387 Spring 2020
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Syllabus
New Year's Eve Soapbox Moment
All of you have probably been taking standardized tests to demonstrate academic achievement since third grade. The intensity of testing and the stakes for doing well on standardized tests got higher each year until you got accepted to college (am I right?). Now that you're in college you are all experts on the general, standardized knowledge you needed to get here (by definition).
It turns out, however, that the knowledge you need to be successful in entrepreneurship is anything but "standardized." Through the course of teaching entrepreneurship for nearly 20 years now I've seen the futility in trying to standardize anything that I teach to entrepreneurship students because each of you has different learning styles, is at different stages in building your learning capacities, and has different goals for learning entrepreneurship. Obviously everyone needs a baseline of standardized knowledge to establish an effective foundations of understanding, analogous to how people learn new languages. What you do with that foundation, though, is what makes you unique, even amazing.
That's why I now take a strong interest in your learning styles and preferences. These presumably have a great effect on how you learn and how effectively you learn. I say presumably because we don't have a ton of empirical evidence to support these claims. What I do know is that each of you has different learning styles and capabilities, and that these styles and capabilities can form the basis of a customized and unique experiential learning approach that can really help you accelerate both learning about something and "learning how to learn."
I used to laugh at the expression experiential learning because I was a chemistry major and consulting scientist who could learn what I needed from textbooks and the laboratory. I didn't realize that the process I undertook as a consultant was actually learning how to learn. That's the capability I want for all of you to develop to the fullest extent possible, and that goal informs the processes I use to design pedagogies and learning experiences for you in the classroom. I think it's more effective in terms of absorbing content, more engaging as a learning process, and more memorable.
Presented for your consideration: "Identifying people a person may know," Google Patents, inventors James Duncan Work, Allen Blue, Reid Hoffman.
"Topics" Update
Make something. On top of learning how to pitch, you're going to make something in this course that represents your value proposition. That could be a landing page, press release, website, paper prototype, etc. The point is that if you have a model of your idea, then you can have a much richer conversation about your idea than you would without it. "Have a prototype? Now we can have a conversation!"
The Power of Iteration. Make something and pitch it; learn from your pitch; revise your "something made." Now revise your pitch. You're ready to talk to potential investors.
Pitching in multiple contexts: This means that you will learn how to pitch based on your situation. I'm being purposely cryptic here. You're welcome.
Opportunity creation, ideation, creativity, lateral thinking. We'll keep up with the de Bono random word cards to continue our lessons in lateral thinking; you'll learn how lateral thinking is different from creativity and how it can actually be more useful.
Opportunity evaluation. What's a good, great, bad, or ugly opportunity? Why can it be so hard to know the difference? We'll focus on aspects of the opportunity and its "fit" with you.
January 9
HELLO (google slides) Lego Adventure and de Bono random words / caption activities
January 14-16
Jan 14
Review syllabus (not the boring way, though); in-class activity; quick overview of MGT 386 lessons
Entrepreneurs and Opportunities (google slides)
- Definition of Entrepreneur
- Schumpeterian waves
- Definition of entrepreneurial opportunity
- Why entrepreneurial opportunities exist
- Dimensions of entrepreneurial opportunities
Complete Kolb's Learning Style Questionnaire
Over the years, you have probably developed learning habits that help you benefit more from some experiences than from others. You may be unaware of this, and this questionnaire will help you pinpoint your learning preferences. Participate in and complete this survey by the end of Friday, January 17. This counts as 2 points toward your final grade. Stay dry on Jan 14!
Jan 16
Continue overview of MGT 386 lessons; make sure you complete Kolb's learning style questionnaire (see description and link above)
Entrepreneurial Opportunities (google slides)
I got a bit distracted and animated about:
Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry's SixthSense interaction is in my mind one of the best first examples of what we could and can do with augmented reality. This video is from TED2009 and has been viewed at least 11M times in the past ten years.
We're saving for Tuesday, January 21:
- isolating dimensions of entrepreneurial opportunities
- Proof Eyewear and "worksheeting" opportunity dimensions (work in teams in class with worksheet)
January 21-23
Opportunity Evaluation: Two ways to look at Proof Eyewear
Jan 21
There *is* now a syllabus. Thank you for patience. Now give me a moment while I change everything.
Jan 23
More on Proof Eyewear (What's next?); see also How to Think Like a Shark Tank Shark.
