Decision tutorials
Reading about a decision is easy. Making it is the part that teaches you something.
Each of these puts you at the moment of the call with only the information the founder had — no hindsight, no epilogue. Every option is defensible; if one were obviously right, there would have been nothing to decide. Choose, and the page tells you what actually happened and why.
Case 04 · Lululemon · 1998
You have one store, no ad budget, and a pair of yoga pants that costs four times what anyone pays today. How do you price it?
Chip Wilson
3 ways to go
Case 01 · Nike · 1984
You can sign five established NBA players, or spend the whole basketball budget on one rookie who would rather sign with your competitor. Which?
Phil Knight
3 ways to go
Case 02 · Amazon · 2000
Do you let outside sellers compete with you, on your own product pages, for your own customers?
Jeff Bezos
3 ways to go
Case 18 · Glossier · 2023
The thing that made your brand special is the thing now capping its growth. Do you break your own rule?
Emily Weiss
3 ways to go
Case 08 · McDonald's · 1956
Your franchise royalties barely cover overhead. Where does the money actually come from?
Ray Kroc & Harry Sonneborn
3 ways to go
Case 17 · Hermès · 1984
Demand exceeds what your artisans can make. Do you scale production to meet it?
Jean-Louis Dumas
3 ways to go
Case 03 · Apple · 2005
Your most profitable product is about to be eaten. Do you build the thing that eats it?
Steve Jobs
3 ways to go
Case 24 · PlayStation · 1993
The console loses money on every unit sold. What makes that a strategy rather than a mistake?
Ken Kutaragi
3 ways to go
Case 44 · Charlotte Tilbury · 2020
The shops are shut, your investors want an exit, and two very different buyers are at the door. Do you sell, and to whom?
Charlotte Tilbury
3 ways to go
Case 47 · Shiseido · 2021
The mass brands are slow, low-margin and off-strategy — and they are your only ballast. Do you sell them to finish the prestige transformation?
Masahiko Uotani
3 ways to go
Case 51 · Fenty Beauty · 2017
Foundation is the riskiest product you could lead with, and every shade you add costs inventory in sixteen hundred doors. How wide do you launch?
Rihanna
3 ways to go
Beyond the show · LVMH · 1984
You can stay in property, buy Boussac and run it as the textile group the government wants, or buy Boussac for the two names inside it and sell the rest. Which?
Bernard Arnault
3 ways to go
Beyond the show · Inditex (Zara) · 1990
Do you move production to Asia and match your rivals' costs, keep making everything close to home at a higher unit cost, or split the range between them?
Amancio Ortega
3 ways to go
Beyond the show · Uniqlo (Fast Retailing) · 1998
Your first Tokyo store opens in weeks. Do you launch it with the full range, with a premium fleece priced just below the outdoor brands, or with one fleece at ¥1,900 in every colour you can dye?
Tadashi Yanai
3 ways to go
Case 26 · Pop Mart · 2016
One shelf is carrying the shop. Do you make the shelf bigger, make the shelf the shop, or make yourself the shelf for everyone else's toys?
Wang Ning
3 ways to go
Case 27 · Brandy Melville · 2009
One store, one production run per style, and no money for advertising. How many sizes do you make?
Silvio Marsan
3 ways to go
Case 35 · Aritzia · 2016
Your investor needs an exit and your growth needs capital. Do you go public, sell the company, or find a way to stay private?
Brian Hill
3 ways to go
Case 41 · Stanley · 2020
Three bloggers have proved there is a customer you never marketed to. Do you hand them your least successful product as a wholesale partner and let them tell you what colour to make it?
Terence Reilly
3 ways to go
Case 43 · Crocs · 2021
You have a record year, a single product, and a memory of 2008. Do you spend $2.5 billion on a second brand to make the company less dependent on the clog?
Andrew Rees
3 ways to go
Case 37 · Jellycat · 2023
Demand has doubled and your factories can follow it. Do you keep retiring your bestsellers, or scale the ones that are working while the wave is under you?
