Abstract:
This case describes the entrepreneurial journey of two college friends — Anchal Taatya and Abhiram Nukalapati. While studying at IIM Ahmedabad, they saw an opportunity for aggregating credit card discounts and launched a pilot in February 2019 under the name Circles. Circles helped discount seekers and credit card holders to connect and make transactions. Case B outlines their struggles in launching a B2C product and eventual shutdown of the venture.

The key objective of this case is to understand the business formation stage of a college start-up, and how they arrived at opportunity identification. The case is aimed at enabling classroom discussions on the role of trust in platform businesses and how regulations — or lack thereof — can shape the destiny of new ventures.