Bubble made app-building visual, and Insight Partners backed it with $100M
Bubble compressed UI, database and workflows into one visual editor so non-coders ship real apps; the 2021 round legitimized the bet
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2,000 PUBLISHED CASES · REGULARLY UPDATEDGillette turned two village sisters into proof that a razor doesn't discriminate
Gillette amplified a real UP barbershop run by two sisters — Cannes Silver Lion 2019, Abby Gold 2022 — instead of inventing an empowerment story.
Read the casedekuNukem defeated Daan Tech's Bob cartridge DRM to refill at 1/60 the price
Rather than pay £174 a year for dishwasher cartridges, dekuNukem dumped the one-byte counter chip and refilled with £17 of catering detergent — a 98% saving.
Read the caseW.R. Hambrecht auctioned IPOs so small investors could bid too.
OpenIPO replaced banker-chosen allocations with an online Dutch auction; Andover.net raised $72 million and proved the model could work.
Read the caseLa Roche-Posay and BMS gave Bondi beach a melanoma that visibly grew
Sun-safety messages weren't landing, so Ogilvy built a melanoma at Sculpture by the Sea that grew day by day—and 2,000 beachgoers got skin checks.
Read the caseCambodia made employers co-design TVET so training followed jobs
Cambodia's ADB-backed TVET program used employer partnerships, competency assessment, and outsourced bridging courses to make training demand-led.
Read the casePinduoduo's group-buying turned WeChat friends into free customer acquisition
Pinduoduo (2015) made shoppers recruit each other — group orders with falling prices replaced ad spend, reaching ¥1 trillion GMV by 2019
Read the caseAn MLB team ranked prospects by optimizing scouts' conflicting opinions.
Georgia Tech's model turned disagreeing scout evaluations into a consensus draft ranking; the team used it two years, then a second team asked in.
Read the caseSyntex sized its sales force with a model built from managers' own judgment
Syntex used a decision-calculus model to size and deploy its sales force, adding $25 million and 8% a year in sales.
Read the caseCôte d'Ivoire never nationalized its water; one private lease has run since 1960
Côte d'Ivoire kept water in private hands after independence; the World Bank calls the lease the developing world's oldest and largest water PPP.
Read the caseFLAC became the lossless standard by being free: format, patents and implementation.
Released in 2001 by Josh Coalson and Xiph.Org, FLAC is the lossless codec that is non-proprietary, patent-free and open-source, later formalised as RFC 9639.
Read the caseRC Cola remade a Filipino film classic to sell a four-serving bottle for PHP 24
The 'Miracle' ad recreated 1982's Himala with RC Cola as the miracle; it drew 288M views and a Clio Gold.
Read the caseIntel's MEIO algorithm set weekly inventory targets; 99.5% accepted, $1.3B profit
Intel automated finished-goods inventory targets with multi-echelon optimization, adding $1.3B gross profit and running 85% of inventory lights-out.
Read the caseTriOptima's triReduce compressed trillions in offsetting swaps off banks' books
Banks' swaps offset each other but stayed on the books; triReduce matched them across firms and terminated them, shrinking notional, risk and margin costs.
Read the caseA fake anti-doping kit got amateur athletes to test for testicular cancer — 2,100 did
FP7 McCann repackaged the testicular self-check as a pro-style anti-doping kit; 2,100 amateur athletes took it, and one early cancer was caught.
Read the caseWikiRempah turned one meetup into four reusable knowledge streams
WikiRempah made one spice-and-culture meetup feed Commons, Wikibooks, Wikipedia, and Wiktionary with reusable local-language knowledge.
Read the caseOmantel built the first dyslexia-friendly Arabic font and gave it away
No Arabic font dyslexics could use, so Omantel commissioned one — designed backwards from the disability — and open-sourced it for institutions to adopt.
Read the caseNN/g eyetracking proved flat design's weak click cues cost users 22% more time
To settle the flat-design argument, NN/g eye-tracked 71 users on matched page pairs and showed weak clickability clues cost 22% more time.
Read the caseNBC's optimization systems added $200M in ad revenue between 1996 and 2000
GE built NBC a sales-optimization system that priced and placed commercials; revenue rose over $200M in five years and rework fell over 80%.
Read the caseAramex answered its partner's sale by chairing a 40-carrier global alliance
When DHL absorbed Airborne in 2003, the courier Airborne had declined to buy for $100,000 powered the partners' new worldwide alliance — and chaired it.
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