A complete course for management consulting case interviews
Know exactly what to do with any case they hand you.
If you're interviewing to become a management consultant, the topic of a case won't tell you how to solve it. We teach you what does, and drill it until it's how you think.
FIVE OF THE PROMPTS YOU'LL MEET
“Our client, a Nordic gym chain, has seen EBITDA fall 30% in two years while membership grew 12%. The CEO blames energy costs. Is that the root cause?”
Diagnostic
- 01Isolate the driver in the numbers
Chapter II teaches the full method, and it is free.
“A Swedish oat-milk brand with €80m in revenue is considering entry into the US, where two incumbents hold 70% market share. Should it enter, and how?”
Qualitative decision
- 01Map the areas of investigation
Chapter II teaches the full method, and it is free.
“A ferry operator can acquire its main competitor for €300m, 11× EBITDA. After the deal it would hold over 75% share on three routes. Should it make the acquisition?”
Mixed decision
- 01Build the cost-benefit analysis
Chapter II teaches the full method, and it is free.
“A low-cost airline is considering a €15 fee for every cabin bag. Today about 60% of its passengers bring one on board. Should it introduce the fee?”
Quantitative decision
- 01Build the cost-benefit analysis
Chapter II teaches the full method, and it is free.
“A profitable outdoor-clothing brand is plateauing in its home markets. The board wants revenue doubled in five years. Where should the growth come from?”
Open-ended
- 01Define the objective and constraints
Chapter II teaches the full method, and it is free.
Practise full cases with a coach beside you, until you no longer need one.
You answer to the interviewer, who pushes back the way a real one does. When a follow-up stops you, you switch to the coach. It doesn't give you the answer: it asks the question that gets you there, and points you to the lesson that taught it. Then you switch back and answer the interviewer yourself.
It works like learning to swim with someone in the water next to you: they are there when you need them, and you need them less with every case.
You estimated the coffee chain's new subscription brings in €4m a year. But 70% of the subscribers were already buying coffee from us every day. Does your recommendation still hold?
Switch to the coach
I was going to say it still holds: the €4m is revenue whichever customers it comes from. Am I on track?
Not yet. The €4m is the right total, but a recommendation rests on what the decision adds. Before they subscribed, what were those regulars paying you each month?
Roughly €75, from buying a coffee most days. The subscription is €60.
Then what does the subscription do to the revenue you get from them? That's the idea behind V.4 Incremental Analysis. Work it out, then take your answer to the interviewer.
Switch back to the interviewer
Most of the €4m isn't new. The regulars spent about €75 a month and now pay €60, so on them we lose around €0.7m. Only the new 30%, about €1.2m, is extra. The net gain is closer to €0.5m, so I'd revisit the price before launching.
Shall I take that as your answer?
Drawn from the case room; the case and figures are illustrative. Your first few full cases are free.
The most complex structures start from the simplest mental models.
Nobody memorises a tree like the one below. You hold a few simple models of how a business works and build the structure from them, branch by branch, live in the room. Here a grocery chain asks whether to launch 20-minute delivery, and the courier maths is where the hypothesis goes first.
Three of the models we teach
Stock and flow
A balance that changes only through its inflows and outflows: customers, cash, capacity.
Cost–benefit
Incremental benefits weighed against incremental costs, including what the option displaces.
Conversion funnel
Volume at each stage as a conversion rate of the stage before it.
- 01
Start from the client's question: should the grocer launch 20-minute delivery in Stockholm?
- 02
Split it into what the decision rests on: whether the market is big enough, whether each order makes money, whether the launch pays back, whether the grocer can win, and what it costs if it fails.
- 03
Break each branch down with a model until every box is something you could measure or ask the interviewer for.
- 04
Then go deepest where your hypothesis is. Here that is the courier maths: can one courier deliver 2.5 orders an hour?
Should the grocer launch 20-minute delivery in Stockholm?
- Market
How big is the market?
Households within reach
Orders a year each
Basket value
- Unit economics
Does each order pay?
Gross profit per order
basket × gross margin + fee
Fulfilment cost per order
Picking at the dark store
Last-mile courier
Courier cost per hour
Orders per courier-hour
Can density reach 2.5 an hour?
Dark-store rent per order
- Payback
Does the launch pay back?
Up-front cost
tech, fit-out, launch marketing
Profit a year
Orders × profit per order
Margin lost from store sales
- Fit
Can we win?
Our stores as dark stores
How rivals respond
price war or retreat?
- Risk
What if it fails?
Exit cost of the leases
Can we pilot in three districts?
Taught across Chapters III, V, VI and VII. The case is invented.
Halfway through the interview, they slide one of these across the table.
A case interview is a business problem you talk through with the interviewer, the way a consultant works with a client. Somewhere in the middle you're handed a chart you've never seen, and you get about a minute to say what it means for the client. Liminal teaches you where to look first, which number matters, and how to say the so-what.
So-what: the March cohort churns at twice the rate. What changed in March?
Illustrative exhibits in the style of the course. The figures are invented.
What a lesson looks like
Each screen teaches one idea and shows it working on an example. Every few screens a question checks your understanding, and the feedback explains the answer.
Two screens in the style of Chapter VI
From how a business makes money to a full interview
Sixteen chapters, each built on the one before. The first three are free to read and practise.
Contents
- IBusiness Foundations2 lessons
- IICase Types and Problem Definition6 lessons
- IIIStructuring and Brainstorming7 lessons
- IVQuantitative Analysis6 lessons · full access
- VCost-Benefit Analysis7 lessons
- VIQualitative Decisions9 lessons
and 10 more chapters…
- VIIMixed Decisions7 lessons
- VIIISynthesis and Recommendation5 lessons
- IXDiagnostic Cases I: Root-Cause Analysis7 lessons
- XUncertainty, Pricing and Capacityforthcoming
- XIAdvanced Structuresforthcoming
- XIIMulti-Criteria Analysisforthcoming
- XIIIDiagnostic Cases II: From Cause to Solutionforthcoming
- XIVOpen-Ended Strategy I: Scoping and Option Generationforthcoming
- XVOpen-Ended Strategy II: Evaluation and Planningforthcoming
- XVIInterview Craft and Full Casesforthcoming
- +Full cases with an interviewer and an AI coach, for every chapterfull access
Pricing
Start free and see what the coach does with your answers. When you're ready to train properly, full access gives you everything you need to walk into the interview knowing what to do: the whole book, full cases every week, and a debrief after each one.
A coach that teaches you instead of telling you
When a follow-up stops you, it asks the one question that gets you moving again, and walks you through the reasoning only after you've had a real go.
Feedback you can act on tomorrow
Every part of your case is marked against what that case needed, with your own words quoted back to you. It is specific, it is honest, and it never flatters.
The real interview, every week
You ask for the data, lay out your structure, run the numbers and defend your recommendation, with an interviewer who pushes back the way a real one does.
Proof that you're getting better
A debrief after every case shows how each part went and which skills moved since your last one, so you always know what to work on next.
The whole book
Chapters IV–IX today, and X–XVI as they're published: pricing, open-ended strategy and full interviews.
Free
0 SEK
Everything you need to get started.
- The first three chapters of the book
- Reps and graded drills after every lesson
- A few full cases with the coach