NUvention Web Pre-Class Session

Thursday, 11/10/11

Agenda

• Registration for the course• Class Info • Class Structure• Team Assignments • Tools• Pre-Class Assignment • Team Meet-up

Admission and Selection Process

• Tried to create teams with strong skillsets across:– Business– Development – Design– Project Management– Experience– Passion

• Partial Priority given to graduating students– Double-edged sword?

122 People Applied to Nuvention Web

64 students were accepted

Confirmation/Registration

• Confirm or decline your acceptance to Elizabeth McCarthy by noon on 11/11/11. – Your slot will be assigned to a wait list student if you do

not confirm• Prior to 11/14, you will then receive course

permission to register• Register– CAESER EECS 473-1 - 20 NUvention: Web - Part 1– Kellogg ENTR 950-0; Confirmed will be automatically

enrolled

Class Logistics

• First Class is 1/3/12• 12:15 -3:15 Jacobs Center Room TBD

– 12:15-1:45 Lecture/Discussion– 1:45-3:15 Team Meetings in SG rooms

• 3/6/12 Mid Program Pitches– During Weinberg Reading Week– Last week of classes for all other schools

• 2 Week Break• 6/8/12 Final Pitches FRIDAY

– Last day of classes/reading week– NOT FINALs WEEK

Current/Prior Employment

• Students teams jointly “own” work product developed on class as long as conform to NU Patent and Invention Policyhttp://invo.northwestern.edu/policies/patent-invention-policy

• Need to be very cognizant of current or prior employment agreements, NDA’s, non compete’s– Please send scans to Elizabeth McCarthy

• Want to insure each team has Freedom To Operate

Switching Teams

• We tried to meet all friend requests and failed– Too many variables to manage

• Team member switching can occur if:– Mutual agreement between students on 2 teams– Faculty approval to insure no team skillset

deficiency– Sandeep is point person for these requests

Team Focus Area• 8 teams of 8

– iPad/Tablet– Mobile 1,2,3– New Media– eCommerce/Deals 1-2– Big Data

• Tried to match students to top priorities but did always succeed• Areas are intentionally broad

– Should not be viewed as constraining– You will pivot/change idea

• Faculty Team Adviser– TBD

• Advisory Board Coaches– TBD

Your Ideas

• No critical mass of teammates for any idea submitted

• Feel free to pitch your ideas to your assigned team • Pitching your idea means you need to feel

comfortable sharing the equity in your idea• If you are married to your idea– Prepare for a divorce – Ideas evolve and you will pivot – Adapt.ly– Ideas are not businesses

Grading

• Grading– Heavily team based– Individual participation is factored in– Peer & Class evals each quarter• One grade for both quarters• K grade given for winter and then changed in spring

• Revised Syllabus available later this month

NUvention Toolset

• Nuvnetion.northwestern.edu• BaseCamp• ThinkFuse• GitHub• Evaluating:– LeanLaunchLab– CloudHQ– PhoneGap– Heroku

• Your suggestions?

Advisory Board Role

• NUvention: Web advisory board members will assist in the following areas:

•

– Curriculum Oversight – Advising faculty team on the best curriculum for launching Web/software companies

–

– Networking – Assisting faculty and students to network to optimize curriculum and learning to exceed NUvention Program goals

–

– Mentoring Students – Direct advising of a student team that is working in an area of your personal interest

–

– Funding – Assist in obtaining support to defray program costs. The Farley Center provides seed capital.

Faculty• Lecturers– Todd Warren, Mike Marasco, Chris Riesbeck (EECS),

Mohan Swahney (Kellogg), Carter Cast (Kellogg)• Team Advisors– In process– Commitments:

• Marasco, Warren, Riesbeck, Birnbaum, Cast

• Team Mentors– Advisory Board Members

NUvention Web First Quarter

•Define Customer Segments• Initial Concept Critique• Landing Page•Tool and Environment

Selection

Product Hypothesis

•Minimum Viable Product•Value Proposition•Hello World Application• Storyboarding and UI•Depth Customer Research

Concierge MVP and Customer Validation •Agile Development

•Customer Acquisition Strategies

•Complete Business Model Canvas

MVP and Initial Canvas

•Pitch Development•Concept Demo• Initial Development•Real World Feedback

Advisor Pitch and Demo

PreclassConcept

Development

NUvention Web First Quarter

•Critique of updated canvas• Launch Planning• Iteration Planning•Understanding the Pivot• Startup Metrics

Time to Pivot?

•Revisiting the Canvas•Agile Development•Continuous Deployment•Compelling UI

Development & Canvas Iterations •Building Awareness

•Positioning•Customer Recruitment• Successful Launches

Soft Launch

•Detailed Canvas•Practice Pitch• Financing your startup•Real World Feedback

Final Pitch, Product, Canvas

AB Feedback

Teams- Big Data and iPad

Big Data• Gunjan Agarwala• Yu Cheng• Sabil Huda• Christian Kletzl• Joe Mullenbach• Badhri Varanasi• Jiang Wang• Jeremy Watt

iPad/Tablet• Zahra Ali• Jake Carter• Diana Kost• Marzena Medlak• Bhargavraj Patel• Cameron Sieber• Aaron Steinfeld• Candice Tse

Teams-eCommerce

eCommerce/Deals #1• Dennis Ai• Andrew Allen• Richard Choi• Vanessa Hsieh• John Lynch• Sree Meenakshi

