Business failures, costly decisions and the lessons they leave behind.
The full archive, in the appAn unregulated market let speculators pay with postdated checks due whenever they wrote, turning ordinary trades into a credit pyramid four times Kuwait's GDP.
Read the caseThe Latvia-founded platform attracted Chinese sellers with low commissions, then froze $180M after customer service dropped from 95% to 45%.
Read the caseAfter three straight years of falling profit, losses doubled to S$2.3M — Valu$ is now licensing the remaining stores on a three-year deal.
Read the caseDebt from 1990s expansion left the record chain with no cushion once digital piracy and big-box price competition gutted CD sales at the same time.
Read the caseFacial-cleaning chain 洗脸熊 ran on franchisee prepaid cards with no escrow — in late 2025 stores shut overnight, refusing to recognize each other's members
Read the caseWenzhou bakery OVENSTAR (欧文酵室) scaled into Ningbo, lost its only supplier — and by July 2026 stores were closing with ~¥1.53M wages owed
Read the caseZara peaked at 183 mainland stores in 2018. By March 2026 it had about 60, while domestic rival UR passed 400 stores and opened 30+ more in 2025 alone.
Read the caseDuolingo fired 10% of contract workers in 2024 and announced an AI-first strategy in 2025; users protested by deleting the app.
Read the caseThe 300-year-old British grocer opened its first overseas flagship at HK's K11 MUSEA in 2019. By January 2026, it was gone.
Read the caseThe Chinese peripheral brand grew faster than its quality control. Three competitors signed a statement against its paid water army campaign.
Read the caseNamed ambassador, dropped eight days later over scandal. Then Li Yifeng, then Cai Xukun. Chinese netizens call it the 'Prada curse'. 300 million views.
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