I corps e245 syllabus rev 18

I-‐Corps E245 Syllabus Revision 18 page 1 of 1

I-Corps 245: The Lean Launch Pad Course Title: The Lean Launch Pad Instructors: Steve Blank, Jon Feiber John Burke, Co-Instructors: Alexander Osterwalder, Oren Jacob, Tina Seelig TA’s: Thomas Haymore, Stephanie Rose Glass Days and Times: Oct 10-‐12th at Stanford University (Classes 1, 2 and 3) Oct 18 – Nov 15th Five video lectures at your school (Classes 4 – 9) broadcast Tuesdays 9am –noon PST Dec 13 -‐14th at Stanford University – “Lessons Learned” pitches Workshops: Getting out of the building, Customer Discovery, Presentations Takeaway: “Commercialization Potential” scorecard Webpage: http://i245.stanford.edu Texts: Business Model Generation -‐ Alexander Osterwalder Four Steps to the Epiphany -‐ Steve Blank This curriculum requires in depth preparation and significant effort outside of the lab. Read http://steveblank.com/category/lean-‐launchpad/ from the bottom up to get an idea. See http://www.slideshare.net/sblank/tag/stanford for final team presentations.

Prerequisites: 1) Attend as a team consisting of Entrepreneurial Lead, Commercialization Mentor and Principal Investigator. 2) Each team member must commit to class time plus 15 additional hours a week for Customer Discovery. Goals: 1) Give the I-‐Corps team an experiential learning opportunity to help determine the commercial readiness of their technology. 2) Enable the team to develop a clear go/no go decision regarding commercial viability of the effort, 3) Should the decision be to move the technology forward to market, develop a transition plan to do so. Curriculum Description: This curriculum provides real world, hands-‐on learning on what it’s like to successfully transfer knowledge into products and processes that benefit society . It’s not about how to write a research paper, business plan or NSF grant. It’s not an exercise on how smart you are in a lab or a classroom, or how well you use the research library. The end result is not a paper to be published or PowerPoint slide deck. Instead the entire team will be engaged with industry; talking to customers, partners and competitors, as the team encounters the chaos and uncertainty of transferring knowledge into products and processes that benefit society.


Amount of Work

Getting out of the lab/building is what the effort is about. It’s not about the lectures. You will be spending a significant amount of time in between each of the lectures outside your lab talking to customers. If you can’t commit the time to talk to customers, the I-‐Corps effort is not for you.

Class Culture

Startups communicate much differently than inside a university and lab. It is dramatically different from the university culture most of you are familiar with. Given your stature inside your institution, at times it can feel brusque and impersonal, but in reality is focused and oriented to create immediate action in time-‐ and cash-‐constrained environments. We have limited time and we push, challenge, and question you in the hope you will quickly learn. We will be direct, open, and tough – just like the real world. We hope you can recognize that these comments aren’t personal, but part of the process.

We also expect you to question us, challenge our point of view if you disagree, and engage in a real dialog with the teaching team. This approach may seem harsh or abrupt, but it is all part of our wanting you to learn to challenge yourselves quickly and objectively, and to appreciate that as entrepreneurs you need to learn and evolve faster than you ever imagined possible.

Teams

You’ll work in teams learning how to turn your research and technology idea into a product, service or process that benefits society. You’ll learn how to use a business model to brainstorm each part of an enterprise and customer development to get out of the lab/building to see whether anyone other than you would want/use your product. Finally, you’ll see how agile development can help you rapidly iterate your product to build something potential customers will use and buy. Each week will be new adventure as you test each part of your business model and then share the hard earned knowledge with the rest of the class. Working with your team you will encounter issues on how to build and work with a team and we will help you understand how to build and manage the startup team.

See http://steveblank.com/category/lean-‐launchpad/ for a narrative of the class.

Class Organization: I-Corps Workshop: The class starts with entire I-‐Corps team (Entrepreneurial Lead, I-‐Corps Mentor & PI) at Stanford, Oct 10-‐12 for the first lectures.

