kaChing

By Andrew Rachleff, Bethany Coates
2010 | Case No. E370
Late one evening in October 2008, Andy Rachleff, the president and CEO of kaChing, stepped out of the office for a walk around the block. The 8-member team at kaChing, an online social investing start up that planned to automate the practice of emulating successful investors, had reached an impasse. Rachleff, his cofounder Dan Carroll, and the vice president of marketing, Jonathan Galore, believed the firm should require users to earn the right to see certain valuable investment data only available on kaChing. The company’s five engineers, led by Mike Tsao and Pascal-Louis Perez, strongly disagreed with this approach, arguing that kaChing should give users free access to all information on the site, and only charge for services that provided a true convenience. Rachleff had just led a contentious all-hands meeting on the subject that ended with no closure. A decision had to be made soon in order to successfully position the company for a critical press launch in mid-December. Rachleff wondered how best to move forward.
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