[If you missed class on Jan 23 you can still submit the Proof Eyewear "What's Next?" assignment by opening the google doc (link above) and answering the questions. In terms of mechanics, open the file, then "make a copy" or "download as" a MS Word document; edit the edit your version of the document by answering below each question. When you are done, share or send your completed document to 387opportunities@gmail.com.]
Complete Quiz 1 by midnight, January 24
January 28-30
How entrepreneurs identify promising opportunities; Creativity, Lateral Thinking, De Bonolooza!
Jan 28: How entrepreneurs identify promising opportunities (google slides (start on slide 32), see Entrepreneurs and Opportunities above); Connect The Dots gameplay; HERE is the worksheet for playing the Connect the Dots game
Jan 30: a bit more on promising opportunities; TECHNIQUE: de Bono lateral thinking; random words activity; a few words about HUMOR.
Opportunity Evaluation
February 4-6
Feb 4: A few words about pitching (big pain, brilliant solution, differentiation, why you?, CTA); ways to evaluate opportunities (google slides), hopefully lots of them; Debbie Gordon, How to Think Like A Shark Tank Shark
Feb 6: More thinking about opportunity evaluation - Autoshop in-class graded activity (note the assignment for MGT 387), Autoshop analogs; the Autoshop opportunity evaluation is worth 5 points toward your overall grade for this course. If you cannot be in class on Feb 6, please complete this assignment by midnight, February 7 (same deadline as Quiz 2).
Complete Quiz 2 by midnight, Friday, February 7
Opportunity Evaluation
Slides: How entrepreneurs evaluate opportunities
Reading: How entrepreneurs evaluate opportunities
Also read:
- A simple checklist for evaluating business ideas
- More tips on evaluating opportunities
- Thinking like a shark tank shark
- Screening Opportunities
- Former student launches Kickstarter campaign for Tuscaloosa espresso bar
- Washington Post: Gamblers, judges and baseball umpires constantly make this dumb mistake (Gamblers, judges and baseball umpires constantly make this dumb mistake)
DO: Turn in opportunity register 1 by 11:59:59 pm, February 18 (link takes you to instructions)- Hint: Write an opportunity register for a business that is based on a single vending machine (related: The "truth" about vending machine opportunities)
Consider some of these pitches...
and also the feedback from the two "judges." The more you practice your pitch with "judges" the better your pitch will be. Feedback is not a precise instrument; you'll need a lot of it to calibrate how you choose your responses. Plus the way you take feedback from judges shows a lot about your humility and willingness to be coached.
#StartupTuneup @ Founder.University: 6 founders pitch to Jason & Dave Samuel of Freestyle Capital on merging communication networks, athlete performance tracking, DTC women's clothing, smart tabletop gaming systems & more!
- 1:31 Bryan pitches Project OWL (smart communications platform)
- 3:46 Erin pitches Nude Barre (DTC eco-friendly hosiery)
- 6:02 Mike pitches STACT (Athlete performance tracking)
- 8:05 Feedback & questions for Cohort 1
- 16:53 Rankings for Cohort 1
- 19:53 Jonathan pitches Move38 (smart tabletop gaming)
- 22:04 Brandon pitches ReplyBuy (text messaging support for sports, entertainment & higher education)
- 24:20 Stella pitches Stella Carakasi DTC (Size-inclusive & affordable luxury clothing for women)
- 28:22 Feedback & questions for Cohort 2
- 37:55 Rankings for Cohort 2
February 11 and 13
Feb 11
Human-Centered Design
Feb 13
Design Thinking - Lessons from IDEO and Stanford’s D School (up to green empathy slide)
In-class activity: Design Project Zero - Redesign the Game Day Experience
Reminder: First Opportunity Register Due February 18.
Wall Street Journal Feb 13, 2020 The Machine That Lets You Skip the Salad Bar: New vending machine innovations are turning out fresh, healthy food, sometimes even to order
February 18 & 20
Reminder: First Opportunity Register Due February 18
< Pssssstt. Spring break is less than a month away />Feb 18
Pitch of the Day: Move38 (some of) our observations: "200% of their Kickstarter goal" isn't a helpful metric; it *is* helpful to know they had revenues of $137,000 from their Kickstarter campaign last year; at a COGS of $40 per unit and sale price of around $140, they sold around 1,000 units that cost them $40,000, and their profits were $137,000 - $40,000 - commission to Kickstarter = just under $100,000.
