founders Factory (FF) Executive Chairman Brent Hoberman and CEO Henry Lane Fox were considering FF's expansion strategy. FF operated as a venture capital (VC) fund built around an accelerator and incubator, and organized around sectors within technology innovation-media, education, beauty, travel, finance, home & hygiene, AI & big data, and retail. FF sought a quasi-exclusive corporate partner to fund investments in each sector. By 2020, FF had 11 partners across 9 sectors; it had raised more than £280 million and launched nearly 100 startups. FF had three offices in addition to its London headquarters-in Johannesburg, Paris, and New York City. Each was set up as an independent operating company with roughly the same ownership structure. Deploying a "franchising" model limited FF London's financial risk; it also enabled each satellite office to leverage FF's reputation and resources while operating with a fair degree of autonomy. Hoberman and Lane Fox were considering other approaches to adding their next international office. With those thoughts in mind, the pair were meeting with their leadership team to address a series of questions related to organizational design: should they maintain their current ownership and operating structure, and continue to establish each new office as its own operating company? Or should they pursue an expansion strategy with a centralized approach and scale by adopting a more traditional corporate structure?

For decades now, venture capitalists have played a crucial role in the economy by financing high-growth start-ups. While the companies they've backed--Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and more--are constantly in the headlines, very little is known about what VCs actually do and how they create value. To pull the curtain back, Paul Gompers of Harvard Business School, Will Gornall of the UBC Sauder School of Business, Steven N. Kaplan of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and Ilya A. Strebulaev of Stanford Business School conducted what is perhaps the most comprehensive survey of VC firms to date. In this article, they share their findings, offering details on how VCs hunt for deals, assess and winnow down opportunities, add value to portfolio companies, structure agreements with founders, and operate their own firms. These insights into VC practices can be helpful to entrepreneurs who want to raise capital, corporate investment arms that want to emulate venture capitalists' success, and policy makers who seek to build entrepreneurial ecosystems in their communities.

Many organizations are embarking on digital transformation to be future-ready. However, there is a lack of conceptual clarity on the underlying design logic of a future-ready enterprise. A digitally transformed enterprise must be ready to respond to unpredictable dynamism and pervasive digitalization. Such an enterprise must incorporate the duality of exploitation and exploration as well as the fusion between business and technology into its organizational design. This article presents a framework based on the digital transformation journey of DBS Bank and draws new managerial insights for driving digital transformation strategically.

Facing constant pressures to grow, established firms increasingly harness external innovation by collaborating with and eventually acquiring startups. To succeed in their exit through acquisition, startup firms and incumbents have to master three steps (the "3 Cs") that enhance the co-specialization with the acquirer: establishing the Complementarity of offerings, generating Customer endorsement, and attracting an acquirer executive Champion. Drawing on a multiple-case, inductive study of seven Israeli startup acquisitions completed by two acquirers from the information and communications technology (ICT) industry, this article illustrates the different approaches pursued by the startup firms and their acquirers to succeed in managing pre- and post-acquisition processes.

Startups in entrepreneurial ecosystems such as Silicon Valley constantly generate potentially disruptive technologies and business models. Consequently, multinational companies are finding it essential to be connected to the ecosystems where these opportunities are emerging, and many have opened "innovation outposts" in these locations. However, not many outposts succeed in effectively connecting their companies with these ecosystems. This article details why outposts often fail to become "effective brokers" and what companies should do for their outposts to deliver their full potential.

Contrary to existing literature, startups can be successful orchestrators of ecosystems. Based on nine qualitative case studies, this article introduces four archetypes that shed light on how a startup can fulfill the tasks of an orchestrator and overcome challenges. The findings identify dimensions of standardization/customization and sources of value creation as defining the role of ecosystem orchestrators and demonstrate the consequences for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), corporates, investors, and accelerators involved in such ecosystems.

Founded in 2020 by Jewel Burks Solomon and her partners, Barry Givens and Justin Dawkins, Collab Capital was a new investment firm built on two pillars: first, it would identify and support ventures founded by Black entrepreneurs, a group underrepresented in venture-financed entrepreneurship. Second, Solomon and her partners had developed a novel financial instrument that incorporated both profit-sharing and equity to offer an alternative to traditional venture capital (VC) for startups. They believed their approach offered venture-level returns for investors while also closing a critical funding gap for Black entrepreneurs. But Limited Partners (LPs) were not yet convinced.

Set in January 2021, the CEO of SafeGraph, a four-year-old startup that sold Data as a Service, looked to the future. His aim was to become the most trusted source for data about a physical place. The company provided points of interest (POI) and foot traffic data on nearly 7 million businesses in the U.S. and Canada from a variety of providers, then labelled attributes of the data such as the brand affiliation and how long consumers remained at the site. The company sold this data to nearly one hundred customers in advertising tech, retail, and financial services. Clients such as Verizon, Sysco, and Goldman Sachs used it to better understand rapidly changing patterns of consumer behavior. At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company offered free access to its data through the COVID-19 Data Consortium to government agencies to help them understand pandemic behavior and make policy decisions. Nearly a year into the health crisis and with a vaccine rolling out, SafeGraph needed to decide how to evolve the COVID-19 Data Consortium. Perhaps the data offered for free should soon be converted to a paid model, albeit on a subsidized basis? More broadly, how should the team prioritize the government sector into its enterprise customer segment mix and how would this impact the business model and pricing?

TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, was launched in 2012 around a simple idea - helping users entertain themselves on their smartphones while on the Beijing Subway. In less than a decade, it had become one of the world's most valuable private companies, with investors confident that it could replicate a rapid ascent in China in country markets around the world. By May 2020, TikTok operated in 155 countries and, together with Douyin (its China app), it had engaged roughly a billion monthly active users, placing it in the top ranks of digital platforms globally. Some industry experts argued that it was the first consumer app operating at scale where artificial intelligence (or AI) was the product. TikTok had drawn the attention of competitors, regulators, and politicians, especially in the U.S., where commercial success was considered critical to ByteDance's long-term enterprise value. Both success and controversy raised a number of critical questions: What kind of platform was TikTok? How rapidly should TikTok's leadership attempt to validate and scale its monetization model outside of China? What effect would the COVID-19 pandemic have on TikTok's momentum and trajectory? Would TikTok become the first "Super App" with a global footprint? Or, if it moved too fast, did it run the risk of becoming "the next Vine" - a supernova that shone brightly only for a passing moment?

In 2021, Ron DeShay, former American Idol producer, is launching his new business venture: World of Dreams Entertainment Group. World of Dreams rethought the existing TV production model, giving audiences more power to directly influence the creation of shows through a digital platform, and building an immersive experience around the TV production business.

This case details the various challenges that Whitney Wolfe Herd faced in starting and scaling Bumble. The case explores critical decisions that Wolfe Herd had to make, including which investors to raise money from, how to pitch her 'women message first' dating app to the group of male engineers who could build it, and how to make leadership and reporting line changes as the company scaled.

This case details the challenges Jenell Ross faced at Bob Ross Auto Group, the car dealership in Dayton, Ohio, started by her father, Bob Ross. The case explores critical activities that she had to undertake after her father's unexpected passing, including managing her grieving family, estate taxes, and succession.

In 2020, Mike Heyink and Maya Stewart, co-founders of the Pay-as-you-Go Solar company Yellow were considering how to grow their startup. They had achieved some success in their first market, Malawi, and had recently entered Uganda, where business was slower. What did they need to do to succeed in new markets? How could they continue to grow the business in Malawi?

While millennials appear motivated to support the evolution of stakeholder capitalism and solve challenging social problems via entrepreneurship, the challenges they face as business founders are also greater than those experienced by previous generations. Canadian start-ups can experience significant challenges when trying to secure financing, which is why some of our best and brightest entrepreneurs relocate to the United States. In Canada, there are three categories of business incorporation: charity, non-profit, and for-profit. Charities and non-profits are heavily reliant upon government grants, but they pay no taxes because they exist to contribute to society. Social enterprises are required to incorporate as for-profit ventures and so they pay the corporate tax rate. Now imagine a Canada with a fourth category of incorporation, one designed to give social enterprises the same tax benefits that are offered to charities and non-profits. This fourth “social enterprise” category could make our nation a tax haven for social entrepreneurship. Instead of pushing entrepreneurs away, Canada would attract top social entrepreneurial talent from the global talent pool. In addition, this simple policy adjustment has the potential to mitigate long-term fallout from pandemic measures that have left too many entrepreneurs struggling to survive.

For Sid Worley, it was decision time. He had spent the last two years courting the management and the family owners of his largest competitor, and finally (and unexpectedly) they had indicated that they would be receptive to "a serious offer" to buy the company. Worley was excited and determined to buy the company, but now he faced the reality of having to come up with an offer that would work.

Spreadsheet Supplement for Case LBS296

Totgars' Co-operative Sale Society (TSS) is an arecanut marketing co-operative headquartered at Sirsi in Uttara Kannada (UK) district of Karnataka, India. As on March 31, 2019, it had more than 30,000 members (including both primary agricultural co-operative societies (PACS) and individuals), total turnover of ₹5047.87 million, and net profit of ₹21.03 million. The primary objective of TSS is to undertake the marketing of the agricultural produce of its members. It has several other objectives that have direct or indirect bearing on the lives of arecanut growers in UK district. The key activities of TSS could be broadly classified into those which are directly related to arecanut marketing and the support services. Activities directly related to arecanut marketing include managing the sale yard in a regulated market, trading arecanut, manufacturing value-added products, and providing storage facilities. Support services include credit, agri-inputs, extension services, animal husbandry, rice milling, transport facilities, health services, consumer goods, and guest house. The business and service portfolio of TSS is highly diversified. The co-operative balances the interests of various stakeholders such as members, employees, traders, and state agencies. This case presents how TSS integrates various businesses and services to provide benefits to its member farmers, while creating value for other stakeholders. Several lessons can be drawn from the experience of TSS.

In 2014, Ifeoma Fafunwa, an award-winning playwright and director, founded iOpenEye, a commercial production company dedicated to driving social change through performance art. iOpenEye's flagship theatrical production was called "Hear Word! Naija Woman Talk True," which shared narratives of Nigerian women's struggles. By 2019, "Hear Word!" had debuted internationally, playing sold-out shows at distinguished venues like the American Repertory Theater and at the renowned Edinburgh International Festival. By spring 2020, COVID hit and venues closed, offering Fafunwa new possibilities, such as streaming content and reconsideration of production scale. What steps would it take to have iOpenEye and "Hear Word!" be successful five years down the line? Fafunwa contemplated her next move knowing that whatever it was, it had to be an iOpenEye 2.0 business model.

Five years after the company's founding, Andela, a company that built and trained remote engineering teams, became arguably Africa's greatest technology unicorn. By January 2019, Andela raised $100 million in Series D funding. As Andela looked to scale in an increasingly competitive landscape, its goal was to democratize trust and become an "Amazon Web Services" (AWS) for software engineering talent. With their windfall investment and the advent of COVID, Andela had to figure out their "2.0 model" to permit scaling. How would Andela stack up in a growing landscape of global remote talent companies? Could Andela become not just Africa's, but the world's AWS for trusted software engineering talent?