Working with developers: specs, estimates, sprints and acceptance criteria
How founders can brief developers with user stories, get honest estimates, run short sprints and agree acceptance criteria so work lands as expected.
Insights
Frameworks, case studies, guides and useful tools for business, marketing and finance. Written plainly, with sources.
Case studies92 articlesResources26 articlesMarketing15 articlesFinance15 articlesStrategy15 articlesAI14 articlesDesign and UX14 articlesLeadership14 articlesProduct14 articlesEngineering13 articlesConsulting13 articlesData and Excel13 articlesManagement10 articles
Time to read
What a product manager actually does
The product manager role explained: the four risks they answer for, discovery versus delivery, and how it differs…
Version control and Git for non-developers: why it matters and the basic workflow
What Git and version control do, the branch and pull request workflow, and the controls a founder should…
VAT and GST basics for small online sellers in the UK and India
When a small online seller must register for UK VAT or Indian GST, how thresholds are measured, and…
Valuation basics: DCF, comparables and precedent transactions
The three standard ways to value a business, how each works, why they give different answers, and how…
UX research methods: which to use when
How to choose between interviews, usability tests, surveys and analytics, using NN/g's framework of says versus does and why versus how many.
Running a usability test on a small budget
A low-cost way to watch five real users try your site, using think-aloud sessions and well-written tasks, then…
Typography basics for websites: readability, line length and hierarchy
The four type settings that decide whether people read your site: body size, line length, line spacing and…
Building a simple three-statement model: how the P&L, balance sheet and cash flow link
How the profit and loss account, balance sheet and cash flow statement connect, and how to build a…
Startup funding routes: bootstrapping, grants, angels, venture capital and debt
A plain guide to the main ways to fund a young business, what each costs you, and the…
SQL basics for business people: SELECT, WHERE, GROUP BY and JOIN
Read customer, order and product tables with confidence: SELECT, WHERE, GROUP BY and the joins you will use most, plus the counting mistakes that inflate numbers.
Testing software: unit, integration, end-to-end and user acceptance tests
What unit, integration, end-to-end and user acceptance tests each catch, how the test pyramid balances them, and what…
Building a simple financial model in Excel: structure, inputs, assumptions and checks
A plain structure for small business financial models: separate inputs, calculations and outputs, label every assumption, and build…
Scenario planning: preparing for several futures
Scenario planning helps you test plans against several plausible futures instead of one forecast. Here is a four-step…
Prompt writing that gets reliable results
What Anthropic and OpenAI's guides agree on: clear instructions, context, examples and structure, plus a before-and-after prompt and…
Writing a product requirements document people actually read
How to write a PRD or one-page brief that gets read: the sections worth keeping, the Shape Up pitch, working backwards, and a worked example.
Product roadmaps that don’t become broken promises
Why feature-and-date roadmaps break, how now-next-later and outcome roadmaps work instead, and how to handle the dates you…
Product-market fit: how to recognise it
How to tell whether you have product-market fit, using the Sean Ellis survey as he describes it, Superhuman's…
Launching a product: beta, launch checklist and post-launch review
How to launch a product or feature: run a useful beta, use a checklist that covers the whole…
Product discovery: finding problems worth solving
How to run product discovery with Teresa Torres' opportunity solution tree: outcomes, opportunities from customer stories, solutions and…
Product analytics: activation, retention cohorts and the North Star metric
A practical guide to the product metrics that matter: defining activation, reading retention cohorts in GA4 or Mixpanel, and choosing a North Star metric.
Prioritisation frameworks: RICE, MoSCoW, Kano and value versus effort
How RICE, MoSCoW, the Kano model and the value versus effort matrix work, with worked examples, common traps…
Pricing and packaging a digital product: tiers, freemium and trials
How to package a digital product: choose what to charge for, design good-better-best tiers, pick freemium or a…
Power Query for repeatable data cleaning
How Power Query records your cleaning steps once and replays them on every refresh, with the transformations and…
Porter’s five forces in practice: assessing an industry step by step
How to run a five forces analysis that explains an industry's profits and changes decisions, with a worked…
Web security basics: the OWASP Top 10 in plain English
The ten categories in the OWASP Top 10:2025 explained simply, with an example, the question to ask your team, and how to use the list with suppliers.
Personal productivity for leaders: priorities, focus and energy
How leaders can manage priorities with the Eisenhower matrix, protect time for deep work and manage energy, plus…
PESTLE analysis done well, beyond a list of bullet points
How to turn PESTLE from six boxes of bullet points into a short, evidence-backed list of outside forces…
Time value of money: NPV, IRR and payback for investment decisions
Why a pound today is worth more than a pound next year, and how to use NPV, IRR…
Mobile-first design: thumb zones, tap targets and performance
How people really hold phones, how big tap targets should be under WCAG, Apple and Android guidance, and…
Mergers and acquisitions basics: why deals create or destroy value, synergies, integration
Why so many acquisitions disappoint, how to judge synergies and price, and what integration takes, with a worked example for a first deal.
