Organization Background

The business owns and operates 24 different laundromats, all of which feature highly efficient large-load and high-speed washers and dryers, across four states on the east coast.

Organization Background

Pegasus Building Services was founded in 1969 as a full-service janitorial firm serving the Southern California business community. It has since evolved into the premier facility services company with six locations in the southwestern United States.

Organization Background

Founded in 1995 by Bart and Courtney Emken, DogBoy’s Dog Ranch is a unique 15-acre boarding kennel, doggie day care and training facility just northeast of Austin.

Organization Background

Evergreen Cooperatives is a family of worker-owned cooperatives that includes the Evergreen Cooperative Laundry and Green City Growers. It was launched in 2008 by a working group of Cleveland-based institutions—including the Cleveland Foundation, the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, Case Western Reserve University, and the municipal government. The goal of the Evergreen Cooperative Initiative, also known as the “Cleveland Model”, according to the Cleveland Foundation’s President/CEO and Evergreen Board Chairman, Ronn Richard is: “equitable wealth creation at scale.”

Organization Background

imageOne is a 28-year-old company that provides managed print services, which includes sales and service for copiers, printers, scanners as well as supplies and software solutions.                 

Organization Background

Advanced Services is a pest control company founded in 1986. “We are hired killers,” says Dena Thomas, the company’s president. “We kill bugs for a living.” The company also provides insulation and moisture control solutions as well.

Organization Background

Anthony Wilder Design/Build, Inc. is a high-end residential architecture-led design/build firm. The Anthony Wilder team has been creating award-winning projects in and around the Washington DC metropolitan and tri-state area for more than 20 years.

Organization Background

Be Found Online (BFO) is a Chicago-based digital marketing agency that delivers organic media, paid media, local search, and digital analytics solutions to medium-sized and enterprise-level businesses. BFO’s roots date back to 2009 when its two founders, Dan Golden (now President), and Steve Krull (CEO) left their big agency careers to create a more nimble and vibrant working environment. The company discovered the Great Game of Business based on its interest in the so-called “gamification” of business.

Company Background

Fresno First Bank opened in December 2005 by a local group of successful business people, some of whom had experience with the successful Regency Bank, which sold at the end of 1999. In 2007, after the CEO’s position opened up, the bank brought in Rick Whitsell, an experienced banker, to fill the position. Two weeks later, the chief financial officer and chief credit officer resigned, which created an opportunity to Whitsell to bring in his own team. At the same time, the bank’s chairman, David Price, happened to be a fan of the Great Game of Business, so he suggested that the bank’s management team go to Springfield, MO, to see how the Great Game was played.

Company Background

Dr. Calvin Clarke opened Clarke EyeCare Center in Wichita Falls, Texas, back in 1973. His son, Danny, and his daughter-in-law, Elizabeth – who met each other at optometry school – then joined the practice in 1995. In 2010, the younger Clarke's bought the business - which provides optometry services, prescription glasses and contact lens - though the senior Dr. Clarke continues to see patients. The Clarke's began playing The Great Game of Business a few months after the change in ownership.

Business Challenges

While the business was doing well operationally, Clarke knew that his profits were some-what low relative to the industry and, more importantly, cash flow was not where it needed to be. “Bills would come in and checks would go out, but it was always borderline with how much money we had in the bank,” he says. Dr. Clarke also knew that his peers in the op-tometry field who were financially successful tended to be micro-managers when it came to the business side of the operation. He wasn’t interested. Rather, he hoped that playing the GGOB with his associates would bring about even better results than anything he could do on his own.