Business simulations / VentureWrist
Smart wearables · turn-based · browser-only

Found a smart-watch company. Survive the market.

Students start with $20M and three AI rivals. Eight quarters later they’ve designed real hardware, priced into 40 country markets, fought for shelf space and brand, financed growth — and learned why the theory matters, because the market answered every choice.

40country markets
5customer segments
8+quarterly rounds
3AI rivals with agendas
Design Studio · Gen 2 · targeting Athletes
Segment fit · Athletes91 / 100 Unit cost$134 Battery121 h vs PulseFit Apex▲ quality +12 vs Nexa Go ($89)▼ price −$150
The quarter loop

What students actually do, every quarter.

Decisions are staged across tabbed screens — each with “learn why” theory one click away — then the quarter submits and the server resolves the market. No spreadsheet uploads, no black box.

Design & build

Compose a watch from nine real components in a live 3D studio; commit volumes across own plants and contract manufacturers; pick suppliers on a world map that trades cost against reliability.

Price & promote

Set segment-aware prices, choose among five media channels and five creatives, and decide where campaigns run — knowing distributor-served markets never see your ads.

Reach & fund

Open distributors, retail stores, or carrier deals country by country; route freight through warehouses; finance it all with loans, bonds, or equity — dilution included.

Face the market

Demand resolves across 40 countries × 5 segments. Rivals move, events hit, the balanced scorecard updates — and students journal what they’ll do differently next quarter.

The world model

A market that answers back.

Built on the Capitalism engine lineage: price + quality + brand form an overall rating per customer segment, and that rating meets real demographics in every country. Students can inspect exactly why demand went where it went.

40 countries, none interchangeable

Population, income, e-commerce maturity, urbanization, and segment mix are modeled per country. A $520 flagship that owns Zurich dies in Jakarta — and the reports show why.

  • Four distribution methods per country: online, distributor, own stores, carrier
  • Distributor trade-off: cheap reach, but you lose marketing control
  • Competitor footprints and white-space hints per market
World demand · Q5 · own coverage in gold
Germany▲ 212k units Brazilunserved 38% India · carrier deal▲ share 9.4%

Operations with real teeth

The newsvendor problem, economies of scale, and supply risk aren’t sidebar readings — they’re the difference between a sold-out quarter and a warehouse of unsold inventory.

  • Own plants with scale curves, ramp-up reliability, and mothballing
  • Contract manufacturers, capacity negotiation, take-or-pay volume deals
  • Warehouse networks, two-leg freight, absorb-vs-pass-through pricing
Production allocation · Gen 2 · 480k units
Shenzhen plant$96/unit · 97% rel. FoxLine contract$104/unit · 99% rel. Stockout risk▼ 6%

R&D and finance, all the way down

A thirty-node technology tree gates better chips, batteries, and health sensors. Growth is financed with rating-priced loans, bonds, or equity — and equity costs founders something real: control.

  • Four research branches × five tiers; AI rivals research the same tree
  • Loans and bonds with tenors, covenants, and credit ratings
  • Equity raises dilute a loseable founder stake; buybacks win it back
Financing · Q6 · credit rating BBB
Term loan · 8 qtrs$12.0M @ 2.1%/qtr Equity raise▼ founder stake 61% → 54% Dividend policy20% payout Share price▲ $14.20
Learning, not just playing

The theory is one click from the decision.

Academy

Nine “learn why” lessons

Price elasticity, economies of scale, STP, brand equity, the 4 Ps, channel power, the newsvendor problem, supply risk — linked from the exact screen where each concept bites, plus a graded knowledge check.

Scorecard

Eight-dimension grading

Profitability, share, brand, quality, satisfaction, operations, innovation, financial health — a balanced scorecard, not a single profit number, so focused strategies can win different ways.

Reflection

Quarterly strategy journals

Students record what they decided and why, every quarter, right where they play. You read the journal beside the actual decision log — intent versus execution, in one view.

Course fit

Where it teaches best.

VentureWrist is a full-company simulation, so it flexes to the course: the kit includes week-by-week plans that emphasize the modules you’re teaching.

CourseWhat carries the weightSample assignment
Product management / Innovation 3D design studio, segment fit, product generations and refresh cadence, tech tree Ship a two-product portfolio; defend the generation-2 refresh timing
Marketing strategy STP, pricing and elasticity, channel/creative fit, brand building, distribution power Reposition a losing product without touching its price
Strategy / Capstone The whole company: strategy choice vs execution, scorecard trade-offs, rival response Quarterly board memo: strategy declared vs strategy executed
Operations / Supply chain Newsvendor volumes, plant economics, supplier reliability, warehouse networks, freight Cut landed cost 15% without raising stockout risk
Entrepreneurship $20M seed to going concern; financing choices, dilution and control, cash discipline Raise growth capital; justify debt vs equity to the class
The instructor console

Your side of the screen.

Classes with join codes, a live leaderboard, and grading that survives a grade appeal. A demo class ships pre-seeded so you can evaluate every tab in five minutes.

Leaderboard & monitoring

The class at a glance

Balanced-scorecard ranking, per-student progress, quiz completion, and journal counts. See who’s drifting by week three, not week thirteen.

Review drilldown

Every decision, defensible

Per student: a scorecard radar, financial history, and the complete quarter-by-quarter decision log paired with their journal. Grade defense and AACSB assurance-of-learning evidence, one click deep.

Grading

Weighted, overridable, exportable

Scorecard, quiz, and journal components with weights you control, manual override where judgment says so, and CSV export for your gradebook.

Zero-friction ops

Browser-only, self-service

Students join with a code — no installs, no LMS project, no procurement. You can reset a stuck student’s password yourself, in class. Self-hosting is available for institutions that require it.

On the roadmap with pilot instructors: team play and head-to-head class competition, Google/Microsoft sign-in, and LMS gradebook sync (LTI 1.3). Today’s classes run individual-vs-AI — every student owns their own company and their own grade.

Practical questions

FAQ

What do students need to run it?

A browser. The simulation is fully web-based; quarters resolve on the server, so student laptops do no heavy lifting. The 3D design studio runs on any recent machine.

What does it cost students?

Pilot classes are free. Afterward, seats are priced like a modest course materials purchase per student, with bookstore/department access codes available. Instructors never pay.

How long does a game take?

The default is 8 quarterly rounds — comfortable in a semester at one quarter per week with time for debrief. Length is configurable per class (1–40 quarters), and students play self-paced against AI rivals.

Is it too complex for an intro course?

The depth is there when you want it, but a class can run on the core loop — design, price, produce, market — and ignore advanced screens entirely. The course kit includes a light-touch plan for intro courses and a full-depth plan for capstones.

How do you handle academic integrity?

Every class runs its own seeded market, so no two games share an answer. Results are computed server-side, and the review drilldown shows each student’s decisions and journals quarter by quarter — evidence of process, which is what AI tools can’t fake.

Can my students play in teams?

Solo-versus-AI is the supported mode today — deliberately, so no student’s grade depends on a free-riding teammate. Team play and a shared PvP class market are in active development; pilot instructors get them first.

Free pilot semesters

See it with your own course.

We’ll set you up with a demo instructor account — pre-seeded class, every tab populated — plus the course kit for your subject. If it doesn’t fit, you’ve spent thirty minutes.

VentureWrist pilot

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