<iframe src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-PHTV9K7" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden">
Loading
Skip to Main Content
Product cover image for After the Tank: Choosing the Right Capital to Scale Iceberg

After the Tank: Choosing the Right Capital to Scale Iceberg

Tulsi Jayakumar, Anupama Gupta

Product #:W49103
Supplier:Ivey
Discipline:Entrepreneurship, Strategy
Setting:India, 2024
Details:Case (PDF) • 16 pages • 2026-05-29

Subjects:

EntrepreneurshipStrategy

Industries:

Goods, trade, and consumer services

Geography:

IndiaAsia
Your Price:$9.71

Purchase this material with a free Educator Account and enjoy more benefits:

  • Free Educator Copy
  • Free Teaching Notes
  • Build your coursepack
  • Discounted academic price

This case examines the strategic dilemma faced by the founder of Iceberg Organic Ice Creams (Iceberg) in September 2024 following an unsuccessful attempt to raise equity through Shark Tank India. Since its founding in 2013, Iceberg had experimented with scaling models, including company-owned, company-operated (COCO) growth and rapid franchise-owned, franchise-operated (FOFO) growth. While franchising enabled rapid expansion, it also exposed deep misalignments around control, margins, and organizational capability. As Iceberg repositioned itself as a premium, organic, brand, capital investment and execution demands increased. The founder had to reassess not just how to fund growth, but which form of capital and operating model could support sustainable scaling without undermining brand integrity—COCO, FOFO, private equity or venture capital (PE or VC), or franchise-invested, company-owned and -operated (FICO).

Learning Objectives

This case is well suited for master of business administration (MBA) and executive MBA courses in strategy, business models, entrepreneurship, franchising, and scaling new ventures, as well as electives on family and founder-led businesses and retail and consumer brand strategy. At the undergraduate level, it can be used in strategic management or entrepreneurship courses to illustrate early-stage growth choices and the consequences of misaligned scaling models.

After working through the case and assignment questions, students should be able to do the following:
  • Critically analyze franchising-based scaling models, such as FOFO, as means of scaling in founder-led, experience-driven businesses.
  • Evaluate how a shift in strategic positioning (for example, from mass-market to premium, organic, and experience-led) changes the requirements for capital, control, and operating discipline.
  • Compare alternative growth and funding pathways—COCO, FOFO, PE or VC, and FICO—by explicitly weighing trade-offs across speed, control, risk, and organizational complexity.
  • Distinguish between capital constraints and organizational capability constraints in scaling decisions, particularly in founder-centric ventures.
  • Develop an actionable recommendation for scaling that prioritizes execution risk management over theoretical growth potential.
Loading
Case Study: After the Tank: Choosing the Right Capital to Scale Iceberg (English version) | Ivey Publishing