Andrea Prado, Beatriz Avalos

SIFAIS is a social enterprise, which focuses on offering spaces to communities within contexts of scarce socio-economic opportunities, through music, art and sports in the marginal urban neighborhood of Carpio in San José, capital of Costa Rica. SIFAIS was preparing to grow as a model center in the country. Maris Stella Fernandez and Alicia Aviles, co-founders and social entrepreneurs, one Costa Rican and the other of Nicaraguan origin, lead the way to a meeting with a donor to take the next big step in their venture, with the goal of securing a capital contribution of over half a million dollars.

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Strachan Chair of Philanthropy and Social Investment
René Morales Carazo Chair of Entrepreneurship

Ryan Schill, Gustavo Jimenez

SIFAIS is a social enterprise, which focuses for more than 6 years, in offering spaces for personal and community growth within marginal socio-economic contexts, through music, art and sports in Barrio La Carpio in San Jose, capital of Costa Rica. SIFAIS was preparing to grow as a model center in the country. Maris Stella Fernández and Manuel Zúñiga, president and board member discuss the future and expansion of SIFAIS as a model of productive social entrepreneurship that can be replicated locally. SIFAIS is in a phase of substantial progress, the debate centers on whether or not it is time to expand given its financial situation and as a model. The decision is key for the organization at this stage.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Ryan Schill, Gustavo Jimenez

SIFAIS is a social enterprise, which focuses on offering spaces to communities within contexts of scarce socio-economic opportunities, through music, art and sports in the marginal urban neighborhood of Carpio in San José, capital of Costa Rica. SIFAIS was preparing to grow as a model center in the country. Maris Stella Fernandez and Alicia Aviles, co-founders and social entrepreneurs, one Costa Rican and the other of Nicaraguan origin, lead the way to a meeting with a donor to take the next big step in their venture, with the goal of securing a capital contribution of over half a million dollars.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Santiago Kraiselburd, Priscilla Rodríguez

Unleash lmmuno Oncolytics is a biotechnology startup that seeks to develop oncolytic viruses for the treatment of cancer. The company was founded by Daniel Katzman, an Argentine entrepreneur with an extensive background in the biotechnology industry. Unleash has the challenge of transporting its temperature-sensitive virus to different regions of the world.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

John Ickis, Jose Lopez

GoPato is a web based personal assistant and delivery service, established in 2015 in Costa Rica. The company's customer base is steadily growing, and has gone through two successful funding rounds, but the operation is not yet profitable. The two co-founders have different ideas of the strategy they should pursue to obtain the aggressive growth they need to reach profitability. In this case, students must put themselves in the role of the founders, and debate the merits of the strategies.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Niels Ketelhohn, Emiliano Alzate

Biotor Labs is a company dedicated to the production and sales of biological control products for agriculture. The company imports the raw material (Trichoderma Asperellum and Pochonia Chlamydosporia fungi) from a research center in Cuba, and reproduces them in its laboratories in Nicaragua. Its client and sole distributor, Agricenter, is a Costa Rican company that has just been acquired by the multinational AMVAC. The case begins when the protagonist, Luis Torrez, is summoned to a meeting in California to discuss the future of his business and the relationship he will have with the new distributor. The case serves to discuss the merits of different forms of strategic alliances, and the discussion becomes more interesting in light of the trade restrictions between the U.S. and Cuba.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Juan Pablo Fernandez, Marcela Vellojín

In 2015, sisters Adriana and Teresa Pino teamed up with graphic designer Sandra Boesi to create an enterprise called +58Cacao, in which they make chocolate bars with Venezuelan cocoa. The difficult economic situation in Venezuela since 2014 led them to look for alternative employment opportunities that would provide them with additional income to their daily professions. The creation of this venture is not an easy task, taking into account that none of them knew anything about processing chocolate or how to create a business from scratch. However, with proper training, networking with master chocolatiers, passion, creative mind and resilience, they are dedicated to creating chocolate bars with distinctive flavors, which leads them to market their products in the local market and gradually gain the predilection of demanding palates inside and outside the country.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Wendy Alfaro, Marcela Vellojín

Brumas del Zurquí is a small company dedicated to the production, processing and export of specialty coffee. It has more than 100 years of experience in coffee growing, but in the last 10 years it has shifted towards specializing in high quality coffee. Juan Ramón Alvarado, agronomist and owner of the company, has distinguished himself for his work in the selection of specialty coffee varieties such as Geisha, Borbón and SL28 that are marketed locally and have successfully positioned themselves in the main international markets (mainly Asian). The main coffee producing farms, the coffee processing plant and the coffee laboratory are located in San Isidro de Heredia.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Ryan Schill, Hector Gonzalez