Post Workshop, Out of the Building Effort

When I-‐Corps teams return to their institutions, they will be required to get out of the lab to test


their business model assumptions. This is a team effort. It is the heart of the class.

Post Workshop, Online Curriculum: The instructors will run five weekly on-‐line lectures, Oct 18 – Nov 15th that will guide the teams search and testing their business model canvas hypotheses.

Weekly Presentations and Progress Tracking Each team will present a 10-‐minute weekly progress report. This is how we monitor your progress and give you guidance.

Weekly Blog Tracking Teams will record their progress basis using a Wiki. This is also how we monitor your progress. I-Corps “Lessons Learned” Presentations The entire I-‐Corps team (Entrepreneurial Lead, I-‐Corps Mentor and Principal Investigator) will return to Stanford, Dec 12 – 13th. There the teams will present to the teaching team and Venture Capitalists the Lessons Learned in their exploration of commercial feasibility.

Team Organization: This class is team-based. Working and studying will be done in teams. The teams will self-‐organize and establish individual roles on their own. There are no formal CEO/VP’s. All three members of the team; Entrepreneurial Lead, Commercialization Mentor and Principal Investigator must participate in all out of the building customer discovery activities.

Deliverables:

1) if you’re a physical product you must show us a costed bill of materials and a prototype or proof demonstration. If you’re a web product you need to build it and have customers using it. 2) Your weekly blog is an integral part of your deliverables. It’s how the team’s progress is measured (along with the “Lessons Learned” presentations.)

Takeaways: A “commercialization potential” scorecard At the end of the course, each team will be provided feedback in the form of a scorecard on the potential for commercializing their research and innovation. This scorecard will provide feedback to the team about: gaps in the business model, team, product that remain, and provide specific suggestions for how to improve and fix them.


Class Roadmap Each week’s class is organized around:

• A lecture on one of the 9 building blocks of a business model (see diagram below, taken from Business Model Generation).

• Team presentations on their “lessons learned” from getting out of the building and iterating or pivoting their business model.

• Each team will capture their progression in Customer Discovery by keeping an on-‐line journals/blogs/wiki.

“Genius is the ability to make the most mistakes in the shortest amount of time.” Aspiring entrepreneurs need to become fast iterators.

Test Hypotheses: • Problem • Customer • User • Payer

Test Hypotheses:

• Demand Creation

Test Hypotheses: • Channel

Test Hypotheses: • Product • Market Type • Competitive

Test Hypotheses: • Pricing Model / Pricing

Test Hypotheses: • Size of Opportunity/Market • Validate Business Model

Test Hypotheses: • Channel • (Customer) • (Problem)

Customer Development Team

Agile Development


Pre-reading For 1st Class: Read pages 1-51 of Business Model Generation. Sunday Oct 9th 7pm – 9pm Mixer K&S Ranch Monday Oct 10th 8 -‐ 9am Breakfast Location: Mackenzie Room, Huang Engineering Center Monday Oct 10th 9 -9:30 am Class Introduction: Teaching Team Location: Mackenzie Room, Huang Engineering Center

• Team Introduction • Class Goals • Teaching Philosophy • Expectations of You

Monday Oct 10th 9:30 – 10:30 am Panel: Scientist and Engineers as Founders and Entrepreneurs Panelists: Kevin Dewalt Founder ClaimAway, Jason Lohn co-‐Founder, CEO of X5

Systems, Dave Merrill Founder, CTO of Sifteo, Kumar Goswami Location: Mackenzie Room, Huang Engineering Center

• Why did we do a startup? • What did we think it was going to be like? • What was it really like? • What do we wish we knew? • What you should get out of this class?

