Environfit International - an International Venture Case

1042-2587 © 2010 Baylor University

E T&P

Envirofit International: A Venture Adventure
Paul Hudnut Dawn R. DeTienne

This case focuses on Envirofit International, a student start-up venture that began in an undergraduate entrepreneurship course. Two engineering students and two faculty members at a land grant university in the United States designed a retrofit kit to vastly reduce emissions from dirty two-stroke motorcycles, which are used throughout Asian cities as taxis. This case presents the beginnings of the Envirofit story, and the issues involved in creating an entrepreneurial venture focused on triple bottom line objectives in “base of pyramid” markets. Specifically, the case examines the ambiguity facing a start-up as it begins to develop a technology, a business model, and a management team. The case demonstrates the tension between planning and doing in managing the uncertainty facing a new venture.

Introduction
It was a late Friday afternoon in September 2003 when Nathan Lorenz, Tim Bauer, Paul Hudnut, and Bryan Willson gathered at their usual table at CooperSmith’s Pub in Fort Collins, Colorado. It was a beautiful warm day, and they enjoyed the clear, blue Colorado skies. Lorenz and Bauer were both mechanical engineering students who worked in Dr. Willson’s Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory at Colorado State University (CSU). In May, they had finished a class on New Venture Management, taught by Prof. Hudnut, who worked in the university’s Entrepreneurship Center. As part of the class, their student team had presented a business plan for a new start-up venture, Envirofit International, in a national business plan competition called “Venture Adventure.” Little did these four colleagues know how descriptive this title would become for them and for Envirofit. Halfway around the world, the skies were far from blue. In cities such as Bangkok and