Business · Unit 4 · Case study

Case study: 'The board deck that gets funded'

Duration: 15 min

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← Lesson 4ALesson 4B →
Warm-up

Warm-up · Prime the case (5 min, solo)

Two micro-drills from 4A (KPIs + forecast tenses) and 4B (trend collocations + conditional forecasts). Do both before opening the scenario.

Drill 1 — Name the shape, verb + adverb

For each pattern, describe it in ONE sentence: verb (grow / rise / fall / plateau / dip) + adverb (sharply / steadily / marginally) + a number.

  1. ARR: Q1 $2.1M → Q2 $2.4M → Q3 $2.5M → Q4 $2.5M.

  2. Gross margin: 71% → 68% → 63% → 59% across four quarters.

  3. Net revenue retention: 118% → 116% → 117% → 117%.

Drill 2 — Conditional forecast (commit vs stretch)

Turn each raw plan into a CONDITIONAL FORECAST sentence a board can bet on: IF X, WE WILL Y — otherwise WE WILL Z.

  1. Hire six AEs. Hope revenue grows.

  2. Cut infra by 20%.

Bridge to the case → Two moves the case will demand: (a) every chart gets a verb + adverb + number, not 'it went up'; (b) every forecast is COMMIT vs STRETCH, each with a conditional that names the trigger. Open the scenario.
🎯 Final output

Final output — the 90-second board opening + one-slide brief

Solo. (1) Record a 90-second voice note of the CEO's rewritten opening (headline + commit-vs-stretch + named risk). (2) Draft a one-page brief for her: the three-column commit/plan/stretch slide + a 'if the board asks…' section with the two most likely questions and your one-sentence answer to each.