Monday Oct 10th 10:30am -‐1:00pm Class 1: Business Model/Customer Development Steve Blank/Jon Feiber/Alexander Osterwalder/John Burke/Teaching Team Location: Mackenzie Room, Huang Engineering Center Class Lecture: The Business Model What’s a business model? What are the 9 parts of a business model? What are hypotheses? What is the Minimum Feature Set? What experiments are needed to run to test business model hypotheses? What’s “getting out of the building?” What is market size? How to determine whether a business model is worth doing? Read:

• Business Model Generation, pp. 118-‐119, 135-‐145, skim examples pp. 56-‐117 • Four Steps to the Epiphany Chapters 1-‐2


• Steve Blank, “What’s a Startup? First Principles,” http://steveblank.com/2010/01/25/whats-‐a-‐startup-‐first-‐principles/

• Steve Blank, “Make No Little Plans – Defining the Scalable Startup,” http://steveblank.com/2010/01/04/make-‐no-‐little-‐plans-‐–-‐defining-‐the-‐scalable-‐startup/

• Steve Blank, “A Startup is Not a Smaller Version of a Large Company”, http://steveblank.com/2010/01/14/a-‐startup-‐is-‐not-‐a-‐smaller-‐version-‐of-‐a-‐large-‐company/

Team Deliverable for tomorrow Oct 11th • All teams to present their first business model canvas hypotheses for each of the 9 parts of

the business model. • Come up with ways to test each of the hypotheses:

o is the business worth pursuing (market size) • Come up with what constitutes a pass/fail signal for the test (e.g. at what point would you

say that your hypotheses wasn’t even close to correct)? • Find a name for your team. • Start your blog/wiki/journal

Monday Oct 10th 1 -‐ 2pm Lunch Location: Tressider Cafeteria Monday Oct 10th 2 -‐ 3pm – 4pm Workshop: LaunchLab Tutorial Ben Mappen Location: Mackenzie Room, Huang Engineering Center

• How to use the Lean LaunchLab to blog your progress. Monday Oct 10th 4 – 5pm Workshop: Mentor Tutorial Teaching Team Location: Mackenzie Room, Huang Engineering Center

• The role of Mentors in the Lean Launchpad Process Monday Oct 10th 5:30 -‐6:30pm Workshop: Unleashing Creativity Tina Seelig -‐ Professor Location: Mackenzie Room, Huang Engineering Center

• brainstorming the business model. Monday Oct 10th 6:30 pm Dinner Location: Mackenzie Room, Huang Engineering Center


Tuesday Oct 11th

Tuesday Oct 11th 8 -‐ 9am Breakfast Location: Mackenzie Room, Huang Engineering Center Tuesday Oct 11th 9am -‐ 1pm Class 2: Value Proposition Steve Blank/Jon Feiber/Teaching Team Location: Mackenzie Room, Huang Engineering Center Team Presentation for Today: 10 minutes each (all teams)

• What are your 9 Business Model Canvas hypotheses? • How will you test them?

Class Lecture: Value Proposition What is your product or service? How does it differ from an idea? Why will people want it? Who’s the competition and how does your customer view these competitive offerings? Where’s the market? What’s the minimum feature set? What’s the Market Type? What was your inspiration or impetus? What assumptions drove you to this? What unique insight do you have into the market dynamics or into a technological shift that makes this a fresh opportunity? Deliverable for Oct 12th and Oct 18th Value Proposition:

• Market Size estimates (TAM, SAM, addressable.) How big is the opportunity? • What were your value proposition hypotheses? • What did potential customers think about your value proposition hypotheses?

o Get out of the building and begin to talk to customers for Oct 12th o Talk to 10-‐15 customers more by Oct 18th o Follow-‐up with Survey Monkey (or similar service) to get more data

• Submit interview notes, present results in class. • Update your blog/wiki/journal with progress customers and value prop

Read:

• Business Model Generation, pp. 161-‐168 and 226-‐231 • Four Steps to the Epiphany, pp. 30-‐42, 65-‐72 and 219-‐223

Tuesday Oct 11th 1-‐2pm Lunch Location: Tressider Cafeteria


Tuesday Oct 11th 6 -‐ 7pm Dinner Location: Mackenzie Room, Huang Engineering Center Tuesday Oct 11th 7 -‐ 8pm Workshop: How to Get out of the Building while Protecting My IP Location: Mackenzie Room, Huang Engineering Center

