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Product cover image for When the Wings Spread Too Wide: Scaling a Founder-Centric Business After Kickstarter

When the Wings Spread Too Wide: Scaling a Founder-Centric Business After Kickstarter

W. G. Will Zhao

Product #:W48999
Supplier:Ivey
Discipline:Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behaviour/Leadership
Setting:United States, 2025
Details:Case (PDF) • 12 pages • 2026-02-25 (Rev: 2026-04-27)
Your Price:$9.71

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In November 2019, at the peak of his company’s success, Stonemaier Games founder Jamey Stegmaier faced new challenges. Three years after abandoning Kickstarter following the emotional toll of the US$1.8 million Scythe campaign, his company’s latest release, Wingspan, won the prestigious Kennerspiel des Jahres (Connoisseur Game of the Year) award, driving revenue to $12.8 million. However, without the built-in preorder mechanism that crowdfunding provided, demand forecasting became guesswork, leading to supply shortages and public apologies. Still working 80-hour weeks with no full-time employees, Stegmaier had to decide whether the founder-centric model that built the company could scale to meet growing demand.

Learning Objectives

This case is designed for undergraduate and graduate courses in entrepreneurship, strategic management, innovation management, and organizational behaviour. It can also be used in courses addressing founder well-being, sustainable growth, and customer relationship management.

After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to do the following:
  • Analyze the personal dimensions of entrepreneurship, often overlooked in traditional business education.
  • Evaluate the sustainability of founder-centric business models at scale.
  • Apply effectual reasoning frameworks to entrepreneurial decision-making.
  • Assess trade-offs between growth strategies and personal well-being.
  • Examine how transparency and customer engagement create both competitive advantages and operational burdens.
  • Evaluate strategic pivots such as the decision to abandon a successful crowdfunding model.
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Case Study: When the Wings Spread Too Wide: Scaling a Founder-Centric Business After Kickstarter (English version) | Ivey Publishing