Managing cash flow day to day: the 13-week cash forecast, invoicing and credit control
How to build a rolling 13-week cash forecast, invoice so you get paid faster, and run simple credit…
What motivates people at work: self-determination theory and Herzberg
Why pay and perks only go so far, and how autonomy, competence and relatedness (plus Herzberg's motivators) give…
Leading remote and hybrid teams: writing, rituals and inclusion
Practical habits for leading remote and hybrid teams: write things down, default to async, run fair meetings, build…
Leadership styles explained: what the evidence says
Transformational, servant, situational and Goleman's six styles: what each one asks of you, what the research supports, and…
Leading through change and uncertainty: cadence, honesty and small wins
How to lead a team when the answers are not clear yet: a steady communication rhythm, honest updates about what you do not know, and small wins that keep people…
Landing page design that converts: clarity, proof and one call to action
How to build a landing page that earns action: a clear first screen, real proof, one call to…
How large language models work, in plain English
Tokens, training and next-token prediction explained without maths, plus the limits that follow and how to use AI…
How the web works: DNS, hosting, HTTP and browsers in plain English
What happens between typing a web address and seeing a page, explained step by step so founders can…
Handling conflict: the Thomas-Kilmann modes and difficult conversations
The five Thomas-Kilmann conflict modes, when each one fits, and a step-by-step way to prepare for and hold…
Pricing your margins: gross margin vs markup, explained without confusion
Margin and markup describe the same profit against different bases. Here is how to calculate each, convert between them and price to a target margin.
Excel essentials every analyst uses: SUMIFS, COUNTIFS, IF, IFS and nested logic
How SUMIFS, COUNTIFS, IF and IFS work, the rules that trip people up, and when a lookup table…
Generic strategies: cost leadership, differentiation and focus, and getting stuck in the middle
Porter's three generic strategies explained, why firms that try to be everything get stuck in the middle, and…
Financial ratios that matter: liquidity, profitability, efficiency and leverage
The handful of ratios that tell you whether a business can pay its bills, makes money, uses its…
Google Sheets for teams: sharing, QUERY, IMPORTRANGE and protections
Set up shared Google Sheets that stay reliable: sensible sharing, QUERY summaries, IMPORTRANGE between files, and protected ranges,…
Dynamic arrays in Excel: FILTER, SORT, UNIQUE and SEQUENCE
How spilling formulas work, which Excel versions support FILTER, SORT, UNIQUE and SEQUENCE, and how to build live lists without copying anything down.
Evaluating AI outputs: building a small test set and scoring rubric
How to judge AI output with numbers instead of gut feel: clear success criteria, a test set of…
The EU AI Act and UK approach in brief: what businesses need to know
General information as at October 2026 on who the EU AI Act covers, its risk levels and revised…
Ethical leadership: building a culture people trust
What ethical leadership means in practice: being seen as a moral person and a moral manager, making it…
Emotional intelligence at work: what the research supports and what it does not
Emotional intelligence matters at work, but less than the hype claims. What the evidence shows, where it is…
Designing forms people finish
Fewer fields, visible labels and specific error messages: practical form design rules from GOV.UK, NN/g and Baymard's checkout research.
Design systems for small teams: tokens, components and documentation
How a small team can build a lightweight design system: design tokens, a core set of components and…
Descriptive statistics for business: mean, median, standard deviation and outliers
When to report the mean or the median, how standard deviation and interquartile range describe spread, and how…
Databases explained: relational vs NoSQL and when each fits
What relational and NoSQL databases are, what ACID means, and how to judge which fits your product, with…
Data quality and data governance for small teams: definitions, owners and validation
A light approach to data governance for small teams: agreed definitions, named owners and checks at the point…
Dark patterns: what they are and the UK and EU rules against them
Fake urgency, drip pricing, hard-to-cancel subscriptions: the common dark patterns, the UK and EU rules in force in 2026, and how to audit your site.
Website speed: Core Web Vitals and what improves them
What LCP, INP and CLS measure, the thresholds Google uses, how to check your own site and the…
Competitive advantage and moats: network effects, switching costs, scale, brand
What makes a competitive advantage last: network effects, switching costs, scale and brand, and how to test whether…
Colour in interfaces: contrast, meaning and consistency
How to choose interface colours that pass WCAG contrast, never carry meaning alone, and stay consistent through a…
Coaching as a manager: how to use the GROW model
How managers can coach with the GROW model (goal, reality, options, will), with example questions, a worked conversation…
Cleaning messy data in Excel: TRIM, text functions, Remove Duplicates, Flash Fill and data types
A practical order for cleaning messy spreadsheets: fix text, numbers and dates first, then remove duplicates, with the traps Microsoft's own guidance warns about.
Choosing a tech stack for a first product: no-code, WordPress, Shopify or custom code
A plain comparison of no-code, WordPress, Shopify and custom code for a first product, with questions to ask…
Choosing an AI tool for a small business: questions to ask about data, cost and fit
The questions to ask about data use, security, full cost and fit before you commit to an AI…
Charts that tell the truth: choosing the right chart and avoiding misleading ones
Pick the right chart for your message and avoid the truncated axes, dual scales and 3D effects that…
Information architecture and navigation: card sorting and tree testing
How to build a website menu around the way customers think, using card sorting to group content and…
Business model canvas: the nine building blocks
The Business Model Canvas puts a business model on one page in nine blocks. Here is what each block means and how to fill one in well.