• Team coaching on how to “get out of the building” for Customer Discovery. • Expectations, speed, tempo, logistics, commitments. • How do I protect my IP when I speak to partners • Does Lean work for non-‐software efforts • How do I interview” • How is an interview different than a sales call


Wednesday Oct 12th

Wednesday Oct 12th 8am – 9am Breakfast Location: Li Ka Shing Building Wednesday Oct 12th 9am -‐ 1pm Class 3: Customers/Users/Payers Steve Blank/Jon Feiber/Teaching Team Location: Li Ka Shing Building

Team Presentation for Today: 10 minutes each (all teams) • What did you learn about your value proposition from talking to your first customers? • Update Business Model Canvas (show original, then show what you changed in new slide with

changes in Red.) focus on customer segment and value proposition • Here’s What we Thought • So Here’s What we Did • So Here’s What we Found • So Here’s What we Are Going to Do

Class Lecture: Customers/Users/Payers Who’s the customer? User? Payer? How are they different? Why do they buy? How can you reach them? How is a business customer different from a consumer? What’s a multi-‐sided market? What’s segmentation? What’s an archetype? Read:

• Business Model Generation, pp. 127-‐133 • Four Steps to the Epiphany, pp. 43-‐49, 78-‐87 224-‐225, and 242-‐248 • Giff Constable, “12 Tips for Early Customer Development Interviews,”

http://giffconstable.com/2010/07/12-‐tips-‐for-‐early-‐customer-‐development-‐interviews/

Deliverable for Oct 18th • Get out of the building and talk to 10-‐15 customers face-‐to-‐face


• What were your hypotheses about who your users and customers were? Did you learn anything different?

• Did anything change about Value Proposition? • What do customers say their problems are? How do they solve this problem(s) today?

Does your value proposition solve it? How? • What was it about your product that made customers interested? excited? • If your customer is part of a company, who is the decision maker, how large is their

budget, what are they spending it on today, and how are they individually evaluated within that organization, and how will this buying decision be made?

• Update your blog/wiki/journal

Wednesday Oct 12th 1 – 1:30 pm Panel: Scientist and Engineers as Founders and Entrepreneurs Panelists: Ari Tuchman CEO at Quantifind and Mohit Lad Story of Ari Tuchman, a physicist turned entrepreneur/CEO at Quantifind.

Wednesday Oct 12th 2 -‐ 3pm Workshop: Video Setup Preflight and checkout of your computer for use in remote lectures. Configuration of hardware and software. How to present your slides and set up video, etc.


October 18th

Tuesday Oct 18th 9am -‐ 1pm PST Class 4: Distribution Channels Steve Blank/Jon Feiber/Teaching Team Location: Video lecture at your University

Team Presentation for Today: 10 minutes each (all teams)

• Update Business Model Canvas (show original, then show what you changed in new slide with changes in Red.)

• Here’s What we Thought • So Here’s What we Did • So Here’s What we Found • So Here’s What we Are Going to Do

Class Lecture: Distribution Channels What’s a channel? Physical versus virtual channels. Direct channels, indirect channels, OEM. Multi-‐sided markets. B-‐to-‐B versus B-‐to-‐C channels and sales (business to business versus business to consumer) Read: Four Steps to the Epiphany, pp. 50-‐51, 91-‐94, 226-‐227, 256, 267 Deliverable for Oct 25th

• Get out of the building and talk to 10-‐15 potential channel partners face-‐to-‐face (Salesmen, OEM’s distributors, etc.)

• What were your hypotheses about who/what your channel would be? Did you learn anything different?

