Entrepreneurship
September 2022
Feedr (A)
By Gary Dushnitsky, Kathryn Larin
The case describes the journey of Riya Grover and Lyz Swanton as they launched, scaled and sold London-based startup Feedr during the second half of 2010. Feedr provided nutritionally healthy food to the workplace by leveraging technology to drive personalisation in choice and scale. Case A follo...
June 2022
Anne Boden at Starling Bank: Disrupting an industry
By Herminia Ibarra, Luisa Alemany, Nick Mickshik, Ken Mark
The case describes the start-up and evolution of UK-based digital bank Starling. Founded in 2014, Starling offered personal and business accounts, and lending products, promising a better customer-service experience, faster approvals and a more digital-friendly approach than traditional banks. By 20...
March 2022
Refinitiv: A private equity-led transformation
By Julian Birkinshaw, David Craig
In August 2019 CEO David Craig was considering the likely benefits and challenges of merging his company, financial-markets data and infrastructure provider Refinitiv, with the London Stock Exchange Group. Craig had led a turnaround of Thomson Reuters’ Financial & Risk division (F&R), then...
February 2022
TrueLayer: Innovation, regulation and the future of financial services
By Julian Birkinshaw, Ken Mark, Farhan Lalji
In April 2021, having just raised $70 million in a Series D funding, Francesco Simoneschi, Co-Founder and CEO of TrueLayer, was thinking about expansion plans. Should the company focus on product innovation, broadening its line-up within the 13 countries in which it operated, or should it look to gr...
November 2021
Patrick McGinnis
By John Mullins, Jeremy Hughes, Tiffany Putimahtama
The case analyses the scenario facing Paddy McGiness, the sole founder of Breathe coffee shop in Hays, Kansas, as he seeks to launch his new business without seeking any external financing. The case explores the various mindsets that characterise many entrepreneurs and uses Mullins' texts 'The Count...
November 2021
Pass the Keys (B)
By John Mullins
The past year, 2019, had been an exhilarating one for Alex Lyakhotskiy and his team. Buoyed by a new franchise model that was working well for opening new cities, alongside better execution in some of the company’s existing cities, Pass the Keys’ growth had accelerated. Happily, it was looking l...
November 2021
Pass the Keys (A)
By John Mullins
It was a cold, blustery February morning in 2019. Pass the Keys co-founders Alex Lyakhotskiy and Zoe Vu were reflecting with their team on the three and a half years that their fast-growing company had been in business. “We’re now managing 480 properties in nine cities across the UK. Most of our...
November 2019
Funovation
By John Mullins
Erick Mueller was thrilled! The fledging company that he and two friends had started a few months earlier had been the widely acknowledged ‘hit’ of the 2007 IAAPA Attractions Expo, a trade show in Orlando, Florida that brought together more than 1,100 exhibitors and nearly 20,000 buyers from mos...
April 2009
Multi Media Mapping Ltd Case (B)
By John Bates, Cosette Reczek, Sean Phelan
It was early October 2007 as Sean Phelan, founder of Multi Media Mapping Ltd, reviewed the previous 12 months. It had been a year of highs and lows that now set the scene for the most important decision in the company’s 12-year history. At least he now had some options to consider – unlike this ...
April 2009
Multi Media Mapping Ltd Case (A)
By John Bates, Cosette Reczek, Sean Phelan
It was nearly 10 years since Multi Media Mapping Ltd had gone live with the launch of the Multimap.com website and Sean Phelan, founder and majority shareholder, was facing the classic entrepreneur’s dilemma. The company had a successful platform and business model that had made it the market lead...