Building trust in a team: Lencioni’s five dysfunctions and the trust equation
Two popular tools for building team trust, Lencioni's five dysfunctions and Maister's trust equation, what each gets right…
Budgeting and forecasting for a small business: zero-based, incremental and rolling
The difference between a budget and a forecast, when to use zero-based or incremental budgeting, how rolling forecasts…
Break-even analysis: fixed costs, contribution margin and the break-even point
How to sort costs into fixed and variable, work out contribution per sale, and find the sales level…
Blue Ocean Strategy: value innovation, the strategy canvas and the four actions framework
How to use the strategy canvas, the four actions framework and the ERRC grid to look for value…
The BCG growth-share matrix and portfolio decisions
How the BCG growth-share matrix works, how to build one, what it says about where to invest, and the limits BCG itself has pointed out.
Backups and disaster recovery: the 3-2-1 rule, RPO and RTO
How the 3-2-1 backup rule, recovery point objectives and recovery time objectives fit together, with a simple recovery…
Automating workflows with AI: where it saves time and where it creates risk
Which business processes suit AI automation, where the risks sit, and how human review and a simple audit…
APIs explained for business people: REST, webhooks and rate limits
What APIs, REST, webhooks and rate limits mean, why integrations break, and the questions to ask before you…
Ansoff matrix: four growth paths and their risks
The Ansoff matrix sorts growth options into four paths, from market penetration to diversification. Here is how to…
AI image and video tools for marketing: copyright, disclosure and brand risk
General information on UK copyright, ASA advertising rules, EU deepfake disclosure and brand risk when using AI images and video in marketing, as of October 2026.
Hallucinations: why AI makes things up and how to check its work
Why AI tools state false things with confidence, how to reduce it with better prompts, and a six-step…
AI and data protection in the UK: what UK GDPR and the ICO say about using AI tools
General information on using AI tools with personal data in the UK: controller roles, DPIAs, transparency, accuracy and…
AI for customer support: chatbots, triage and handover to humans
How small support teams can use AI for self-service, triage and draft replies, keep a bot grounded in…
A/B testing basics: hypotheses, sample size and significance
How to run an A/B test that gives a trustworthy answer: write a hypothesis, size the sample, read…
Market research methods: surveys, interviews and secondary data
When to use published data, interviews or surveys, how to write neutral questions, what sample size tells you, and the MRS standards to follow.
Social media marketing for small brands
Choose the right platform, set content pillars and a cadence you can keep, build community, work with creators…
Marketing metrics that matter: funnels, conversion, CAC, LTV and attribution
Measure your funnel step by step, pick the right key events, read CAC and LTV with care, and…
Paid ads basics: search versus social, CPC, CPA and ROAS
How search and social ad auctions work, what CPC, CPA and ROAS mean, and how to work out…
Content marketing strategy on a small budget
A practical plan for small businesses: define one audience, find topics in customer questions, pick formats you can…
SEO fundamentals for small businesses
How Google finds, understands and ranks pages, and the practical steps a small business can take on its site, its Business Profile and in Search Console.
Customer journey mapping: stages, touchpoints and moments of truth
How to map a customer journey: phases, touchpoints, pains and moments of truth, how to run a mapping…
Value propositions and positioning statements that say something
How to use the Value Proposition Canvas and Geoffrey Moore's positioning template to say who you serve and…
The marketing mix: from the 4Ps to the 7Ps
Where the 4Ps and 7Ps came from, what each P asks you to decide, when to use which,…
Segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP): choosing who to serve
A practical guide to STP: how to split a market into useful segments, choose which to target, and…
Lean operations: process mapping, the eight wastes and continuous improvement
How to map a process, spot the eight wastes with TIMWOODS, and improve it in small tested steps using kaizen and the PDCA cycle.
Agile, Scrum and Kanban for teams that do not write software
How marketing, operations and other non-software teams can use the Agile Manifesto, Scrum and Kanban, and when a…
Project management basics: scope, schedule, budget and the critical path
The core project tools in plain English: the triple constraint, work breakdown structure, critical path, Gantt charts, budgets…
Onboarding new starters: the first 90 days
A practical plan for a new starter's first 90 days: preboarding, day one, a 30-60-90 plan, a buddy…
Hiring well: structured interviews and scorecards
How to hire more fairly and accurately with job analysis, structured interview questions, anchored scorecards and work samples,…
Performance reviews that are fair and useful
How to run performance reviews people trust: agreed objectives, feedback through the year, evidence, awareness of rating bias and calibration, with UK guidance.
Running meetings that are worth the time
A practical guide to meetings with a clear purpose, a question-based agenda, set roles, timeboxes, written pre-reads and…
Giving feedback people can use: the SBI model and Radical Candor
How to give feedback people can act on, using CCL's Situation-Behaviour-Impact model and Kim Scott's Radical Candor, including…
Delegation: levels of delegation and how to hand over work well
Seven levels of delegation from tell to full authority, a briefing template for handing over work, and how…
Goals that work: OKRs, KPIs and SMART goals compared
How OKRs, KPIs and SMART goals differ, where each came from, how they fit together, and the mistakes…
Executive summaries and recommendation slides that leaders act on
How to write an executive summary and recommendation slide that lead with the answer, use action titles and end with a clear decision request.
Benchmarking done properly
The four types of benchmarking, a practical process, how to get comparison data ethically and legally, and how…
Market entry analysis step by step
A step-by-step method for deciding whether to enter a new market and how: attractiveness, competition, right to win,…
Structuring any business problem: the profitability case
How to break a profit fall into price, volume, fixed and variable costs, find the branch where the…
Running workshops that end in decisions
How to plan and run a workshop that ends with a real decision: purpose, pre-work, agenda design, 1-2-4-All,…
Change management models compared: Lewin, Kotter’s 8 steps and ADKAR
How Lewin's three stages, Kotter's 8 steps and Prosci's ADKAR model differ, when to use each, and how to combine them in a real change.