• Did anything change about Value Proposition? • Update your blog/wiki/journal


October 25th

Tuesday Oct 25th 9am -‐ 1pm PST Class 5: Customer Relationships Steve Blank/Jon Feiber/Teaching Team Location: Video lecture at your University Team Presentation for Today:



Class Lecture: Customer Relationships/ Demand Creation How do you create end user demand? How does it differ on the web versus other channels? Evangelism vs. existing need or category? General Marketing, Sales Funnel, etc. How does demand creation differ in a multi-‐sided market? Read: • Four Steps to the Epiphany, pp. 52-‐53, 120-‐125 and 228-‐229 • Dave McClure, “Startup Metrics for Pirates”,

http://www.slideshare.net/dmc500hats/startup-‐metrics-‐for-‐pirates-‐seedcamp-‐2008-‐presentation

• Watch: Mark Pincus, “Quick and Frequent Product Testing and Assessment”, http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2313

Team Deliverable for Nov 1st

• For everyone: o Present and explain your marketing campaign. What worked best and why?

• For web teams:

o Get a working web site and analytics up and running. Track where your visitors are coming from (marketing campaign, search engine, etc) and how their behavior differs. What were your hypotheses about your web site results?

• Actually engage in “search engine marketing” (SEM) spend $20 as a team to test customer acquisition cost

o Ask your users to take action, such as signing up for a newsletter o use Google Analytics to measure the success of your campaign o change messaging on site during the block to get costs lower, team that gets lowest

delta costs wins.


• If you’re assuming virality of your product, you will need to show viral propagation of your product and the improvement of your viral coefficient over several experiments.

o Submit web data or customer interview notes, present results in class. o Did anything change about Value Proposition or Customers/Users? o What is your assumed customer lifetime value? Are there any proxy companies

that would suggest that this is a reasonable number?

• For non-web teams:

o Get prototype demo working o build demand creation budget and forecast. o What is your customer acquisition cost? o Did anything change about Value Proposition or Customers/Users? o What is your customer lifetime value? Channel incentives – does your product or

proposition extend or replace existing revenue for the channel? o What is the “cost” of your channel, and it’s efficiency vs. your selling price.

• Everyone: Update your blog/wiki/journal.

o What kind of initial feedback did you receive from your users? o What are the entry barriers?

• Submit interview notes, present results in class.


November 1st

Tuesday November 1st 9am -‐ 1pm PST Class 6: Revenue Models Steve Blank/Jon Feiber/Teaching Team Location: Video lecture at your University Team Presentation for Today:



Class Lecture: Revenue Model What’s a revenue model? What types of revenue streams are there? How does it differ on the web versus other channels? How does this differ in a multi-‐sided market? Deliverable for Nov 8th What’s your revenue model?

• How will you package your product into various offerings if you have more than one? • How will you price the offerings? • Draw the diagram of payment flows • What are the key financials metrics for your business model? • Test pricing in front of 100 customers on the web, 10-‐15 customers non-‐web. • What are the risks involved? • What are your competitors doing? • Assemble a rough income statement for the your business model. • Do the “Lifetime value” calculation for customers. • Submit interview notes, present results in class. • Did anything change about Value Proposition or Customers/Users, Channel, Demand

Creation, Revenue Model? • Update your blog/wiki/journal


November 8th

Tuesday November 8th 9am -‐ 1pm PST Class 7: Partners Steve Blank/Jon Feiber/Teaching Team Location: Video lecture at your University Team Presentation for Today:



Class Lecture: Partners Who are partners? Strategic alliances, competition, joint ventures, buyer supplier, licensees. Deliverable for Nov 15th Action: What partners will you need?

• Why do you need them and what are risks? • Why will they partner with you? • What’s the cost of the partnership? • Talk to actual partners. • What are the benefits for an exclusive partnership? • Assemble an income statement for the your business model. • Submit interview notes, present results in class. • Did anything change about Value Proposition or Customers/Users, Channel, Demand

Creation? • What are the incentives and impediments for the partners? • Update your blog/wiki/journal


November 15th

Tuesday November 8th 9am -‐ 1pm PST Class 8: Key Resources & Costs Steve Blank/Jon Feiber/Teaching Team Location: Video lecture at your University Team Presentation for Today:



Class Lecture: Resources and Cost Structure What resources do you need to build this business? How many people? What kind? Any hardware or software you need to buy? Any IP you need to license? How much money do you need to raise? When? Why? Importance of cash flows? When do you get paid vs. when do you pay others? Final Deliverable for December 14th What’s your expense model?

