By 2016, it was lights out for bauMax, Austria’s first – and for the longest time one of the most successful – Do-it-yourself (DYI) retail chains. Founded in 1976 by Karlheinz Essl, the son of an Austrian food wholesale merchant, bauMax opened its first self-service supermarket for construction materials, machines, and tools in Austria in 1978. From there on, store after store opened and by the early 1990s, bauMax had become the market leader in Austria. International expansion started as early as 1992, with its first stores in Czechoslovakia, which by the end of the year had broken up into two independent countries. Over the next two decades, bauMax expanded into other markets in Central and Eastern Europe, including Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia as well as Turkey. Increasingly, however, business deteriorated. Management structures, processes, and a culture that prioritized decision-making by its founder who, at times, seemed to have more interest in his vast art collection than in running a global business, did not keep up with the requirements of rapid expansion. First, increased competition from DIY local chains and international entrants from France, Germany, and Turkey ate into bauMax’s margins. And when the Great Recession hit in 2009, the situation had become dire. Losses mounted and by 2014, the Essl family had to cede control of bauMax to its creditors. Stores in Austria and abroad were either entirely shut down or sold to international competitors, and one of Austria’s few international retailers was no more.