Root cause analysis: 5 Whys, fishbone diagrams and Pareto charts
How to find the real cause of a business problem with Pareto charts, fishbone diagrams and the 5…
Stakeholder mapping: the power-interest grid and how to manage each group
How to map stakeholders on Mendelow's power-interest grid, what to do with each group, and how a RACI…
Writing a consulting proposal and statement of work clients sign
What to put in a consulting proposal and SOW, how to choose between fixed, time and materials, value-based…
The consulting engagement lifecycle: from first call to handover
The eight stages of a consulting engagement, from the first call and scoping to recommendations, implementation support and…
Email marketing in the UK: consent, PECR and the soft opt-in
A plain guide to the ICO's rules on marketing emails: when you need consent, how the soft opt-in works, emailing businesses, unsubscribes and records.
Working capital and the cash conversion cycle, explained with a shop
Why a profitable shop can still run short of cash, how to calculate the cash conversion cycle, and…
Jobs to be done: finding the progress customers hire you for
Jobs to be done explains why customers buy: they hire a product to make progress in a particular…
Retrieval-augmented generation in plain English: when a chatbot needs your documents
What RAG is, how it works step by step, when to use it instead of fine-tuning or a…
One-to-ones that help: a simple structure for regular check-ins
Why regular one-to-ones matter, a simple 30-minute structure, questions to ask and the mistakes that turn them into…
Psychological safety: what the research says and what managers can do
What Amy Edmondson and Google’s Project Aristotle found about psychological safety, what it is often confused with, and what managers can do.
Nielsen’s ten usability heuristics, with checkout examples
All ten of Jakob Nielsen’s usability heuristics, explained in plain words and applied to an online checkout.
Accessibility basics every small business website should meet
WCAG 2.2 in plain words, the checks that matter most for a small business site, and a short…
PivotTables in twenty minutes: summarise a sales export
Turn thousands of order rows into a clear summary with an Excel PivotTable: rows, columns, values, percentages, date…
XLOOKUP, INDEX and MATCH: the lookups worth learning
Why VLOOKUP causes quiet errors, how XLOOKUP fixes them, and how to use INDEX and MATCH when colleagues…
Hypothesis-driven work: start with an answer, then try to break it
State your best guess early, then look for evidence that would prove it wrong. How to test and kill hypotheses without falling for confirmation bias.
Issue trees and MECE: breaking a messy problem into parts you can solve
How to turn a vague business problem into specific questions using issue trees and the MECE rule, with…
Greenwashing explained: forms, cases, rules and how to spot it
What greenwashing is, how common it is, ten real cases, the UK, EU, US, Australian and Indian rules…
Your voice, not the machine’s: using AI for content without losing yourself
How to use AI for writing, video and social content while keeping it recognisably yours: teach it your…
UI details that make a product look considered: spacing, type, colour and motion
Small, repeatable rules for interfaces that feel calm and trustworthy: a spacing scale, a type system, a restrained…
Open-source tools worth knowing before you pay for software
Many paid tools have a free, open-source counterpart. How to find them, judge them and decide when paying is still the better choice.
Spend less, ship cleaner: getting more from AI coding tools
Why AI coding sessions burn through tokens, and the habits, connectors and plugins that keep context lean and…
Before you launch an AI-built website: the checks people skip
AI tools can build a site in an afternoon. These are the SEO, speed, testing and content checks…
The engineering words behind reliable apps, and which ones matter at your size
Rate limits, retries, idempotency, queues and the rest: a plain glossary sorted into what to handle now, what…
AI models, data models and the 20% of SQL you will use every day
A plain map of AI model types, the main ways to structure data, the SQL that covers most…
Working with AI agents: specs, constraints and checks
How to get dependable work from AI coding and design agents: write the spec first, limit the options, keep changes small and verify everything.
A security and compliance checklist for apps built fast
AI tools make it easy to ship in a weekend. These are the holes to close, and the…
Ship without downtime: three patterns every product team should know
Blue-green deployments, background workers and the transactional outbox, explained without jargon for founders and product people.
The moments after a click: small UX details that build trust
Feedback states, honest buttons, mobile checks and six named UX laws: the details that decide whether a product…
Persuasion, presence and personal brand: the skills that compound
How to communicate like a leader, persuade without pushing, and build a reputation before you need one.
Decide faster and better: four decision tools and a calendar that protects them
The 10/10/10 rule, the Franklin list, six thinking hats and the OODA loop, plus the time habits that leave room to think.
Strategy on one page: the frameworks worth knowing, and when to use each
Porter’s Five Forces, SWOT, the 3Cs, TAM SAM SOM, three horizons and the 7S model, with a plain…
Build the smallest thing that proves people want it
A practical MVP playbook: choose one problem, test willingness to pay, ship in weeks, launch where builders look…
20 finance terms that confuse smart people, explained side by side
Pairs of terms people mix up in meetings, from capex and opex to market cap and enterprise value,…
How to read a company’s financial statements in 15 minutes
Three statements, a dozen ratios and a few rules of thumb: a quick, repeatable way to tell a…
Waterstones: a bookseller saved by letting shops act like independents
Bought for £53m in 2011 while losing money, Waterstones was back in profit by 2016 after James Daunt let shops choose stock and stopped selling table space.