• Assemble a resources assumptions spreadsheet. Include people, hardware, software, prototypes, financing, etc.

• Access to resources. What is the best place for your business? • Where is your cash flow break-‐even point? • What are the key financials metrics for costs in your business model? • Costs vs. ramp vs. product iteration? • When will you need these resources? • Roll up all the costs from partners, resources and activities in a spreadsheet by time. • Submit interview notes, present results in class. • Did anything change about Value Proposition or Customers/Users, Channel, Demand

Creation/Partners? • Update your blog/wiki/journal • Prepare for December 13th and 14th at Stanford

o 10 –minute Team Lessons Learned Presentation o 1-2 minute video

See http://www.slideshare.net/sblank/tag/stanford for sample final team presentations.


10 Dec 13th at Stanford Rehearsal Day

Mackenzie Room, Huang Engineering Center 9:00-‐10:00am Presentation and Video Workshop Oren Jacob We'll talk through some example slides and presentations from previous groups, we'll discuss the basic format we're asking you to follow and the reason(s) why, and then we'll get to work 10:00 – noon Presentation and Video Q&A Oren Jacob The next few hours are lab time where we’ll working with you all on an ad hoc basis, walking around, talking about where you are, what you're working on, answering questions, and encouraging you all as we all whip our presentations into shape. Noon-‐ 1:00pm SBIR 101 / Lunch Errol Arkilic The basics of the SBIR program and how the funding process works. 1:00 -‐4:00pm One-‐on-‐One Practice Pitches Oren Jacob Each of your teams will each get a chance to present. I'm the audience. No grades, just notes. Notes about what you are missing, what you should take out, and what you should do more of to get ready for Wednesday. 4:00 -‐5:00pm What’s Next? Jon Feiber / John Burke How does venture capital funding work? How to raise money from a VC?


11 Dec 14th 9:00 – 2:00pm at Stanford Mackenzie Room, Huang Engineering Center

1-2 minute Videos & Lessons Learned Presentations Deliverable: Each team will present a 10 minute “Lessons Learned” presentation about their business in front of the teaching team and potential investors. I-Corps “Lessons Learned” Presentation Format Slide 1 – Team Name, with what business you ended up in and number of customers you talked to. Slide 2 – Team members – name, background, expertise and your role for the team Slide 3 – key NSF funded technology and/or innovation Slide 4: the size of the opportunity Slide 4 -‐ Business Model Canvas Version 1 (use the Osterwalder Canvas). Slide 5 -‐ So here’s what we did (explain how you got out of the building) Slide 6 – So here’s what we found (what was reality) so then, … Slide 7 -‐ Business Model Canvas Version 2 (use the Osterwalder Canvas).

We iterated or pivoted… explain why and what you found. Slide 8 -‐ So here’s what we did (explain how you got out of the building) Slide 9 – So here’s what we found (what was reality) so then, Slide 10 -‐ Business Model Canvas Version 3 (use the Osterwalder Canvas).

We iterated or pivoted… explain why and what you found. Etc…. Every presentation requires at least three Business Model Canvas slides. Side n – “So here’s where we ended up.” Talk about:

1. what did you learn 2. whether you think this a viable business, 3. whether you want to purse it after the class, etc.

Final Slides – Click through each one of your business model canvas slides.


Teaching Team Tom Byers -‐ Academic Director, Stanford Technology Ventures Program [email protected] @tommybyers 650-‐387-‐8517 Steve Blank – Lecturer, Stanford Technology Ventures Program [email protected] @sgblank 415-‐999-‐9924 Jon Feiber – General Partner Mohr Davidow [email protected] 650-‐302-‐0011 Tina Seelig – Executive Director, Stanford Technology Ventures Program [email protected] @tseelig 650-‐464-‐7736 John Burke -‐ General Partner True Ventures [email protected] @andemca 650-‐319-‐2150


