Info session for Lean Launchpad: Hands-on summer course in entrepreneurship

Want to learn how to start up your own high-tech company without taking on all the risks of doing so right off the bat? Libby Hemphill, Assistant Professor of Communication, is teaching Lean Launchpad this summer, a hands-on course teaching students how to get their hands dirty talking to customers, partners, competitors, as you encounter the chaos and uncertainty of how a startup actually works.

Prerequisite

Interest/passion in discovering how an idea can become a real company.

Goal

To provide an experiential learning opportunity showing how engineers, together with 
scientists and other professionals, really build companies.

Course Description

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 business plan. It’s not an exercise on how smart you are in a classroom, or how well you use the research library. The end result is not a PowerPoint slide deck for a VC presentation. Instead you will be getting your hands dirty talking to customers, partners, competitors, as you encounter the chaos and uncertainty of how a startup actually works. You’ll work in teams learning how to turn a great 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 at all levels are welcome - COM 380/538 and may have cross listed numbers in the law school and business school. Students must apply to the course as a team. Applications are due May 1 at 5 p.m.

Learn more

In order to take this class, you have to register as a team, so to learn more about this class and meet others to form teams, join our information session on March 12, 2015. For more questions, contact Libby Hemphill at lhemphil@iit.edu.