Volkswagen: one modular toolkit for dozens of models across its brands
VW launched its MQB toolkit in 2012 expecting 20% lower production costs; it built over 32 million cars…
Volkswagen: a hidden emissions cheat that cost more than €31bn and pushed a carmaker towards electric
Software that ran full emissions controls only on test was found in 11 million VW diesels; a €6.5bn…
Starbucks Australia: why it shut 61 of its stores in 2008
In July 2008 Starbucks closed 61 of its 84 or 85 Australian stores in days, cutting about 685…
Unilever: a long-term sustainability plan meets short-term investors
Unilever's 2010 plan set about 50 targets to double sales and halve its footprint, survived a $143bn Kraft…
Rolls-Royce: from pandemic rescue to a profit rebuild
After a £4.2bn cash outflow in 2020, Rolls-Royce raised £7.3bn and cut 9,000 jobs; a new chief executive then lifted operating profit to £3.5bn by 2025.
Rolls-Royce: selling hours of flying instead of engines, and what that meant when the planes stopped
Rolls-Royce sold engines by the flying hour. When 2020 flying fell to 43% it lost £2bn; repricing and…
Norwegian Air: a low-cost long-haul push that ended in a smaller airline
Norwegian turned down two IAG approaches in 2018, then lost its long-haul network in the pandemic and came…
McKinsey Insights: free reports and articles on strategy and industry
McKinsey publishes articles, reports, McKinsey Quarterly, podcasts and newsletters on strategy, industries and the economy, free to read…
Nespresso: how Nestlé kept a premium coffee business growing after its patents ran out
Nespresso built a closed capsule system sold through its own club and shops, then met the 2012 patent…
Levi Strauss & Co.: a jeans maker that closed its own factories and managed suppliers instead
As sales fell from US$7.1bn to US$4.1bn, Levi's shut its last North American plants in 2003 and moved its sewing to contract factories in about 28 countries.
Lenovo: a Chinese PC maker that bought IBM’s PC arm and became the world’s largest
Lenovo paid US$1.25bn for IBM's PC division in 2004, came through two restructurings and became the world's largest…
Leicester City: a 5,000-1 outsider that won the Premier League with a cheap, stable team
Leicester won the 2015-16 Premier League at 5,000-1 with an eleven that cost about £22m and barely changed,…
McDonald’s India: how a menu without beef became a business
McDonald's opened in India in 1996 with no beef or pork, built a vegetarian core, and by 2012…
European food retailers: a horsemeat scandal that exposed long meat supply chains
Irish tests in 2013 found horse DNA in beef burgers, then up to 100% horsemeat in Findus lasagne,…
HCL Technologies: putting employees first and making managers answer to them
Under Vineet Nayar from 2005, HCL Technologies made managers answer to frontline staff, and its revenue rose about sixfold to some $4.7bn in eight years.
Google: a search giant that moved its Chinese search offshore rather than keep censoring
Google launched a censored Chinese search site in 2006, then after a 2009 cyber attack on it and…
Ford: how One Ford avoided a bailout by borrowing early and selling brands
After a record $12.7bn loss in 2006, Ford borrowed $23.5bn against nearly all its US assets, sold its…
Epic Games: how a free game paid for a fight with Apple and Google
Fortnite's free battle royale earned Epic $5.8bn in 2018 alone, money that funded an 88/12 PC store and…
BMW: a German carmaker that built cars in dollars to tame the exchange rate
BMW paired currency hedging with building cars where it sold them; by 2024 its US plant built 396,117…
Airbus and Boeing: two opposite bets on how people would fly, and why the smaller plane won
Airbus bet on the 555-seat A380 and built 251, nearly half for Emirates; Boeing bet on the 787 and, despite years of delays, had 1,076 on order in 2025.
Nirma and Wheel: a low priced challenger and the leader’s reply
Nirma sold detergent at around a quarter of Surf's price and was reported to hold about 60 per…
Reading a cash flow statement
How cash moves through a business in three sections, why profit and cash differ, and the questions to…
Nestlé: the Maggi noodles ban in India and the road back
In June 2015 India's food regulator banned Maggi, a brand with about 70 per cent of its category,…
HBR free articles: management thinking from the original sources
Harvard Business Review lets non-subscribers read a limited number of articles each month, and offers free newsletters such…
Paytm: how a cash shock pushed India towards digital wallets
After India withdrew Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes on 8 November 2016, Paytm reported traffic up 435 per cent in a day and about 7 million transactions daily within…
Walmart and Flipkart: buying a lead in Indian e-commerce
In May 2018 Walmart agreed to pay about US$16 billion for a 77% stake in Flipkart, then losing…
Tata Nano: the one lakh car that buyers did not want to be seen in
Tata Motors promised a car for Rs 1 lakh in 2008 and took 203,000 bookings, but annual sales…
G2: compare business software through user reviews
A free-to-browse marketplace of software reviews, with category rankings, G2 Grid charts and comparison pages for checking vendors…
Amul: a farmer owned cooperative that built a national brand
Amul began in 1946 as a union of Gujarat milk farmers and by 2026 had brand sales above…
Reliance Jio: free data and a reshaped Indian telecoms market
Reliance Jio launched in September 2016 with free voice and data, reached 100 million customers in 170 days and, by January 2026, held about 39% of Indian wireless subscribers.