Disfruta is the leading toy store chain in Peru. The case details the history of the entrepreneurs from their beginnings and describes some of the most important decisions in terms of customer experience, operational efficiency and innovation for the success of the company. The case is set in 2017, when the entrepreneurs are thinking about the strategy they should follow for expansion and consolidation.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Ryan Schill, Allan Martinez, Natalia Chaves

Hielo Cristal was a producer and marketer of cubed ice that transformed the market in Costa Rica. After a period of growth and expansion, it faced a period of stagnation and low profitability. The high cost of distribution undermined profitability and the company had not been able to diversify its portfolio into products with greater added value than ice. The partners of Hielo Cristal had to define the direction that the company would take in the years to come in order to increase profits and ensure that the business they had worked so hard to build would have a bright future.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Ryan Schill, Allan Martinez, Natalia Chaves

After the Paleteros overcame the problem of supplying demand by opening franchise and company-owned stores and acquiring industrial equipment, they now found themselves with a plant with unused capacity and an industry that had become quite competitive. Now they found themselves with a plant with unused capacity, and an industry that had become quite competitive. The entrepreneurial friends were looking for growth alternatives to continue their expansion.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Emiliano Alzate

Tutorez is a ¿startup¿ based on an internet platform that connects parents interested in academic tutoring for their children with independent academic tutors. The business model consists of charging tutors a commission for each hour sold through the platform. The case unfolds in the midst of the situation faced by the directors of Tutorez, Alejandro Carbonell and Alejandra Lizarazu, who must deploy a strategy to improve the company's financial results quickly; as they have been operating at a loss and the company's survival is threatened. The case serves to exercise marketing decision making through research and quantitative analysis; as well as to present the growth process of a Startup in its quest to survive or cross the valley of death.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Ryan Schill, Luis Chandí

Company dedicated to the production of Fine Aroma Cocoa for export, located in the Province of Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, 120 km from Quito, the capital of Ecuador. José Cedeño, Agricultural Engineer and young entrepreneur and creator of the family business of agricultural production for export, was attending a fair of Ecuadorian Chocolate near the capital with the aim of publicizing its value-added product "Dark Chocolate" (Dark Chocolate), the only one with denomination of origin. He had several ideas in mind, one of them was how to position his product in front of the competition in the national and international market.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Wendy Alfaro, Marcela Vellojín

Barbas y Bigotes de Costa Rica is an enterprise that was born in 2014 with the objective of providing products and services for the care and maintenance of the aesthetics of the country¿s ¿beards¿. Initially it positioned itself with the sale of natural products such as exfoliating soap, moisturizing oil, beard shampoo, volcanic clay as a facial mask, fixing cream, shaving cream, growth stimulating tonic.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Alejandro Roblero, Marcela Vellojín

Hola! Cupcakes is a boutique company, creator of cakes, cupcakes and sweets of the highest quality and creativity, based in Costa Rica. Daniela, its owner and creator, is an extremely empathetic, innovative and creative entrepreneur, who has made the sweet dreams of hundreds of clients come true for almost ten years. However, situations and new personal priorities lead her to make a decision about the management style and size of her beloved brand.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Allan Martinez, Natalia Chaves

Startup dedicated to the design and implementation of ERP's, Honduran entrepreneurship executed by 3 brothers who seek growth with their company, however they face several challenges, from the low adoption of technology in their country of origin, as well as the search for funding to carry out their project.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Ryan Schill, Allan Martinez, Natalia Chaves

A company dedicated to the frozen food business, after several years developing the category in supermarkets, they decided to diversify and enter the refrigerated food business in convenience stores. Thanks to a strategic alliance with a partner they obtained funds and an important client, however the negotiation did not turn out as expected.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Ryan Schill, Allan Martinez, Natalia Chaves

After overcoming the obstacles with the strategic partner, the Vargas brothers want to continue growing, but they do not know which path to take. Different alternatives were being evaluated, including increasing participation in current markets, searching for new markets in the country under a strategic alliance, or internationalization.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Allan Martinez, Natalia Chaves

Hotel Antigua Comayagua, located in the city of the same name, faced the political crisis in Honduras in 2009 when it entered the hotel market. Despite the adversities, the family business managed to break even and its average occupancy began to increase, to the point that the hotel's capacity became insufficient. Therefore, by 2017 the manager was considering an expansion project, but precisely at that time a new political crisis broke out in Honduras, which added complexity and uncertainty to the investment decision.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Allan Martinez, Natalia Chaves

A reform of the Honduran education system threatened Instituto Privado Comayagua. The restructuring of the school system would put 33% of the business' income at risk. Jesús Martínez will have to decide how to act in order to guarantee the continuity of the enterprise he founded 40 years ago with so much effort.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Ryan Schill, Allan Martinez, Natalia Chaves

