Instructional Design Case Study

Target learners

Undergraduate ENT 200 students, typically first- or second-year, with mixed business backgrounds. Many have entrepreneurial interest but limited exposure to financial statements.

Instructional need

Students commonly equate profit with cash and underestimate how fixed commitments, acquisition costs, and churn compress runway. Lecture and worked problems rarely let them experience delayed, compounding consequences of decisions.

Prerequisite knowledge

Basic arithmetic and percentages; familiarity with revenue and expenses. No prior accounting coursework is assumed — the diagnostic surfaces gaps before play.

Financial decision-making challenges

• Distinguishing operating profit from net cash flow, and financing proceeds from revenue.
• Recognizing that hires create recurring fixed costs that raise break-even.
• Seeing marketing waste when demand exceeds service capacity.
• Weighing debt (repayment, interest) against equity (dilution).

Measurable objectives

1. Calculate monthly net cash flow and cash runway from given figures.
2. Distinguish profitability from cash availability in a statement.
3. Evaluate the financial consequences of pricing, hiring, and marketing decisions.
4. Compare loan and equity funding strategies by cost, obligation, and dilution.
5. Defend a business strategy using evidence from the simulation.

Simulation rules

Explicit formulas govern churn, CAC, capacity, revenue, and cash. Market events are scheduled by a fixed seed, so every student with the same seed faces identical conditions — outcomes differ only because decisions differ. The run ends if cash falls below zero.

Authentic decisions

Each month presents five founder decisions — price, marketing, staffing, investment, financing — plus a strategic response to any market event. Every option carries a stated trade-off.

Assessment alignment

Feedback strategy

Immediate, explanatory feedback after each diagnostic item and each month, showing the calculation behind the result (e.g. runway = cash ÷ burn) and naming the decision that drove it. Summative feedback in the Founder Decision Report identifies strengths and growth areas.

Working prototype

A browser-based simulation with diagnostic, twelve playable rounds, final scenario assessment, and a printable, downloadable report. Progress saves locally; start, resume, and restart controls are provided.

Interface

A founder's dashboard with ten KPIs, a 12-month timeline, separate cash-flow and profit/loss charts, decision cards and sliders, and a per-month P&L and cash-flow ledger. Keyboard-navigable controls, visible focus states, and text alternatives for charts support accessibility. Layouts adapt from mobile to desktop.

Calculations

A pure, deterministic engine separates profit and cash. Automated tests verify accounting identities (ending cash = starting cash + net cash flow), non-negative customers, loan and equity treatment, runway handling when burn is zero, and growth, failure, financing, and full 12-month scenarios.

Instructional content

Six market events with paired strategic responses, three diagnostic items, a cash-flow statement scenario with three assessment items and a written justification, and a structured reflection prompt.

Introductory briefing (15 min)

Frame the question “Can a profitable startup fail?” Review cash in/out, burn, and runway. Assign a common scenario seed so results are comparable.

Gameplay (40–50 min)

Students complete the diagnostic and play individually or in pairs. The instructor circulates, prompting students to predict each month's cash change before submitting.

Structured debrief (25 min)

• Compare survival outcomes across the room on the same seed.
• Discuss: When did profit and cash diverge? Who borrowed, who raised equity, and why?
• Connect to real startup cases of growth outpacing cash.

Follow-up

Students submit the downloaded Founder Decision Report with reflection as a graded artifact.

Financial calculations

Extend the automated test suite; have a finance faculty reviewer hand-verify three seeded playthroughs against spreadsheet reconciliations.

Usability

Think-aloud sessions with 5–8 students across desktop and mobile; keyboard-only and screen-reader walkthroughs; SUS questionnaire.

Learner understanding

Compare diagnostic and final-scenario scores; code reflections against a rubric for evidence-based reasoning about cash versus profit.

Transfer of knowledge

Two to four weeks later, assess students' ability to build a runway estimate for their own venture concept in the course's business-plan assignment.