Mobbin: study real app screens and flows before you design
A searchable library of screens from shipped apps and websites. A free account gives limited access; flows and…
Toys “R” Us: a leveraged buyout and a debt it never escaped
A $6.6 billion buyout in 2005 left Toys "R" Us with roughly $5 billion of debt and $400…
Boeing: the 737 MAX crashes and a crisis of oversight
Two 737 MAX crashes killed 346 people in five months, grounded the jet for about 20 months and…
Competitor analysis in a day
A practical, time-boxed routine to map competitors, compare them on what customers care about, and find a position…
Quibi: $1.75 billion on short video that viewers did not pay for
Quibi raised $1.75 billion for a paid, phone-only video service that aimed at 7 million subscribers in year one, and closed on 21 October 2020, six months after launch.
Product Hunt: track new products and how launches land
A daily showcase of new tech products with upvotes, comments and category pages. Free to browse, and useful…
Theranos: a blood testing promise that did not hold up
Theranos claimed a finger-prick device could run hundreds of tests, was valued at over $9 billion in 2014,…
WeWork: the IPO filing that exposed a business built on long leases
WeWork moved to withdraw its IPO on 30 September 2019, six weeks after revealing a $1.93 billion annual…
Lehman Brothers: leverage, mortgages and the largest US bankruptcy
Lehman Brothers reported record profits for 2007, then filed for bankruptcy on 15 September 2008 with about $639…
Wayback Machine: see how a competitor’s website has changed
The Internet Archive's free record of past versions of websites, useful for tracking a rival's pricing, positioning and product history.
Enron: how accounting tricks hid a failing business
Enron reported $979 million of profit for 2000, yet within a year it had restated its accounts by…
Uber: selling its China business to its main rival
In August 2016 Uber, losing more than $1 billion a year in China, sold its Chinese arm to…
Tesco: Fresh & Easy and a costly attempt to crack the US
Tesco opened Fresh & Easy in the US in 2007, took a 1.2 billion pound hit when it…
Google Ads Transparency Center: see an advertiser’s Google ads
Google's free, searchable hub of ads from verified advertisers across Search, YouTube and Display, showing where ads ran,…
Target: a fast Canadian launch that ended in full retreat within two years
Target paid C$1.825 billion for Zellers leases in 2011, opened 133 Canadian stores from 2013 and shut them all by April 2015, with about US$5.4 billion of expected losses.
A one-page go-to-market plan
Target customer, problem, offer, price, channels, message and the first ninety days, written on one page that a…
Walmart: why the world’s largest retailer left Germany after eight years
Wal-Mart sold its 85 German stores to Metro in July 2006 at a pre-tax loss of about US$1…
Meta Ad Library: see competitors’ ads on Facebook and Instagram
Meta's free, public search of ads running across its apps. Filter by country, category, platform and date to…
Starbucks: how Howard Schultz came back to reset a business that grew too fast
Howard Schultz took back the chief executive role on 7 January 2008, after shares halved in a year,…
Costco: low markups funded by membership fees
Costco earned $5.32 billion from membership fees in fiscal 2025, about half its operating income, which let it hold gross margin to 11.12% of $269.9 billion in sales.
Zara: how a supply chain kept close to home made fast fashion fast
Zara kept much of its production near Spain and committed only about 15% of stock in advance, which…
Similarweb: estimate any website’s traffic and audience for free
Similarweb's free website pages estimate visits, engagement, top countries, demographics and similar sites. Fuller breakdowns and exports need…
IKEA: flat-pack furniture and the customer as assembler
IKEA moved assembly to the customer through flat-pack furniture in the 1950s, and by 2024 sold EUR 45.1…
Southwest Airlines: a low cost model built on fast turns
Southwest Airlines turned a 1972 cash crisis into a ten-minute gate turn and 47 profitable years, then dropped…
Toyota: building a production system around flow and quality
Toyota built a system of just-in-time production and line-stopping quality control after a 1950 crisis cost 2,146 jobs, then tested it in a 1984 joint venture with GM.
AnswerThePublic: find the questions people ask about a topic
Enter a keyword and see the questions, comparisons and phrases people search for. A small free allowance, with…
Apple: how the 1984 Super Bowl advert the board wanted to cancel launched the Macintosh
Apple's board disliked the 1984 film and tried to sell its Super Bowl airtime, yet it aired once,…
Building a KPI dashboard people actually use
Start from the decisions the dashboard should support, choose a handful of measures, and design it so the…
Airbnb: why a mocked logo and the idea of belonging reset a $30 billion brand
Airbnb's July 2014 Bélo rebrand was mocked within hours, yet 80,000 people drew their own version, and revenue…
Always: how #LikeAGirl turned a common insult into a film watched 85 million times
Always left its product out of a 2014 film about the phrase like a girl, and it drew more than 85 million views and a Super Bowl slot. Here is…
Google Trends: test demand and seasonality with search interest
Google's free tool shows relative search interest over time and by place, with related searches that reveal how…
Wendy’s: Where’s the beef? and the limits of a catchphrase campaign
A 1984 commercial with an 81-year-old manicurist lifted Wendy's awareness from 37% to 60% and sales by a…
Pepsi Challenge: how blind taste tests against the market leader led to New Coke
Pepsi turned a blind taste test into a national campaign from 1975, and Coca-Cola replaced its 99-year-old formula…
Yahoo Finance: quick quotes, financials and history for listed firms
Free quote pages with key statistics, recent financial statements, historical prices, analyst data and holders. Longer histories and…
Absolut Vodka: how the shape of a bottle became the whole advertising idea
A plain Swedish bottle that importers and experts doubted in 1979 became the top-selling imported vodka in the United States by 1985, and reached 11.3 million cases a year by…
Johnson & Johnson: the Tylenol recall after seven deaths in Chicago
After cyanide killed seven people in Chicago in 1982, Johnson & Johnson withdrew about 31 million bottles of…
Netflix: a 60% price rise, the Qwikster apology and 800,000 lost US subscribers
In 2011 Netflix raised prices by 60 per cent for members on both plans, then apologised and announced…
Damodaran Online: free industry data on margins, betas and multiples
NYU Stern professor Aswath Damodaran publishes yearly industry datasets on cost of capital, betas, margins, multiples and risk…
Burger King: the Whopper Detour, a one-cent burger that sold an app
In December 2018 Burger King sold Whoppers for one cent to app users standing near a McDonald's, and…
Customer interviews that tell you the truth
Based on Rob Fitzpatrick's The Mom Test: how to ask about people's real lives and past behaviour, so kind compliments do not mislead you.
