Business Balderdash: Real or Fake?
Did Nokia really start as a paper mill? Did Sainsbury's invent the shopping trolley? Teams bet points on REAL or FAKE, and the betting is where it gets loud. Every true story doubles as a lesson in how businesses change, grow and occasionally turn down Netflix for $50m.
How to run it
Each team starts with 20 points. For every statement, teams secretly write REAL or FAKE plus a bet of 1 to 5 points on a mini whiteboard. Correct call = win the bet; wrong call = lose it. A team on zero can still play for 1 point a round (the comeback rule).
Read one statement dramatically. Count down 3-2-1, boards up, then reveal the answer with the extra detail from the answer key. Mix the reals and fakes in any order you like.
Announce the last statement as the all-in round: teams may bet any amount up to their full total. Choose one of the juiciest statements (the Blockbuster one is ideal) and enjoy the chaos.
Ask: what do the true stories have in common? Draw out the theme: businesses pivot. Paper mills become phone makers, card printers become games giants, fish sellers become electronics empires. Link to dynamic markets and why firms must adapt or die.
🖨 12 REAL statements (all verified true)
- 1. Nokia began in 1865 as a paper mill in Finland, and later made rubber boots and tyres before phones. REAL.
- 2. Nintendo was founded in 1889 and made playing cards for decades before video games. REAL.
- 3. Samsung started in 1938 as a trading company selling goods including dried fish and noodles. REAL.
- 4. Colgate originally sold soap, candles and starch in the early 1800s, long before toothpaste. REAL.
- 5. WD-40 is named after the 40th attempt at the formula: Water Displacement, 40th try. REAL.
- 6. Amazon was nearly called Cadabra, but it sounded too much like cadaver on the phone. REAL.
- 7. Google's search engine was originally called BackRub. REAL.
- 8. Innocent Drinks' founders let festival customers vote on whether they should quit their jobs, using a YES bin and a NO bin for empty bottles. REAL.
- 9. BrewDog once drove a tank through London to promote its crowdfunding scheme. REAL (2015, promoting Equity for Punks).
- 10. IKEA is an acronym of the founder's initials plus the farm and village where he grew up (Ingvar Kamprad, Elmtaryd, Agunnaryd). REAL.
- 11. The name Tesco combines the initials of a tea supplier, T. E. Stockwell, with the founder Jack Cohen's surname. REAL.
- 12. In 2000, Blockbuster turned down the chance to buy Netflix for about $50 million. Blockbuster later went bust; Netflix became a giant. REAL.
🖨 8 FAKE statements (all invented — do not present as fact after the reveal)
- F1. Greggs began as a fish and chip shop in Cardiff before switching to baking. FAKE: it began as a Newcastle bakery round delivered by bicycle.
- F2. Only two Coca-Cola executives know the secret recipe, and they are banned from ever flying on the same plane. FAKE: a famous myth; the recipe sits in a vault in Atlanta, but the two-executives-no-flying rule is invented.
- F3. LEGO briefly manufactured lawnmowers in the 1950s. FAKE: the founder was a carpenter who made wooden goods and toys, never lawnmowers.
- F4. Marks & Spencer started as a fishmonger's stall in Brighton. FAKE: it began as a penny bazaar in Leeds in 1884.
- F5. Sainsbury's invented the shopping trolley in 1937. FAKE: the shopping trolley was invented in the USA by Sylvan Goldman.
- F6. Dyson's first ever product was an electric toothbrush. FAKE: James Dyson's early hit was the Ballbarrow, a wheelbarrow with a ball instead of a wheel, before the vacuum cleaner.
- F7. ASOS stands for A Selection Of Styles. FAKE: it stands for As Seen On Screen.
- F8. Primark opened its first British store in Edinburgh. FAKE: after starting in Dublin as Penneys, its first Great Britain store opened in Derby in 1973.
Variations
- Bluff master: each team writes ONE fake business fact of their own; the teacher reads them mixed with real ones and teams bet on classmates' inventions.
- Explain-to-win: a correct call only pays out if the team can also give one sentence of reasoning before the reveal.
- Pivot hunt follow-up: students research one more real company that completely changed what it sells, for a 60-second show-and-tell next lesson.
Teacher tips
- Read fakes with exactly the same confidence as reals. Any change in your voice is a tell, and students hunt for tells.
- After each true reveal, add the one-line business point: Nokia = market pivot, Blockbuster = failure to adapt, WD-40 = persistence in product development.
- Track bets on the board; visible scores make teams bet braver, and brave bets make better arguments.
The Business School is a live simulation where your class runs rival firms for a full lesson — pricing wars, hiring, crises, negotiations. Free teacher demo, no installs, students join with a PIN.