Answered: REQUIRED: 1. Write an overview and sum…

Understanding Business

12th Edition

ISBN:9781259929434

Author:William Nickels

Publisher:William Nickels

Chapter1: Taking Risks And Making Profits Within The Dynamic Business Environment

Section: Chapter Questions

Problem 1CE

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CASE STUDY ABOUT NEW BUSINESS THAT FAILED CASE STUDY PROBLEM 1: Failed Startup in B2C Sector: Mr. K chartered accountant by profession and technocrat by heart has attempted to bridge the gap in eLearning space with his platform-based solution. The serial entrepreneur at the age of 43, with 20+ years of industrial experience and the expertise of founding three startups earlier, has embarked on a new journey with two more partners who are technically savvy. 1.1 Product: The startup chose to work on the emerging technology, Platform as a Service (PaaS), and planned for a grand product. It took 30 months for the startup to build the product resulting in additional cost leading to the realization that “Plan for MVP (minimum viable product) with the product roadmap and do not plan for a grand product”. The delay in product delivery was attributed to two factors. First, when the flash player moved to open source, Android and iPhone withdrew support forcing the startup to modify the product roadmap completely. Second, government policy to sue the platform provider and not the person who uploaded the content in the platform had introduced legal hurdles. 1.2 Finance: Getting funds were not a constraint and six friends who invested at the early stage with no formal agreements supplemented partners’ fund. They could not get new investors as the funds required were diminishing to keep the startup operating. When the return on investment was getting delayed, a few non-technical investors who could not understand the delay asked for the return of their investments from the anticipated revenue. But the long gestation period of the product did not result in any revenue generation and as a result, the founders were not able to return the investments made by their friends. This put psychological pressure on the founders to generate revenue for returning the investments, which they could not. 1.3 Market: With more and more open-source platforms coming up, time to market was the key and the platform model was early to the market-leading to the realization of “Content is the king and invest on content than Platform”. Mr. K voluntarily disbanded the startup and settled the dues for six investors. He returned to industry, leading India operations for a corporate. He asserts that this learning effort is a stepping stone for the next launch. REQUIRED: 1. Write an overview and sum it up in a maximum of 5 sentences. 2. What are the problems that Mr. K encounters both from product and financing? 3. Case Evaluation: Explain why Mr. K start-up is not working. 4. Proposed Solutions: Offer realistic ways to solve what isn’t working or how to improve its current condition. 5. Conclusion: Summarize the main points from the case evaluations and proposed solutions. 6. Recommendations: Talk about the strategy that you should choose

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