Rachamadugu• Eleanor Vernon• Tarun Vijayvargiya

eCommerce/Deals #2• Joydeep Bhattacharyya• Elton Cheung• Tabrez Ebrahim• Chase Jackson• Dhrumil Mehta• John Seo• Abhishek Sood• Ross Yesikov

Teams-Mobile 1 and 2

Mobile #1• Rahim Daya• Joshua Eddy• Ross Epstein• Paul Lieponis• Seth Nelson• Felipe Saavedra• Taiyo Sogawa• David Tagler

Mobile #2• Thomas Boonsiri• Michael Davis• Rachel Hepworth• Abdallah Jabbour• Bharath Pattabiraman• Nic Roth• Pubudu Silva• Mitra Veeramasuneni

Mobile 3 and New Media

Mobile 3• Peter Eck• Tyler Hagen• Moneik-Marie Lewis• Dan Lindquist• Xudong Liu• Alexander Madjar• Lawrence Shieh• Xin Zhao

New Media• Gabriel Brotman• Taylor Culbertson• Christopher Erwin• Jonathan Friedman• Katherine "Scottie"

Gambill• Muhammad Kashif Malik• Ryan McAfee• Gabriel Peal

Pre-Class Assignment

• 5 potential product concepts• 5 or more customer interviews in your target

market• Due by morning before class Tuesday January

3, 2012

Minimum Viable Product

“the minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.”

• Eric Ries, StartupLessonsLearned.com, August 3, 2009 http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/08/minimum-viable-product-guide.html

Product Concept

• Concept Name• Brief Description “It’s a website that lets users build and

share profile pages designed for college students”• Target customers “We are targeting college students in

ivy league colleges first to use the system. We will work with advertisers who want reach this audience”

• Team skills: “Since we are college students we have a unique view of what they want”

• Priority

The Overall Statement

• The X that does Y for Z is a useful formula for focusing.– X: what it is; should be sufficiently narrowing and focused– Y: The main function it solves– Z: The unifying customer/user statement

• Examples:– Microsoft Project is the desktop software that does critical

path tracking/planning/charting for project managers who use PC’s

– Farmville is the social game that makes it possible to plant/grow/share simulated farms for Facebook casual gamers

What is on the back of the box?

Top Features

XYZ

System Requirements

Social Validation

Motivating Scenario

• Describes the user problem and how the problem is addressed with the product.

• “Jerimiah is a music lover in his 20’s. He owns an iPad, and synchronizes some of his favorite music. He wishes he could see more information about the music he is listening to and find related information. Groovebug takes his music collection and makes it an interactive magazine, pulling the latest news and videos of bands he’s heard about; and telling him about related artists he may be interested in. He loves paging through it”

Defining the Project Area

• An overall design challenge within your topic area• Identify what you know

– What people need or want– What technologies can help– What solutions or idea are being tried in other areas– Early hypotheses about how to solve the challenge

• Identify what you need to learn, e.g.:– About what customers do or feel– How customers value current offerings– What future needs may be– What are the challenges to implementing a solution

Source: IDEO Human Centered Design Sourcebook, 2009

Customer Segment Hypothesis Interview

Source: Running Lean

Finding customers

• People you know• People you view as “experts” in understanding

the area• Places they hang out (e.g. to reach outdoor

enthusiasts, talk to people at REI, the Apple store)

Successful NUvention Teams…• Identified critical gaps in development

knowledge/ambition and worked with faculty to address• Engaged face to face with stakeholders/customers early• Started some development in the first 3 weeks of class:

“spikes”• Picked an initial concept that was simply explained and

implemented, and started a customer conversation (MVP)

• Ran each meeting well with clear follow-up• Had every member pitch in and refused to silo into

school/major stereotypes

Team Breakout

• Introductions and background• Set pre-class meeting times/approach• Initial concept discussion and assignment

approach

Team Assignments

Teams- Big Data and iPad

Big Data• Gunjan Agarwala• Yu Cheng• Sabil Huda• Christian Kletzl• Joe Mullenbach• Badhri Varanasi• Jiang Wang• Jeremy Watt

iPad/Tablet• Zahra Ali• Jake Carter• Diana Kost• Marzena Medlak• Bhargavraj Patel• Cameron Sieber• Aaron Steinfeld• Candice Tse

Teams-eCommerce

eCommerce/Deals #1• Dennis Ai• Andrew Allen• Richard Choi• Vanessa Hsieh• John Lynch• Sree Meenakshi

Rachamadugu• Eleanor Vernon• Tarun Vijayvargiya

eCommerce/Deals #2• Joydeep Bhattacharyya• Elton Cheung• Tabrez Ebrahim• Chase Jackson• Dhrumil Mehta• John Seo• Abhishek Sood• Ross Yesikov

Teams-Mobile 1 and 2

Mobile #1• Rahim Daya• Joshua Eddy• Ross Epstein• Paul Lieponis• Seth Nelson• Felipe Saavedra• Taiyo Sogawa• David Tagler

Mobile #2• Thomas Boonsiri• Michael Davis• Rachel Hepworth• Abdallah Jabbour• Bharath Pattabiraman• Nic Roth• Pubudu Silva• Mitra Veeramasuneni

Mobile 3 and New Media

Mobile 3• Peter Eck• Tyler Hagen• Moneik-Marie Lewis• Dan Lindquist• Xudong Liu• Alexander Madjar• Lawrence Shieh• Xin Zhao

New Media• Gabriel Brotman• Taylor Culbertson• Christopher Erwin• Jonathan Friedman• Katherine "Scottie"

Gambill• Muhammad Kashif Malik• Ryan McAfee• Gabriel Peal