15.399  Entrepreneurship Lab

Thank You! And a reminder...

Dear Elabbers, thank you for all your hard work this semester. I hope you have benefitted from the experience, and got a sense of the challenges that face new start-ups. When you begin your own venture, as many of you will do, remember what is was like to look from the other side of the fence. Especially the fact that start-ups have "Blind Spots" - in assuming they know what customers want, and that their "solution" is ideally suited to fit! As we saw last night, an objective outsider rarely has such a rosy impression. Of course, that is why they are entrepreneurs!

A reminder that a short 2-page personal reflection memo (bullet points are fine) is due by the end of the day friday. Please send along to Tom - he will bug you if he doesn't see one. See the syllabus for details.

Thank you again, and best of luck!

Cheers, Alan.

Announced on 11 May 2011  10:01  a.m. by Alan D MacCormack

Elab Final Presentations

Hi all, please be sure you bring a computer to plug in to present, and also two hard copies of your slides (one for me, one for files). Thanks! Cheers, Alan.

Announced on 09 May 2011  12:54  p.m. by Alan D MacCormack

Presentation Locations

Hi All,
Below you will find your team name, time and location.
Thank you!
Erin

netBlazr Monday 1-2:30pm E62-446
Gen9 Tuesday 8am-9:30am E62-446
InsightSquared Tuesday 2:30-4pm E62-446
28 Wins Tuesday 4-5:30pm E62-446
QD Vision Wednesday 4-5:30pm E62-346
Lark Technologies Thursday 2:30-4pm E62-446
Fluent Mobile Thursday 4-5:30pm E62-446
The Underwater Centre Friday 11am-12:30pm E62-446

Announced on 06 May 2011  5:02  p.m. by Erin Carlson

Final Class Tue May 10th

Dear E-Labbers,

The format for the final class consists of short “elevator pitch” presentations (five minutes maximum per team) followed by a poster-board session, in which you can move around the class to learn about the outcomes achieved in other projects. Your presentation should consist of no more than FIVE slides. Slide 1 lists your firm’s name and those of your team members. Slides 2-4 should be used to summarize the outcome of your project. What were you asked to do? What did you find? What are your main recommendations? We are particularly interested in what you can now tell the firm that it did not know at the start of the project. Assume that we remember what your firm does, given we have heard you present twice already. Slide 5 should be used to communicate the top five lessons you will take away from E-Lab. The lessons can relate to any aspect of the course: content, process, or team dynamics. For example, if you had to overcome adversity in your project, we might all learn from sharing your experiences. Feel free to be creative.
For the poster sessions, the aim is to develop a visual story as to the aims of your project, the analysis you conducted, and the conclusions you draw. At a minimum, you can take a few of the key slides from your final faculty presentations, and blow these up to display on your board. Remember, slides that show graphs, charts, pictures, or frameworks for understanding your project are worth a thousand lines of text. You could also display a picture, screen shot, mock-up or other visual representation of the product, to remind people of the project you are working on. Ultimately, it is up to you to decide exactly what to show, and how to show it.

The format for the evening: From 6.00pm-6.15pm, set up the posters around the class. From 6.15pm-7.00pm, hear the elevator pitch presentations. From 7.00pm to 8.00pm, have the poster session, in which you take turns to walk around and learn from other teams experiences.

Note that final faculty presentations commence on Monday. Each team has 90 minutes, but should assume half that time will be spent responding to questions. REFER TO THE NOTES IN THE SYLLABUS about the format for your final PP "deck" and guidelines on what to put up-front versus in appendices. After you present, I will hand you the course evaluation forms to complete.

Many thanks for all your hard work this semester. I am looking forward to a great set of presentations! Cheers, Alan.

Announced on 06 May 2011  4:50  p.m. by Alan D MacCormack

Final Presentation Slots

Dear E-labbers, we will hold our final faculty presentations the week of May 9th. Please sign up for a 90-minute slot by emailing my assistant Erin Carlson (emcarl@mit.edu). Available times are noted below (these times denote the time window in which presentations must fit!). Please check the syllabus for a discussion of the content and format of final presentations.

On Tue 10th, we will hold our final class, in which each team will deliver an elevator pitch presentation, and display a poster of the project. I will provide more details on that session early next week. All the best!

Mon 8am - 2.30pm
Tue 8am - 5.30pm
Wed 12noon - 5.30pm
Thur 12noon - 5.30pm
Fri 8am - 5.30pm

Cheers, Alan.

Announced on 29 April 2011  4:44  p.m. by Alan D MacCormack