Curriculum

Attendees will be able to create an evidenced-based Agri-Business Model using Design Thinking and Lean Startup methodologies that is both scalable and environmentally sustainable. They will present their model to investors via an investor pitch.

• Design Thinking provides the entrepreneur with a method of problem solving which encourages the creation of alternative potential solutions and provides the startup with the means to generate multiple prototypes or assumptions for testing. Our goal is to uncover faulty assumptions before executing an untested idea.
• Lean Startup builds on the discoveries and hypotheses found in the Design Thinking process and provides your team with a systematic approach to stress test your assumptions. Lean startup provides the rigorous framework to prove or disprove as many of your Business Model hypotheses as possible at the lowest cost possible. The core idea of the Lean Startup movement is to validate your business ideas with customer experiments/tests before scaling them. The goal early on is to create the most learning as quickly and efficiently as possible. The "Build-Measure-Learn" feedback loop is at the heart of the Lean Startup process. In the "Build" stage you create prototypes and "Minimum Viable Products" (MVPs).

• Business Model Canvas is a one page summation of how your startup intends to create value for the customer—building a product the customer wants and will pay for, delivering that value through a distribution channel and target market and capturing value back for your startup in the form of a transaction (the exchange of money for product.)
• Value Proposition Canvas is the core of value creation at your startup. The Value Proposition Canvas makes explicit how you are creating value for your customers. It helps you to design the products and services your customers want. This tool is used to ensure that your hypothesized solution aligns with and solves your target customer’s pain points.
• Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a product with enough features to gather meaningful feedback and validated learning about the product and its continued development. We build MVPs so that we can maximize learning. An MVP is an artifact or representation of your value proposition. It is designed to test the validity of one or more critical assumptions or so called hypotheses surrounding your business model.

Test Card

The Test Card forces you to make the following things explicit:

1. What needs to be true for your idea(s) to work (aka hypothesis, assumption, or simply guess)?
2. How are you going to test if that hypothesis is true or false?
3. What are you going to measure to (in) validate your hypothesis?
4. How does success look like? What's the threshold?

Learning Card

The Learning Card helps you to systematically capture your learnings and make the resulting decisions and actions explicit.

1. Which hypotheses you went out to test
2. What you observed, discovered, or learned in the field
3. What you deduct from those observations (i.e. the insights you gained from the experiment)
4. How you'll act upon this learning (e.g. to improve your business model and value proposition ideas)