Teaching Assistants Thomas Haymore – Phd Candidate, Stanford MS&E, J.D. Stanford Law School 2013 [email protected] @tchaymore 512-‐970-‐0567 Stephanie Rose Glass [email protected] Eve Byer-Young- Associate Director, Stanford Center for Professional Development [email protected]


Steve Blank After 21 years in 8 high technology companies, Steve retired in 1999. He co-founded my last company, E.piphany, in his living room in 1996. His other startups include two semiconductor companies, Zilog and MIPS Computers, a workstation company Convergent Technologies, a consulting stint for a graphics hardware/software spinout Pixar, a supercomputer firm, Ardent, a computer peripheral supplier, SuperMac, a military intelligence systems supplier, ESL and a video game company, Rocket Science Games. After he retired, Steve wrote a book about building early stage companies called Four Steps to the Epiphany. He moved from being an entrepreneur to teaching entrepreneurship to both undergraduate and graduate students at U.C. Berkeley, Stanford University and the Columbia University/Berkeley Joint Executive MBA program. In 2009, Steve was awarded the Stanford University Undergraduate Teaching Award in the department of Management Science and Engineering. In 2010, he was awarded the Earl F. Cheit Outstanding Teaching Award at U.C. Berkeley Haas School of Business. Steve followed his curiosity about why entrepreneurship blossomed in Silicon Valley and was stillborn elsewhere. It has led to several talks on The Secret History of Silicon Valley. In 2007 the Governor of California appointed Steve to serve on the California Coastal Commission, the public body which regulates land use and public access on the California coast. He’s on the board of Audubon California (and its past chair). In 2009 he joined the board of the California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV). Steve was the commencement speaker at Philadelphia University in 2011. Text of the speech is here.


Jon Feiber It was a chance meeting that brought Jon Feiber into the venture industry. Jon, then a vice president at Sun Microsystems, was considering leaving Sun for a startup. After a preliminary discussion about the startup at Mohr Davidow, he got an offer to join the firm.

Today, he is among Mohr Davidow’s most senior partners and is responsible for many of the firm’s successful investments. Most of Jon’s investments harness emerging technology. “I like the intersection of emerging technology and big markets – geeky projects,” he admits.

He began his career as a software programmer for mainframe maker Amdahl Corp. “I tend towards entrepreneurs who have real insight into hard problems and a sense of their need by customers.”

Mohr Davidow, he believes, will remain one of the technology industry’s most successful investors because of its faith and commitment to entrepreneurs. “This firm has always been known for being direct and open in its relationships with entrepreneurs,” he explains. “Our enthusiasm for the entrepreneur is matched by depth of knowledge and experience in the areas that we choose to invest in.”

“Being a venture capitalist is one of the greatest jobs you can have,” he continues. “I get to hang out with the smartest people in the world and help them turn their ideas into world class companies.”

Jon holds a bachelor's degree in computer science and mathematics and astro-physics from the University of Colorado


John Burke John is a founder of True Ventures, with a passion in early stage investing and growing companies. For eight years, he lived through the balancing act of building his own company at BMI Software, which he founded in 1989 and sold in 1997.

He began his venture career at ABS Ventures in 1999, working with Phil Black, and then, after the acquisition of Alex Brown and Sons by Deutsche Bank, continued on with DB Capital Partners. Before founding True, John was a Managing Member with Blacksmith Capital. He recently crossed an important threshold in his professional life: he has now been a venture capitalist longer than he was a CEO. However, like most life changing events, he can still remember the late nights dealing with HR issues, the relief of meeting payroll, and the satisfaction of delighting a customer.

Having lived through the tough decisions required in entrepreneurship, John is now able to guide his portfolio companies through the difficult times with a deftness that only those years of operating experience bring. John holds a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from U.C. Berkeley, a BA degree in Economics from U.C. Santa Cruz, and a MBA degree from Harvard Business School. When he is not thinking about how to create a more valuable company, you can probably find him bird hunting with his German Shorthair Pointer, teaching his kids to ski, or building furniture in his shop.


