At the core of the course is the process of developing low-cost, quick consumer experiments, mostly simultaneously, to learn about the market potential for different variants of new products or services, which will be iterated multiple times until an attractive variant of the new business idea is identified or an avenue to an adjacent space is explored. The course also familiarizes students with how best to present their market validation information and the initial outlines of their business and revenue models on social platforms and to early-stage investors.
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
- Develop mock prototypes of their products or services
- Understand who are "lead users" or "early-evangelist" consumers
- Develop networking strategy to reach "lead users" or "early-evangelist" consumers
- Develop simultaneous trials to get feedback from "lead users" or "early-evangelist" consumers
- Understand the drivers of roles and incentives for a new business team
- Know when to pivot a new business idea
- Understand how to outline a business and revenue model for an early stage idea
- Present their market-validated new business idea to external audience on social funding platforms like Kickstarter as well as present their business idea to investors and industry experts
Students developed entrepreneurial solutions to business problems that are customer-centric and commercially viable, which include producing mock prototypes of the product or service, to the start-up.