CofounderBreakup — Parting Ways Without Destroying the Company
Design a cofounder separation in 5 rounds so the company survives, the cap table stays clean, and the human relationship has a future.
About this simulation
A four-round, intermediate entrepreneurship simulation set inside Reviva SAS, a two-year-old circular-economy venture in Grenoble, France that collects, refurbishes and resells small household appliances under a two-year 'renewal' promise.
Founder Camille Brun spun Reviva out of a regional appliance maker that declined to scale her intrapreneurial pilot; the venture employs 11 people (7 technicians, 5 of them women returning to work after career breaks), refurbished 9,200 units last year, and runs a €1.40M / 28%-contribution business that posted a €180,000 operating loss after over-investing in capacity.
Trigger — 14 September 2026: with a €350,000 cash buffer covering ~5 months of €70,000/month burn, Camille has 21 days before the lead impact fund's term sheet lapses.
The €900,000 seed is undersubscribed at €520,000 soft-committed; the fund will not close below €750,000, leaving a hard €230,000 gap, and it insists on ONE coherent business model from the three Reviva straddles (own-brand resale, white-label refurbishment-as-a-service, repair-subscription).
Playing the founding team, you (1) diagnose the binding constraint — an unfocused model burning cash and a founder/team operating past sustainable limits — separating it from the presenting €230,000 gap; (2) commit to one model and build a financing stack to the €750,000 close, reading the cap-table and control consequences of the second investor's +€250,000 and its 'professional CEO' clause, a smaller angel bridge, a non-dilutive €150,000 BPI France innovation loan, or a burn cut; (3) redesign the operating model to remove the weekend-shift attrition driver (hire two technicians at €2,400/month, automate intake, or cap volume), choose a leadership approach (owner-operator, delegating CEO, or distributed) and set a work-life sustainability target that is actually funded; and (4) integrate everything into an investor pitch, defending mission consistency and committing to a single 12-month metric.
The math rewards inclusion designed into the cost structure (not a slide), focus under scarcity, pricing control rather than just cash, funding the people who produce the margin, and budgeting sustainability — and punishes the five classic errors. Final KPIs track Model Viability, Funding Secured, Work-Life Sustainability and Team Engagement against the founder's runway and dilution.
Who it is for
An intermediate simulation for participants who already know the core concepts of the subject, designed for master's and MBA programmes.
How a session runs
- The instructor creates a session from the Eureka dashboard and invites the participants.
- Participants play 4 rounds. In each one they submit their decisions and the simulation calculates the results.
- The simulation can be run in English, Español.
- The instructor follows each participant's progress and results from the dashboard, and uses the class results for the debrief.