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CapsimInbox · Library

Gateway Courses Series

Short inbox simulations for introductory business courses.

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Built to fit the way introductory business courses are already taught.

In the series

Improve your intro course, without changing your syllabus.

Course-aligned inbox simulations, where students respond to real business situations in a realistic inbox, about 15 minutes each. They fit into your existing intro courses as homework or in-class activities, with centralized reporting across every section.

Intro to Management

Role: Jr. Management Consultant

Advise entrepreneurs by applying core management concepts.

Microeconomics

Role: Jr. Economist

Advise entrepreneurs by applying core microeconomics concepts.

Intro to Marketing

Role: Jr. Marketing Associate

Advise entrepreneurs by applying core marketing concepts.

Intro to Accounting

Role: Jr. Accountant

Help entrepreneurs navigate core accounting principles.

Intro to Finance

Role: Jr. Financial Analyst

Assist entrepreneurs with core finance topics.

How each course works

Eight standalone inbox simulations. Assign any of them, in any order.

Each course is built from eight standalone simulations. There is no fixed sequence, so you can drop a single simulation wherever it fits your syllabus, as homework or an in-class activity.

One course
Sim 1Sim 2Sim 3Sim 4Sim 5Sim 6Sim 7Sim 8
Each simulation
One simulation
1learning objective
3topics
≈15minutes

Standalone and non-linear. Assign one, a few, or all eight.

What students actually do

Advise a real business, one decision at a time.

Students step into an entry-level role, not the CEO's chair, and answer real requests from small-business owners. They weigh the options, choose how to respond, then see which choices were effective, and why.

Immediate feedback on every choice

Illustrative example from Intro to Marketing. Students respond, then get immediate feedback on each choice, effective or ineffective, with the reasoning.

What you get

Every course includes.

  • About 15 minutes each
  • Fits your existing assignments
  • No course redesign
  • Eight standalone simulations
  • Aligned to your syllabus
  • Reporting across every section

More of the library

Other inbox series.

Leadership Development Series Ready-to-use inboxes for core leadership and management skills. Explore → Community-Created Series Inbox simulations authored by the faculty who teach the subject. Explore →

See it in your intro course.

Book a short call and we'll show you how it fits your sections, or build a custom one for a course we don't cover yet.

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A 30-minute look at the platform.

Intro to Management

Role: Jr. Management Consultant. Eight simulations, each with one learning objective and three topics.

  1. Understanding the Role of Management
    • Define management and its key functions: planning, organizing, leading, controlling
    • Identify the levels of management and their roles in an organization
    • Explore how managers create value through efficient use of resources
  2. Planning and Decision Making
    • Understand strategic, tactical, and operational plans
    • Learn the decision-making process and common decision models
    • Apply planning tools like SWOT analysis and SMART goals
  3. Organizational Structure and Change
    • Explore functional, divisional, and matrix structures
    • Understand delegation of authority and centralization vs. decentralization
    • Manage organizational change and overcome resistance
  4. Ethics, CSR, and Sustainability
    • Understand ethical decision-making frameworks in management
    • Examine the role of Corporate Social Responsibility in strategy
    • Explore sustainable business practices and long-term success
  5. Globalization and International Management
    • Understand the challenges of managing in a global environment
    • Explore cultural frameworks like Hofstede and GLOBE
    • Learn market-entry strategies: exporting, joint ventures, alliances
  6. Managing Human Resources and Diversity
    • Understand HR functions: recruiting, training, performance appraisal
    • Explore surface-level vs. deep-level diversity
    • Learn best practices for inclusive work environments
  7. Motivation and Leadership
    • Understand trait, behavioral, and contingency leadership theories
    • Explore motivation theories: Maslow, Herzberg, and Equity Theory
    • Learn how transformational and transactional styles affect teams
  8. Controlling and Performance Management
    • Learn the control process: standards, measurement, corrective action
    • Explore feedforward, concurrent, and feedback control
    • Understand performance tools like KPIs and the Balanced Scorecard

Microeconomics

Role: Jr. Economist. Eight simulations, each with one learning objective and three topics.

  1. Introduction to Microeconomics and Economic Choices
    • Understand scarcity, opportunity cost, and the economic problem
    • Explore the production possibilities curve and efficiency
    • Analyze how individuals and firms choose under constraints
  2. Supply, Demand, and Market Equilibrium
    • Understand the laws of supply and demand and their determinants
    • Analyze how markets reach equilibrium and the role of price
    • Explore how curve shifts change equilibrium price and quantity
  3. Elasticity and Its Applications
    • Define and calculate price elasticity of demand and supply
    • Explore income and cross-price elasticity
    • Understand elasticity in business decisions and public policy
  4. Consumer Choice and Utility Maximization
    • Understand utility and marginal utility
    • Analyze diminishing marginal utility and consumer choice theory
    • Explore how consumers allocate income to maximize satisfaction
  5. Production, Costs, and Business Decision-Making
    • Understand the link between inputs, outputs, and costs
    • Explore fixed, variable, marginal, and total costs
    • Analyze economies of scale and production decisions
  6. Market Structures: Perfect Competition and Monopoly
    • Understand competitive markets and long-run equilibrium
    • Explore monopoly pricing, profit maximization, and barriers to entry
    • Analyze the welfare effects of monopoly power and regulation
  7. Monopolistic Competition and Oligopoly
    • Explore product differentiation in monopolistic competition
    • Understand oligopoly dynamics, price rigidity, and collusion
    • Analyze strategic behavior with game theory and Nash equilibrium
  8. Market Failures and the Role of Government
    • Understand positive and negative externalities
    • Explore public goods and the free-rider problem
    • Analyze how taxes and subsidies correct market failures

Intro to Marketing

Role: Jr. Marketing Associate. Eight simulations, each with one learning objective and three topics.

