Abstract  

Roposo founders from their original days as founders of Giveter learnt about sustainable ways of doing business in the e-commerce world and therein lay the roots of Roposo. Over time, they acquired new knowledge about user behavior and exhibited agility in acquiring new functionalities and setting up of new teams to respond to evolving user behavior on the internet both using product development skills and by creating network effects. In doing so, they seem to be stepping on new competitive realms with existing competitors from the Silicon Valley or even from Asian entrepreneurial firms. The question now arises for Roposo founders on what to do and what not to do so that the firm can continue creating competitive advantage both in its original niche space of fashion social networking and more in fashion social e-commerce going forward. At a broad level, this case is ideal to teach MBA students:  

• How firms dynamically acquire capabilities over time responding to the market and external conditions and build competitive advantage.
• In addition, it also addresses the issue of entrepreneurial pivoting that is essential to entrepreneurial survival.
• Finally, the case also raises the issue of focus as a key construct in strategy – where firms need to decide whether it wants to build and/or acquire new capabilities keeping in mind anticipated competitive responses from the market.

 Learning Objective  

• Dynamic acquisition of capabilities in social-networking or social-commerce firms
• Entrepreneurial pivoting in emerging economy e-commerce firms
• Focus as a key construct in strategy
• Building competitive advantage in 2-sided markets