Alexander Osterwalder Alexander Osterwalder is an entrepreneur, speaker and business model innovator. He co-authored Business Mod el Generation, a global bestseller (over 120,000 copies) on the topic of business model innovation. In the words of Fast Company Magazine in naming Alex's book one of the Best Books for Business Owners in 2010, "In Business Model Generation, Osterwalder encourages owners to plot out their business model using something he developed called the "business model canvas." It forces entrepreneurs to communicate their business model visually, which Osterwalder says sharpens their thinking and allows them to get what's in their head onto a canvas for others to see and contribute to. Once your vision has been exported from your head onto a canvas your employees helped to create, you'll have a business that can grow without you calling all the shots — which is the essence of a sellable company. This is by far the most innovative book on how to think about putting together a business." He holds a PhD from HEC Lausanne, Switzerland, and is a founding member of The Constellation, a global not-for-profit organization aiming to make HIV/AIDS and Malaria history.


Tina Seelig

Tina Seelig is the Executive Director for the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), the entrepreneurship center at Stanford University's School of Engineering. STVP is dedicated to accelerating high-technology entrepreneurship education and creating scholarly research on technology-based firms. STVP provides students from all majors with the entrepr eneurial skills needed to use innovations to solve major world problems. Tina teaches courses on creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship in the department of Management Science and Engineering, and within the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. Tina was recently awarded the 2009 Gordon Prize from the National Academy of Engineering, recognizing her as a national leader in engineering education. She also received the 2008 National Olympus Innovation Award, and the 2005 Stanford Tau Beta Pi Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. In 2004, STVP was named the NASDAQ Entrepreneurship Center of the Year. Tina earned her Ph.D. from Stanford University Medical School in 1985 where she studied Neuroscience. She has worked as a management consultant for Booz, Allen, and Hamilton, as a multimedia producer at Compaq Computer Corporation, and was the founder of a multimedia company called BookBrowser. Tina has also written 15 popular science books and educational games. Her books include The Epicurean Laboratory and Incredible Edible Science, published by Scientific American; and a series of twelve games called Games for Your Brain, published by Chronicle Books. Her newest book, published by HarperCollins in Spring 2009, is titled What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20: A Crash Course on Making Your Place in the World.


Welcome to I-Corps 245 This course provides real world, hands-‐on learning on what it’s like to actually start a high-‐tech company. This class is not about how to write a research paper, business plan or NSF grant. It’s not an exercise on how smart you are in a lab or a classroom, or how well you use the research library. The end result is not a paper to be published or PowerPoint slide deck. Instead the entire team will be getting their hands dirty talking to customers, partners, competitors, as you encounter the chaos and uncertainty of how to commercialize your technology.

Getting out of the building is what the class is about. It’s not about the lectures. If you can’t commit the time to talk to customers, don’t take the class

You’ll work in teams learning how to turn your research and technology idea into a great company. You’ll learn how to use a business model to brainstorm each part of a company and customer development to get out of the classroom to see whether anyone other than you would want/use your product. Finally, you’ll see how agile development can help you rapidly iterate your product to build something customers will use and buy. Each week will be new adventure as you test each part of your business model and then share the hard earned knowledge with the rest of the class. Working with your team you will encounter issues on how to build and work with a team and we will help you understand how to build and manage the startup team.

Students ▪ I-Corps 245 is only open to NSF I-Corps students. ▪ We encourage the teams to recruit any and all resources to their teams. Non students can

serve as extra members of the teams. ▪ Each team must have 3 I-Corps students. ▪ This is very intense class with a very high workload. We expect you to invest at least 5-10

hours per week.

Attendance and Participation ▪ You cannot miss the first three classes at Stanford or the final presentations at Stanford ▪ If you anticipate missing more than one remote lecture, we recommend that you wait to

apply to the I-Corps when you can commit the time. ▪ Getting out of the building is what the class is about. It’s not about the lectures. If you

can’t commit the time to talk to customers, don’t take the class.

I corps e245 syllabus rev 18

Education

Transcript of I corps e245 syllabus rev 18