William and Thomas Gatacre
3 ways to go
Beyond the show · Costco · 1983
You can price this item at what the market will bear and still be the cheapest in the city. Do you take the margin, or write a rule that says you cannot?
Jim Sinegal
3 ways to go
Beyond the show · Ferrari · 2015
You are taking Ferrari public. Do you sell it as the world's most profitable carmaker and grow the volume, or as a luxury house that happens to make cars — and if the second, what do you do about the cap?
Sergio Marchionne
3 ways to go
Beyond the show · Lego · 2004
The company is weeks from its covenants. Do you keep building the entertainment company, restructure the costs and keep everything, or cut back to the brick — and what do you sell to pay for it?
Jørgen Vig Knudstorp
3 ways to go
Beyond the show · Disney · 2006
Disney's creative engine has stalled and the company that replaced it is walking away. Do you rebuild animation yourself, renew the deal on Pixar's terms, or buy Pixar outright at a price the board thinks is absurd?
Bob Iger
3 ways to go
Case 30 · Abercrombie & Fitch · 2017
The name is famous and toxic. Do you sell the company, go back to the teenager, or keep the name and change who it is for?
Fran Horowitz
3 ways to go
Case 31 · Gap Inc. · 1994
Someone is going to sell Gap quality at half the price. Do you let them, do it inside Gap, or build a separate brand to do it to yourself?
Mickey Drexler
3 ways to go
Case 38 · Victoria's Secret · 2019
The show is the brand's biggest asset and its biggest liability at the same time. Do you keep it, reform it, or end it?
Les Wexner
3 ways to go
Beyond the show · Tesla · 2006
Your mission is a car for everyone. Your prototype is a two-seat sports car that will have to sell for around $100,000. What do you build first?
Elon Musk
3 ways to go
Beyond the show · Netflix · 2007
You have a thousand mediocre titles, a working box, and a profitable business under attack. How do you launch streaming?
Reed Hastings
3 ways to go
Beyond the show · Nvidia · 2006
You can make every graphics card you sell a general-purpose computer, and pay for it out of the margin on games. Do you?
Jensen Huang
3 ways to go
Case 39 · Bath & Body Works · 2025
Your customers can already buy you on Amazon — just not from you. Do you open your own store there, and give up the idea that Bath & Body Works is only found in Bath & Body Works?
Daniel Heaf
3 ways to go
Case 34 · Groupe Dynamite · 2020
Your stores are closed, your rent is not, and the banks are owed C$149M. Do you put the company you have spent 38 years building into creditor protection?
Andrew Lutfy
3 ways to go
Case 40 · Hydro Flask · 2016
You own one fast-growing product in a category anyone can enter. Do you sell to a conglomerate at four times sales, or keep building on your own?
Scott Allan
3 ways to go
Case 42 · Owala · 2020
Your best product just flopped under your best-known brand. Do you fix the marketing, give up on the category, or launch the same bottle under a name nobody has heard of?
Steve Sorensen
3 ways to go
Case 50 · Rare Beauty · 2026
Your growth has flattened inside one retailer and the buyers would not meet your price. Do you give up the exclusivity that made you special, or find growth somewhere you already are?
Selena Gomez
3 ways to go
Case 49 · Rhode · 2025
Your brand has never been in a store and is about to be. Do you sell it now, to a mass-market parent, before you know how the retail launch will go?
Hailey Bieber
3 ways to go
Case 36 · Stüssy · 2014
Your best year is being driven partly by accounts that would sell your logo next to anything. Do you keep growing through wholesale, or walk away from tens of millions of revenue to sell it yourself?
David Sinatra
3 ways to go
Case 28 · Subdued · 2024
Your brand is ready to go global and you have never had an outside shareholder. Do you sell a minority stake to a patient partner, sell control to the highest bidder, or keep doing it alone?
Enrico Maria Sconciaforni and Alessandro Orsini
3 ways to go