  1. Understanding Marketing and Its Role
    • Define marketing and its role in creating customer value
    • Explain the marketing process and its key components
    • Understand how marketing adds value to business and society
  2. Analyzing the Market
    • Examine microenvironmental factors: competitors, suppliers, customers
    • Explore macroenvironmental forces: economic, political, technological, social
    • Assess how environmental change affects marketing strategy
  3. Applying Market Research and Consumer Insights
    • Understand marketing information systems in decision-making
    • Explore consumer and business buyer behavior
    • Conduct basic marketing research to gather and analyze data
  4. Developing Customer-Driven Marketing Strategies
    • Implement market segmentation and targeting
    • Create positioning strategies that differentiate brands
    • Design compelling value propositions for target customers
  5. Managing Product and Service Offerings
    • Understand product levels: core, actual, augmented
    • Explore branding strategies that build loyalty
    • Apply new-product development and the product life cycle
  6. Implementing Pricing Strategies
    • Understand key pricing objectives and policies
    • Analyze how costs, competition, and demand affect pricing
    • Apply pricing methods to meet business goals
  7. Designing Marketing Channels and Logistics
    • Explain direct and indirect channel types
    • Understand supply chain management in value delivery
    • Explore retailing and wholesaling strategies
  8. Developing Integrated Marketing Communications
    • Understand the promotion mix: advertising, PR, sales promotion
    • Apply personal selling to build customer relationships
    • Implement an integrated marketing communications strategy

Intro to Accounting

Role: Jr. Accountant. Eight simulations, each with one learning objective and three topics.

  1. Principles, Structures, and the Accounting Equation
    • Explain the fundamental principles of accounting
    • Understand accounting purpose, types, and business structures
    • Understand and apply the accounting equation
  2. Basic Financial Transactions
    • Use the general journal and general ledger
    • Classify accounts into real, personal, and nominal types
    • Master debits and credits with the Golden Rule, DEALOR, and DEADCLIC
  3. The Accounting Cycle
    • Describe the cycle from transaction analysis to post-closing trial balance
    • Prepare journal entries for various transactions
    • Use special journals: cash receipts, disbursements, sales, purchases
  4. Financial Statements Preparation
    • Compile and prepare income statements
    • Compile and prepare balance sheets
    • Compile and prepare statements of cash flows
  5. Accrual Accounting and Adjustments
    • Apply the matching principle and revenue recognition
    • Record bad debts and allowance for doubtful accounts
    • Prepare adjusting entries for depreciation and amortization
  6. Advanced Financial Transactions
    • Prepare adjusting entries for accruals and deferrals
    • Record estimated liabilities
    • Apply accrual accounting concepts to transactions
  7. Inventory Management
    • Apply inventory valuation methods: FIFO, LIFO, weighted average
    • Analyze how valuation methods affect financial statements
    • Record acquisition and disposal of inventory
  8. Long-term Assets and Depreciation
    • Record the acquisition of long-term assets
    • Record depreciation of long-term assets
    • Record impairment of long-term assets

Intro to Finance

Role: Jr. Financial Analyst. Eight simulations, each with one learning objective and three topics.

  1. Introduction to Financial Decision-Making
    • Understand the role of finance in business and personal life
    • Understand investment, financing, and dividend decisions
    • Explore financial markets and the economy
  2. Understanding Financial Statements and Cash Flows
    • Know the balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement
    • Distinguish accounting income from cash flow
    • Understand how statements are used in decision-making
  3. Time Value of Money
    • Understand present value and future value
    • Apply compounding and discounting techniques
    • Use time value of money in loans, investments, and retirement
  4. Interest Rates and Their Impact
    • Understand what drives interest rates: inflation, risk, conditions
    • Distinguish nominal from real interest rates
    • Understand central banks and monetary policy
  5. Bond Valuation and Fixed-Income Securities
    • Know the types of bonds: government, corporate, municipal
    • Calculate bond pricing and yields
    • Understand the link between bond prices and interest rates
  6. Stock Valuation and Equity Markets
    • Distinguish common from preferred stock
    • Apply the dividend discount model and P/E ratio
    • Understand what drives stock prices
  7. Risk and Return in Financial Markets
    • Understand systematic vs. unsystematic risk
    • Understand expected return and the risk-return trade-off
    • Explore diversification and portfolios
  8. Basics of Portfolio Theory and Asset Allocation
    • Understand the benefits of diversification
    • Explore asset allocation strategies
    • Get introduced to Modern Portfolio Theory