Why do some big successful brands go bust?

Toast is back for a new series, taking a look at the decisions that often left investors burnt.

I'm Sean Farrington, a BBC business journalist. I'll be hearing about the hype.

They're going to do the deal that makes them the most money at that point of time.

And I'm picking what went wrong, talking to owners and employees to ask, what can we learn?

It was being undercut by similar rivals. It just couldn't survive.

Toast. Listen first on BBC Sounds.

Hello and welcome to more or less on the BBC World Service, the program all about the numbers all around us in the news and in life.

I'm Tim Harford.

This week, we're digging into the data behind the recent rise in COVID-19 cases in the United States.

And so I am very concerned.

If you look at the curves of the new cases, clearly we are not in total

control right now. That's Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy

and Infectious Diseases, speaking to the Senate Health Committee on Wednesday. On that day, the US announced 52,000 new coronavirus

cases up from 44,000 the day before, the highest number of cases confirmed in a single day so

far in the US. It certainly sounds concerning, but not everyone is as worried as Dr. Fauci.

Testing is a double-edged sword.

We've tested now 25 million people.

Here's the bad part.

When you do testing to that extent, you're going to find more people, you're going to find more cases.

So I said to my people, slow the testing down, please.

President Trump's claim is that there aren't really loads more people with COVID.

...