Strategy
2007
Free
Netflix: Reinvention and the Streaming Pivot
You are Reed Hastings — 6.7M DVD subscribers and the best retail margins in America.
Four decisions on cannibalizing your own business before a disruptor does it for you. Launch streaming free or as add-on? Split the brand? How much to spend on originals?
Frameworks: Innovator's Dilemma (Christensen) · Self-cannibalization · Strategic pivot
Innovation
2008-2020
Free
Tesla: The Battery Bet That Rewrote the Industry
You are Elon Musk — the automaker is near bankruptcy and the market says outsource everything.
Four decisions that turned a collapsing automaker into the most vertically integrated EV company on earth. A $5B Gigafactory: mistake, or the industry's next moat?
Frameworks: Vertical integration (Fine & Whitney) · Dynamic capabilities (Teece) · Learning curves
Operations
2004
Free
LEGO: The Turnaround That Saved a Brand
You are Jørgen Vig Knudstorp — first non-family CEO after LEGO's worst loss ever.
Four turnaround decisions by subtraction: cut SKUs, return to core, rebuild brand architecture. LEGO became the world's most profitable toy company within 10 years.
Frameworks: Strategic fit (Porter) · Brand architecture (Aaker) · SKU discipline
Strategy
2010
Uber: The Race for Liquidity
You are Travis Kalanick — one app, one city, and the classic chicken-and-egg problem.
Four decisions on scaling a two-sided marketplace without burning cash. Subsidize drivers or riders? Which second city? How to measure success before revenue?
Frameworks: Two-sided marketplaces · Local network effects · Cold-start problem
Strategy
2013
Spotify: The Fight for Survival
You are Daniel Ek — Apple is prepping Apple Music with 800M cards already on file.
Four decisions on defending against a larger incumbent. Bet on data? Defend free tier? License or build labels? Build a moat or sell the company?
Frameworks: Isolating mechanisms (Rumelt) · Data as moat · Freemium
Operations
1964
Benihana in New York: Experience as Product
You are Rocky Aoki — Japanese immigrant, no capital, opening a restaurant in a saturated market.
Four operational decisions that became a Harvard case 50 years ago. Chef as performer, grill layout, menu discipline: when operations stop being cost and become the value proposition.
Frameworks: Operations as value proposition · Service as theatre · Restaurant unit economics
Marketing
2014
Cristiano Ronaldo: The CR7 Business Empire
You are the strategic advisor — turn short-horizon athletic capital into a long-horizon empire.
Four decisions on the architecture of brand CR7: the Nike lifetime deal, the product spinoffs, the athlete-to-platform transition. The most profitable personal brand in sports.
Frameworks: Keller brand equity pyramid · Personal brand verticalization · Licensing
Strategy
2007
M-Pesa Kenya: The World's Largest Mobile Payments Network
You are a Safaricom executive — a microcredit pilot that became a country's economy.
Four decisions that started as a loan-repayment tool and created the most-used mobile payments system on earth. Strategy in a market where 80% of people have no bank.
Frameworks: Bottom-of-pyramid (Prahalad) · Physical agent network · Financial inclusion
Catalog in active expansion
SMX is building a target catalog of 72 cases across five areas: Strategy, Marketing, Operations, Personal Development, and Finance. New cases are added weekly. Sign up and we'll notify you on each release — no spam.
Start now (3 free cases)