Gap: a new logo withdrawn after about a week of online protest
Gap launched a new logo on 6 October 2010 and announced a return to its blue box on…
Tropicana: a new carton that shoppers rejected within weeks
Tropicana replaced the orange-and-straw carton on its Pure Premium juice in January 2009, saw unit sales fall 20…
FRED: graph and download economic data from the St. Louis Fed
The St. Louis Fed's free database of economic time series. Find a series, adjust the graph, download the…
Patagonia: an advert telling people not to buy its jacket on Black Friday
On Black Friday 2011 Patagonia ran a full-page New York Times advert headed 'Don't Buy This Jacket', and…
ALS Ice Bucket Challenge: a charity campaign that spread through its own donors
In summer 2014 the ALS Association received $100.9 million in a month, against $2.8 million a year earlier, from a game it did not design and could not control.
Red Bull Stratos: a space jump turned into a live broadcast
Red Bull's 14 October 2012 jump from about 128,000 feet drew over eight million concurrent YouTube viewers, then…
Investor relations pages: how to read a company from its own reports
Listed companies publish results, filings and annual reports on their investor relations pages. Here is a simple routine…
Intel Inside: how a chipmaker built a brand for a part nobody could see
Intel put up $250 million in 1991 to make a hidden chip a brand; by 1992 over 500…
De Beers: how advertising made the diamond ring the sign of an engagement
From 1938 N.W. Ayer's campaign for De Beers lifted the share of American engagement rings with a diamond…
Macrotrends: long-run financial history for listed companies
Free pages with years of annual and quarterly figures for listed companies, plus long-run charts for markets, commodities and the US economy.
Avis: how admitting it was number two turned a loss into a profit
In 1962 Avis was losing $3.2 million a year behind Hertz, and an advertisement admitting it was only…
Pricing strategy basics: cost-plus, value-based, competitor and good-better-best
Four common ways to set a price, what each is good for, where each goes wrong, and how…
Volkswagen: Think Small and the honest car advert
Volkswagen of America gave DDB an $800,000 budget in 1959 to sell a small, plain German car, and…
Apple: how Think Different helped bring the company back from the brink in 1997
Apple lost $1.05 billion in fiscal 1997, then launched Think Different with no products shown, and earned $309…
Crunchbase free tier: look up private companies and their funding
Crunchbase profiles startups and private companies, including funding. A free account gives limited search; exports and full results need a paid plan.
Nike: Just Do It and how it grew into a brand for everyone who exercises
Nike's 1988 slogan aimed at everyone who exercises, and in September 2018 its Kaepernick campaign drew a boycott…
Dove: how a campaign for real beauty lifted sales by 20% in 2005
Dove put ordinary women in its ads after a survey found only 2% called themselves beautiful, and reported…
Old Spice: a tired deodorant brand speaks to women and sales jump
In February 2010 Old Spice aimed a 33-second body wash film at women, and sources report body wash…
Companies House: check any UK company’s filings and officers free
The UK register lets anyone search companies free, read filed accounts and other documents, see current and past…
Domino’s: admitting the pizza was bad and rewriting the recipe
In December 2009 Domino's replaced a 49-year-old recipe and told customers why, and US same-store sales rose 14.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2010 while the delivery market…
Coca-Cola: New Coke lasted 79 days before the original formula came back
In April 1985 Coca-Cola replaced its 99-year-old formula after taste tests favoured a sweeter drink, then brought the…
Xerox PARC: the research lab whose inventions made money for other companies
Xerox founded PARC in 1970 and it produced the Alto, Ethernet and laser printing, yet its $16,595 Star…
SEC EDGAR full-text search: search inside US filings since 2001
The SEC's free search across the full text of electronic filings since 2001, with filters for form type,…
Unit economics: CAC, LTV, payback and contribution margin
Four numbers that show whether each customer makes or loses money, how to calculate them honestly, and the…
PayPal: eBay buys its biggest payment rival for $1.5 billion in 2002
eBay agreed in July 2002 to buy PayPal for about $1.5 billion in stock, then in 2014 decided to spin it off, by which time PayPal handled $235 billion a…
YouTube: Google buys a video site for $1.65 billion after 20 months
Google paid $1.65 billion in stock for YouTube in 2006, when the site was 20 months old and…
UN Comtrade: find who trades what with whom, by product
The UN's database of official international trade statistics, searchable by reporter, partner and product, with free public access…
WhatsApp: Facebook pays $19bn for a messaging team of about 50 people
In February 2014 Facebook agreed to pay $19 billion for WhatsApp, a no-ads messaging app with about 50…
Duolingo: how game mechanics built a daily habit for 50 million users
Duolingo used streaks, points and short lessons to reach over 50 million daily users in 2025, then chose…
Canva: how a design tool for non-designers grew to $4bn in recurring revenue
Canva turned a free tool for beginners into a business with $4 billion in annual recurring revenue by 2025, then cut its growth forecast by a third in 2026 as…
Gapminder: see how countries change over time with bubble charts
Free tools from a Swedish non-profit that animate development data over time, best known for the moving bubble…
Shopify: how software built for a snowboard shop became a commerce platform
Shopify grew from a 2004 snowboard shop's software into a platform that handled $378.44 billion of sales in…
Zoom: how it handled thirty times the usage in a few months of 2020
Zoom's daily meeting participants rose from 10 million to 300 million within months in 2020, and the company…
Spotify: how a free, ad-funded tier fed a paying audience
Spotify let anyone listen for free with ads, and by 2017 that tier had supplied more than 60…
Our World in Data: charts and datasets on the world’s big trends
A free, openly licensed library of interactive charts on health, energy, food, poverty and more, with each chart's sources and data available to download.
