Technology Uncorked: Crowdsourcing for Ideas

Madhushree Agarwal, Jaydeep Mukherjee

In December 2015, the co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Technology Uncorked LLP (TU) was facing decisions about the company's future. TU was a four-year-old start-up that was set up as an ideation engine that would use crowdsourcing to generate ideas and then fast-track the development of the best of them. Faced with a previous choice between early success of a technology project in a single-product domain and remaining consistent to TU's founding vision, the CEO had chosen to maintain the company's original direction. This led to the early exit of one of her two partners. TU's technology workshops had found a market, and TU was in a comfortable position financially. Should the CEO focus her resources on the workshops and scale up to become a technology training company, or should she move the business model online and shift resources to the back end of the business model, becoming more of an innovation platform? To move online, she might have to consider external funding sources, perhaps from a private equity investor. This would mean diluting the founders' equity and losing some control over TU's future direction. Alternatively, she could continue growing slowly but organically, and retain control.

The authors Madhushree Agarwal and Jaydeep Mukherjee are affiliated with Management Development Institute.

Learning Objective

This case can be used in elective courses on innovation management at the MBA level and also in a course on entrepreneurship. After working through the case and assignment questions, students should be able to do the following: Explain how bootstrapped start-ups can monetize various stages of the business model. Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of different business models. Understand the benefits and challenges of open innovation and crowdsourcing-based business models. Understand the difference between causal and effectual logic in entrepreneurial decision making.

Details

Pub Date: Jul 26, 2017

Discipline: Accounting

Subjects: Crowdfunding, Crowdsourcing, Engineering, Growth, Talent management

Source: Ivey Publishing

Product #: W17455-PDF-ENG

Teaching note: available

Industry: Accommodation & food services

Geography: India

Length: 12 page(s)