15.399  Entrepreneurship Lab

Final Comments

Dear E-Labbers,

Many thanks for your hard work this term, which was clearly evident in the presentations you gave over the last two days. I wanted to remind you that there is no class this evening, so you are free to celebrate with your favorite libation! Please do remember to send your personal reflection essay - a couple of pages max - to Ramy, today or tomorrow. Finally, before you present to your host, make sure you have thought deeply about a question we asked many of you - "what should the CEO do on Monday morning?" E-Lab projects create most value when they have a clear and specific point of view on the actions a firm should take (e.g., not just "enter this market" - but "how" to enter the market). Any light you can shed on this topic will be invaluable. All the best,

Cheers, Alan.

Announced on 09 December 2009  10:16  a.m. by Alan D MacCormack

Final Class Dec 2nd

Dear E-Labbers,

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! The format for the final class consists of short “elevator pitch” presentations (three 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 THREE slides. Slide 1 lists your firm’s name and those of your team members. Slide 2 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 3 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 some 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 should 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 is as follows: From 6.00pm to 6.15pm, we will set up the posters around the class. From 6.15pm-7.00pm we will hear the elevator pitch presentations. From 7.00pm to 8.00pm we will have the poster session, in which you can take turns to walk around and learn from other teams experiences. At 8.00pm, we will hand out course evaluations, which should be handed to the TA.

This session will be great preparation for the final faculty presentations the following week. We look forward to a great evening!

Cheers, Alan.

Announced on 29 November 2009  3:21  p.m. by Alan D MacCormack

Second Faculty Meeting

Doesn't time fly when you are having fun? This week is the deadline to set up a second meeting with your faculty mentor. The meeting doesn't have to happen before Wednesday, but try and hold it within the next seven days. All the best,
Cheers, Alan.

Announced on 03 November 2009  11:08  a.m. by Alan D MacCormack

Class on Nov 4th: Lessons from Customers

Dear E-labbers, hope you all enjoyed the reception last night! We will of course be checking how many B-cards you collected, and analyzing your email traffic to make sure you dropped your contacts a note within 24 hours :-)

Just a reminder that next week, we will hear from each team about the preliminary lessons learned from customer interviews and other primary source data about the market. Our aim is NOT to hear your final presentation, but to use this as a working session to learn about the kinds of data you have gathered to date, and how you are interpreting and analyzing it. We are particularly interested in those aspects of your interviews/data that have surprised you/your sponsors. What do you know now that you did not 8 weeks ago? What new directions/opportunities/threats does this suggest? Your slides should contain items like quotes from interviews, data from surveys, and/or market information gleaned from other (non-obvious) sources. Please also briefly describe the approach(es) you are using to gather customer/market data, with feedback on your experiences that others might learn from (e.g., which methods have been most/least effective?). As before, each team will have up to 5 minutes to present, maximum of 5 slides, no exceptions. Please bring a USB drive with your file on it, and load it on the computer before we begin. Look forward to it!

Cheers, Alan.

Announced on 30 October 2009  3:35  p.m. by Alan D MacCormack

Oct 28th Guest Lecture: Bill Aulet

Dear E-labbers, on October 28th, Bill Aulet, the acting Managing Director of the E-Center, will speak to us on the topic of Entrepreneurial Marketing and Sales. We will also cover the logistics for the CEO reception the following evening. We anticipate using no more than half the class, so you will have time to meet with your teams afterwards. All the best,

Cheers, Alan.

Announced on 23 October 2009  8:42  a.m. by Alan D MacCormack