The Pyramid Principle: structuring a consulting-style slide deck
Barbara Minto's method for putting the answer first, grouping the support beneath it, and writing slides a busy…
Tesla: how the 2006 master plan reached the Model S
Tesla's 2006 plan said a sports car would fund a cheaper one; the Model S arrived in June…
Dollar Shave Club: a $4,500 video and a $1bn sale
Dollar Shave Club made a razor-subscription start-up from a $4,500 launch video, took share from Gillette, and was…
Airbnb: how a cereal stunt and better photographs kept a start-up alive
In summer 2008 Airbnb earned a couple of hundred dollars a week, then a $30,000 cereal stunt and…
OECD Data: compare rich economies on jobs, prices and productivity
The OECD's data portal and Data Explorer give comparable statistics for member countries and partners, with downloads and an API for repeat work.
Slack: how a failed online game left behind a $27.7bn chat tool
Tiny Speck closed its game Glitch in December 2012, built Slack from its internal chat tool, and sold…
Instagram: how a cluttered check-in app became a $1bn Facebook deal
Instagram's founders cut their check-in app Burbn down to photos, launched in October 2010 and sold to Facebook…
IMF DataMapper: see growth, inflation and debt forecasts on a map
The IMF's free visual tool for its key datasets, including World Economic Outlook figures, for quick country comparisons…
LEGO: how a toymaker losing $1m a day became the world’s biggest
LEGO lost almost $1 million a day in 2003 and carried debt near $800 million, then cut its…
IBM: Lou Gerstner scraps the breakup plan and keeps the company whole
Gerstner took IBM's top job in April 1993 after losses of about $8.1 billion, rejected a plan to split the company, and left in 2002 with market value near $168…
Microsoft: Satya Nadella moves the company from Windows to the cloud
After 18,000 job cuts in July 2014, Nadella made cloud services Microsoft's core; Azure passed $75 billion in…
World Bank Open Data: free country indicators for market sizing
Free, openly licensed development data for almost every economy, from GDP growth to internet use, with charts, maps…
Market sizing with TAM, SAM and SOM, from the top down and the bottom up
How to size a market so the number survives a hard question: three levels, two methods, and a…
Amazon: Prime, a $79 yearly fee for unlimited two-day delivery
In 2005 Amazon launched Prime at $79 a year for unlimited two-day shipping, despite doubts it could pay;…
Amazon: how a retailer turned its own infrastructure into AWS
Amazon launched S3 in March 2006 and EC2 that August, and by 2025 AWS reported 128.7 billion dollars of sales and 45.6 billion of operating income.
Apple: how the iPhone entered a market led by Nokia, and sold a million in 74 days
Apple, a maker of Macs and iPods, unveiled the iPhone in January 2007 and sold 1,389,000 of them…
Hofstede Insights: compare national cultures before you enter a market
A free tool that scores countries on Hofstede's six dimensions of national culture, useful for market entry, cross-border…
Nokia: how the world’s largest phone maker ended up selling its handset business to Microsoft
Nokia sold 437.1 million devices in 2007 and held 38% of the market, yet in 2013 it sold…
Kodak: how the inventor of the digital camera ended up in bankruptcy
Kodak engineer Steven Sasson built a digital camera in 1975, yet the company that held about 89 per…
Blockbuster: how a 9,000-store chain ended up in bankruptcy
Blockbuster had 9,094 stores and $6.1 billion of revenue in 2004, then filed for Chapter 11 in September 2010 with debts of $1.46 billion and sold to Dish for about…
Netflix: moving from DVDs by post to streaming, and the 2011 price shock
In July 2011 Netflix raised prices by up to 60 per cent while moving customers from discs to…
No articles match yet. Try another topic or search.
New articles
Get new articles by email
An email now and then when a new case study or guide goes up. No spam, and you can ask to be removed at any time.
