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Case studies

African business, taught from African examples.

A student on this continent can graduate having studied a dozen American companies and not one built under the conditions they will actually work in. These cases exist to change what is on the reading list.

The format

Written to be taught, not to be admired.

Each case follows the Harvard format: a decision point, the information the founder actually had at the time, and no answer at the end. It comes with teaching notes for the person running the session.

They are drawn from the conversations on the show, which is what makes them unusual — the founder has already talked through the reasoning on the record, so a class can watch the episode and then argue with the decision.

The collection

What we can point to today

These are the cases we can attribute to a specific conversation. We are not listing the others until we can say whose story each one tells.

For educators

Request the cases

If you teach — a university, a business school, an accelerator — tell us what you run and we will send what is cleared for classroom use.

The full texts are released case by case, with the subject’s agreement. They are real businesses and real decisions, and the people in them get a say in how they are taught.