Abstract 

The case describes the journey of Rashmi Vittal, founder of Little Green Kid (LGK), an organic clothing company based out of Bangalore, India. A big believer is sustainability business, Rashmi started LGK to create and retail a line of 100% organic clothing. A technology professional by training, she struggled to figure out the various aspects of the organic clothing business and painstakingly put together each piece of the puzzle. She built the business by using various means of bootstrapping – outsourcing, partnering, sharing capacity, and leveraging the support of friends and family. The case is positioned at a point where Rashmi has built a modest but cash flow positive business. She now needs to decide the future course of action for LGK, that is, if and how to grow the company to the next level. The case provides rich material to discuss the concept of bootstrapping; the challenges of building and scaling a venture that seeks to carve out a new market (organic clothing); the trade-off involved in seeking venture capital funding, especially for a sustainability business

Learning Objective 

1. To analyze the nature of a given business and evaluate its potential.
2. To understand the differences between businesses that are trying to create a new market category and those that are trying to capture an existing market.
3. To understand the factors that influence the timing and type of external funding.

To analyze different pathways to scaling up and the tradeoffs involved in each