After The First Year, Strategies Changed!

At the VT/NH event on March 30, two-hundred talented professionals competed for the coveted honor of winning the first ever MineThatData Academy Business Simulation!

Here were the results after year one.

Attendees checked "the big board", studying strategies and then making adjustments.

Twenty year-two strategies were submitted. Here are the results from year two.

Please click on the results, study them. What do you observe?

• Teams increased overall gross margin percentages.
• Ad-To-Sales Ratios marginally decreased (as teams tried to optimize marketing spend).
• Teams did not fundamentally change staffing strategies.
• Prices marginally increased.
• Average percentage off increased from 6% to 9%.
• Teams shifted marginally toward getting customers to pay for shipping.

Look at what "Beanies" did ... they leveraged very low prices in year one and actually lost money on their strategy ... then in year two, their high-level of sales carried over on more-than-expensive item prices, yielding a stunning valuation. In other words, they drove the top-line in year one, then optimized the business for profitability in year two (spending almost nothing on marketing), leading to a stunning level of sales/profit/valuation. They were the clear leader going into year three.

Year 2 Valuation:

• Beanies = $3.1 million.
• Loopy = $1.1 million.
• Wiggies = $1.1 million.
• Widgwon = $1.1 million.
• Name = $1.1 million.

Notice that many of the leaders from year one are leaders from year two. Beanies leveraged a two-year strategy to bust into a dramatic lead. Clearly, somebody is going to have to do "something different" in order to make a run at the title!

The teams really noodled different solutions, didn't they?

Tomorrow, we look at year three.

Ready to compete, my friends? Start thinking about it.