Team ParkPoint Capital
This team spoke face-to-face with 326 customers. As often happens, this team came into class convinced that their market research proved that their business was providing credit to underbanked customers. 8 weeks later they ended up as a financial service provider for immigrants. Lots of learning and pivots on the way.
If you can’t see the slide presentation above, click here.
The ParkPoint Capital customer discovery narrative blog is here.
We thought the team summarized their lessons learned well:
If you can’t see the image above, click here.
Team DentalOptics
Team DentalOptics spoke face-to-face with 72 customers. Their journey was from a lighting solution for dentists to an automated way to test for periodontal disease. How they got to their destination was truly amazing.
If you can’t see the slide presentation above, click here.
The DentalOptics customer discovery narrative blog is here.
Team MiCasa
They spoke to 105 customers and surveyed 98 more.
You can watch as this team pivots through Customer Segments by clicking through their business model canvases at the end of presentation. It is the first film-strip of entrepreneurship in action.
If you can’t see the slide presentation above, click here.
The MiCasa customer discovery narrative blog is here
Team ZiiLion
Interviewed 154 customers in China plus surveyed another 48.
This team was trying to do something extremely difficult. Create an app for Renren (a Chinese version of Facebook) for event planning. And do it while in school in the U.S. Lots of learning and Pivots here.
If you can’t see the slide presentation above, click here.
The Ziilion customer discovery narrative blog is here.
———
Congratulations to all the teams. They taught us a lot.
Stanford e245 2012 class photo
Next week the Lean LaunchPad class will be taught to 25 teams for the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps. And later in the week we’ll be sharing what we learned with other entrepreneurial educators it at the NCIIA conference. Then in April we’ll be teaching Corporate Entrepreneurship at Columbia University.
Lessons Learned
- Class is a mix of engineering students and MBA’s
- Students apply as preformed teams
- Application to the class is the teams business model canvas
- Curriculum = business model canvas + customer development
- Minimal lecture, maximum experiential immersion
- Relentless customer visits (10-20 a week)
- On-line journal to document their customer discovery narrative
- One mentor (VC or experienced entrepreneur) per team
- Mandatory office hours
- Weekly in-class presentations for all teams
- Weekly critiques of team customer discovery progress
- Workshop on how to present a story-arc and narrative
- Lean LaunchPad teaching guide