Slides: Tools for empathy-directed customer insights
Optional reading:
Armstrong, C.E. 2016. Teaching innovation through empathy: Design thinking in the undergraduate business classroom. Management Teaching Review, 1(3): 164-169.
Feb 20
E-Fest EIX.org, April 23-25, 2020 - announcement and 2019 winners
Kickstarter of the day: GLAMOS
More on empathy-directed customer learning - We will run another team-based in-class activity to develop insights into customer needs on 2/20. This activity will *not* be graded, but I will collect your work with team member names. You may find attending also helps you do better on Quiz 3, due tomorrow night.
Slides: Testing your personas with landing pages; activity: create two different landing pages for different versions of your vending machine customer personas from Tuesday. Use Powerpoint, Google slides, Keynote, Google sites, or something else that's quick. Here are specific instructions I'll hand out in class for your teams to follow.
Complete Quiz 3 by 11:59 pm, Friday, Feb 21
February 25 & 27
Feb 25: OK, let's get started with pitching (page: How to Pitch)
Feb 27: Pitching practice in class (pitchers and catchers report for spring training)
Maybe: Understanding customer needs
Time to start thinking about entering the Aldag Competition - April 14
Here is the link to The Edge, and here is the link to find out about the Aldag Business Plan Competition.
Some notes on entry requirements and registration:
The entry period for the 2020 Edward K. Aldag, Jr. Business Plan Competition will open on February 7th. Please submit your intent to compete and business summary by March 11th.
- Refer to this document for eligibility criteria and other details for the student competition.
- Refer to this document for eligibility criteria and other details for the faculty/staff competition.
- Participants can enter the competition individually or form teams.
- The business submissions must be the team or individual’s own original work and ideas.
- A given team can only compete in one of our Spring competitions.
- Submission deadlines*:
- Intent to compete (students and faculty/staff): March 11th
- Draft presentation: March 26th
- Final presentation: April 8th
- *All deadlines are 11:59 PM CST on the date listed
Hey! Here is a business plan presentation template for Aldag from last year.
Artificial Intelligence getting under your skin? Use it to make your skin healthier! (Yes, it actually works)
And since y'all pitched a solution to a gameday experience problem on Feb 27, here are some insights on the convergence of stadiums, smart phones, and fund.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90452417/stadiums-smartphones-and-the-future-of-fun
March 3 & 5
Mar 3: Aldag info, plus this template of the presentation.
Mar 5: More on pitching; social skills, product attributes, audience, the basics and more; you will join in teams and begin work on creating (and delivering in class on Tuesday, March 10), a pitch for a bad product idea. The bad product idea must be one of the choices offered on the bad product slides accompanying these instructions. You *will* use slides for this presentation. Your slides will address: the big pain, the brilliant solution, how the solution is different, better, faster, whatever, than what people are currently using to solve the big pain. You *do not* need to include a "why you" slide, but you must include a call to action as your last slide. You'll start work today in class and finish preparing during the first 30 minutes of class on Tuesday; then each team will make its presentation in class. This assignment is worth 5 points toward your overall grade for this course.
Summing up
- Pitch a bad product idea in a way that makes it seem useful in solving a problem
- Prepare and pitch in teams; share duties and tasks
- You will use slides; they must address big pain, brilliant solution, differentiation, and call to action. Here is an example presentation (note: example, not exemplary).
- Props, costumes, and theatrics are welcome but not required.
- I need one person from each team to send your final presentation to 387opportunities@gmail.com by the end of lecture on Tuesday, that person will cc: each of her|his teammates. Make sure the names of all team members are listed on the title slide!
Complete Quiz 4 by 11:59 pm, Sunday, March 8. Questions for this quiz come from How to Pitch and "Why We Pitch"
March 10 & 12
Mar 10: Pitch a bad product in teams, 1-3 minutes with presentation slides, 5 points toward your course grade.
Mar 12: No lecture
March 17 & 19
Spring Break
March 24 & 26
Eternal spring break. Flakes of gold floating in my brain from the Schläg...
and here are the instructions for how to proceed for the remainder of the semester
Bonus instruction from Jeff Dyer of BYU on Innovation
Jeff talks about the roles of association, questioning, observing, networking, and experimenting - all mindsets and behaviors you can adopt - to be an effective innovator.