We get the brief
A real business problem from a company or the organisers — with constraints and no answer key at the back.
Case Lab / by Investor Fintech
Case Lab
The club’s competitive track
We build teams that tackle real business problems and represent the club at case championships. With us, you go through the full cycle: from your first case breakdown to a public defence in the final.
Skills, network, wins — all in one flow.
- Season
- 01
- Recruitment
- Open
- Team size
- 3–5
- Format
- Online + in-person finals
About the track
We find case championships, put teams together and go the whole way with them, from preparation to the final defence.
A case championship has no single right answer. There are inputs, hard constraints and a deadline — hours or days for everything. In that time the team has to find a well-argued answer and convince the jury that it beats the rest.
01
What it is
The club’s competitive unit, which prepares teams for national case championships such as Changellenge Cup Russia, Strategy Cup and Alfa Future.
02
What it is not
We do not run tournaments of our own or give lectures. Our job is to put together strong teams and take them to external competitions.
03
Whose name we compete under
At external competitions the team competes as “FinTech Investors” — a track with a character of its own, but not a separate organisation.
Mechanics
How a case championship works
The team receives a business problem, background data and a firm deadline. Within a few days it has to analyse the industry, the company and its customers, and use what it learns to develop an effective solution.
Timeline
Online round · 5 days
“Five days” sounds like plenty, but research eats up almost half of it, and the team pulls the presentation together in the last 24 hours.
We research
The market, clients, competitors, consumers, technology and economics.
We build the solution
We formulate hypotheses, choose a strategy and check whether it adds up economically.
We build the deck
We turn the research into a management recommendation: one story, not a pile of slides.
We defend it
We present to the jury and answer questions. This is where a solution either holds up under pressure or does not — and we do everything we can to make sure it does.
Preparation
What we train
Not lectures, but the tools you need on a Saturday night, a day before the deadline. Open any of them to see what’s inside.
01 / STRATEGY — DETAIL
Problem statements, decomposition, issue trees, MECE: how to break a client’s vague brief into clear questions that can be given concrete answers.
Prioritisation: what to work out first when there is only time for a third of the plan.
Working with incomplete information: an assumption instead of a pause — but an assumption you can justify.
02 / FINANCE — DETAIL
Unit economics, P&L, a revenue and cost model — the minimum without which an idea remains just a presentation.
Investment appraisal, ROI and break-even: what implementation costs and when it pays for itself.
Scenario and sensitivity analysis: what breaks first if the market behaves differently.
03 / ANALYTICS — DETAIL
Desk research against the clock: what to look for and where, what to trust and how to get the most out of every minute.
Market and competitor analysis, benchmarks and market sizing: from headline figures to the ones that actually apply to the problem.
Customer research and testing hypotheses against relevant data rather than intuition.
04 / PRODUCT — DETAIL
Business model, segmentation, pricing and go-to-market: what a new product is made of, beyond the idea itself.
Implementation roadmap: we set out who does what, and in what order.
Risk assessment: we go through the details and give an honest answer to the question of where the solution might fail.
05 / STORYTELLING — DETAIL
Storyline and executive summary: the recommendation on the first slide, the evidence after it.
Slide logic and data visualisation: a chart that can be read in three seconds.
Executive delivery: speaking the language of the person who makes the decision.
06 / PITCHING — DETAIL
We build the pitch so that, in just a few minutes, the team sounds like a single whole.
Stress-testing the hypotheses and the solution.
Answering a tough question without improvising on the spot.
07 / TEAMWORK — DETAIL
Dividing roles within the team and working in parallel: everyone runs their own block, with no downtime and no confusion.
Keeping to time and making quick calls in disputes: the argument matters more than ambition.
Pulling the different parts of the analysis into one story a few hours before the defence.
Line-up
What makes a strong team
In practice there is no rigid division of tasks: one member covers several roles, and in a good team people constantly help each other out.
How to join
Selection → team → championship
You do not need any experience of solving cases. Analytical thinking, a willingness to learn and the stamina for an intensive format matter more.
Apply
Tell us about yourself, your experience and your strengths. Applying without a team is fine — and encouraged.
Have an interview
The conversation helps us understand your goals and values and gauge how ready you are for intensive work.
Make the line-up
For each competition we put together a team whose strengths complement one another.
Prepare
Practice cases, reviews of other teams’ solutions, presentation rehearsals and mock Q&A.
Represent the club
Online rounds, in-person defences, finals and away competitions — all under the Investor Fintech banner.
Calendar
Upcoming championships
This is where the season’s competitions will appear, along with our teams’ status at each stage.
SEASON 01 · APPLICATIONS
We will announce the season’s first championship here.
We do not list competitions we have not entered yet. As soon as a team is registered, its card appears in this block together with its status.
Join the line-up →- Registration
- Team Formation
- Preparing
- Round 1
- Semifinal
- Final
At competitions
From the classroom to the championship
Case Lab is not about practice cases for their own sake. The whole point is to compete at real venues and represent the club beyond the campus.
Online qualifiers
The first round is almost always remote: a few days to solve the case and upload the presentation.
In-person defence
Semi-finals and finals take place at the organiser’s venue, in front of a jury from the company rather than a screen.
Away trips
Some championships are held in other cities. The team travels there and competes on behalf of the club.
Debrief
A post-mortem after every performance: what worked, where we lost points and what the jury asked.
Cities
- —
A city appears on this line only after an actual trip.
Results
Hall of Fame
The track is only just getting started, so the figures will appear here after the first competitions. We are not going to make them up for the sake of a nice-looking block.
Inside
One team. One deadline.
A case championship means several days of analysis, dozens of contested hypotheses, endless versions of the deck and a few minutes to prove your idea to the jury. Case Lab brings together people who love exactly this format.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
You can open several at once — the answers do not close each other.
No. Analytical thinking and a willingness to learn and to work in an intensive team matter more. That is exactly what the preparation is for.
Yes, and that is the usual case. Case Lab forms line-ups for specific championships, so there is no need to arrive with a ready-made team.
Club members and those who are joining the club. Beyond that, it depends on the rules of each championship: any restrictions on year of study, university or team composition are set by the organiser.
Application → interview → a place on the team.
We look not only at your current level but also at how you reason out loud and how you work in a pair.
It depends on the championship. Preparation happens well in advance and at a steady pace, while for the competition case itself the organiser allows anything from a few hours to a few days.
The most intense part is the last 24 hours before the solution is due.
You do not need to be an expert in everything. A strong team combines different skills: someone runs the numbers, someone gathers the data, someone prepares the presentation.
Yes. Some championships hold in-person semi-finals and finals, and strong teams travel to competitions in other cities.
That is the very reason the track exists: Case Lab does not end with a video call and a slide deck.
“FinTech Investors”. The track has a life of its own, but its link to the club is always clear.
The next case starts with a team
If you want to analyse real companies, build a solution against the clock and represent Investor Fintech at case championships, apply to Case Lab. The team works in Russian, so the application form is in Russian too.
Apply (form in Russian) →Found a championship worth entering? Suggest a championship
Seat open
Your name
MGIMO · INVESTOR FINTECH
CASE LAB · PASS NO. —
- Season:
- 01
- Status:
- Recruitment open
Practice cases, reviews and mock Q&A before the competition. A line-up for each specific championship. Online rounds, in-person defences and away trips — on behalf of the club.
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