Adriana Ballestero, owner of La Fondue, had had to deal with more obstacles than she had imagined when she started her venture as an entrepreneur. Apart from the legal conflicts she had had with her former partner - which had not yet been resolved - she was facing a male-dominated guild, where female leadership was not respected. This gender bias had caused her many problems with the business' staff, generating a turnover of personnel that had become unsustainable. The high turnover resulted in poor customer service, which had been reflected in sales and had led the business into an economic crisis over the past two years. Ballestero had to find a quick solution to the problem, because although she still believed in the project, she was beginning to lose her illusions and her dream of being an entrepreneur had become an economic and emotional burden. The entrepreneur was considering various alternatives, from closing operations to offering the executive chef to be her partner in the venture.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Ryan Schill, Allan Martinez, Natalia Chaves

Adriana Ballestero decided to transform her passion for Swiss gastronomy into a gourmet restaurant. After several failed attempts, Ballestero began her adventure as an entrepreneur supported by a strategic partner. However, frictions between partners generated legal conflicts that put the continuity of the company at risk.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Ryan Schill, Piero Chirinos, Felipe Molina

Andrew faces many obstacles to consolidate his adventure tourism operation, this case details some of the functional areas of the company and the challenges he needs to overcome, additionally it details alternatives that Andrew has to select to grow his business.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Ryan Schill, Luis Chandí

Mateo Armando Quito, a young creative and founding partner of an advertising agency dedicated to advertising campaigns in Ecuador, who had won several national and international awards with the campaign that the Government of Ecuador had launched in 2014 "All you need is Ecuador", was waiting alone in the boardroom for his partners for the quarterly Shareholders' Meeting, which was convened to determine the future of the company. He had in his mind all the awards they had won and the great income they had had since 2007; however, the company was in a very difficult financial situation. So much so that they had not been able to pay their employees' salaries for the last three months.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Ryan Schill, Luis Chandí

Mateo Armando Quito and the partners of ADROLIV had decided to declare the company bankrupt by October 2015. Every month that the company was in operation meant a disbursement in expenses for salaries, rent and basic services. The company had an uncertain future Mateo did not know what to do, the uncertainty was very great and Mateo had health problems due to excessive stress, he fell ill and had to be hospitalized for a week. Mateo was worried about the uncertain situation due to the fact that in June 2015 he had just had his first child and he had important debts that he had to pay and he did not know how he was going to do it. Mateo wondered how to pay my debts? And especially after feeling the responsibility of having a child, what legacy and example will I give to my son?

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Ryan Schill, Allan Martinez, Natalia Chaves

Company composed of two business units, export and exhibition of butterflies. Founded by women entrepreneurs and with a concept of corporate social responsibility. They are facing regulatory and legal changes that threaten the continuity of the export business. The exhibition business, on the other hand, has not been as successful as expected, and there is little time to make a decision about its future.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Ryan Schill, Allan Martinez, Natalia Chaves

In response to the reform of the Honduran education system, the Martínez family decided to enter a new market niche. The new venture surpassed all expectations of growth, requiring an injection of capital to meet the demand. would this be a peak demand due to the novelty, which would tend to fall? would it be worth the required investment?

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Santiago Hernandez, Marcela Vellojín

Family business with accelerated growth between 2013 and 2017. CRBF rides the global trend of pubs and craft breweries with a totally innovative proposal in terms of variety of beers, deep knowledge of the beer world, cozy and different restaurant environments and a menu that mostly integrates beer in its recipes. It recently underwent a transformation process when it had the opportunity to be sold to a large corporation.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

José Torres, Nicolas Marín, Andrea Prado, Ryan Schill

Estación Vital was a company dedicated to offering free preventive health counseling through three stations or "kiosks" in two shopping malls in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, and was preparing to expand to the rest of the country. Marcos Lacayo, a young Nicaraguan entrepreneur, creator and promoter of a project in the health sector, Estación Vital, was driving to a restaurant to meet Central American investors in order to define the massive expansion of his project.

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Central American Healthca
René Morales Carazo Chair of Entrepreneurship

Ryan Schill, Hector Gónzalez

Laboratoria is a social training program in web development, which seeks to give young Latin American women from low-income backgrounds a career in the technology sector. The case details the story of the entrepreneurs from their beginnings in Peru until 2017, when the protagonists meditate on the strategy they must follow to achieve the aggressive goal of inserting 10,000 female web developers in Latin America by 2021.

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship

Ryan Schill, Wendy Alfaro

GreenCloud® is a web platform that provides Organizational Carbon Neutral services. It is designed so that organizations and their users can implement a tailor-made strategy, with immediate access and mainly easy to use. Juan de Oliva, CEO and founder of the company, has defined a new challenge for himself: to position GreenCloud® on the global stage. To achieve this, he is looking for a partner willing to invest to expand consultative and commercial operations".

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René Morales Carazo Chair in Entrepreneurship