15.399  Entrepreneurship Lab

Final Few Items

Hi all, many congratulations on a great set of projects! It is amazing how much progress you have made over the past few months. Please remember to send me an electronic copy of the final presentation you make to your company. Also, a reminder that your 1 or 2 page personal reflection essay is now due to the TAs - please get this to them by the end of Friday. Nothing complicated, just a few thoughts about what you took away from the semester. Finally, I am receiving enquiries about being a TA for the class in the fall. If you would like to be considered, please drop me an email with your resume. Note that the Elab TA must help with company recruiting, so needs to do a large amount of work prior to the term starting.

Many thanks again for all your hard work!

Cheers, Alan.

Announced on 13 May 2010  2:46  p.m. by Alan D MacCormack

Final E-lab Class on Wed May 5th

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 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-6.20pm, we will set up the posters around the class. From 6.20pm-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.

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

We look forward to a great evening!

Cheers, Alan.

Announced on 27 April 2010  3:10  p.m. by Alan D MacCormack

Lessons from Customers/Markets

Dear E-labbers, this wednesday we will hear your second team
presentation, which will focus on the preliminary lessons you have
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, and how you are interpreting and analyzing
it. We are particularly interested in those aspects of your
interviews/data that have surprised you/your host. What do you know
now that you did not 8 weeks ago? What new directions, threats or
opportunities 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 (e.g.,
which methods have been most/least effective?). Each team will have
5 minutes to present, with a maximum of 5 slides. Please bring a
USB drive with your file on it, and load it on the computer before
we begin. Look forward to your insights,

Cheers, Alan.

Announced on 06 April 2010  9:25  a.m. by Alan D MacCormack

Lunch at HBS Thur March 25th

Hi all, if you have signed up for lunch at HBS tomorrow, we will meet in Spangler Project Room 202 at noon. Unfortunately, you need to bring your own food! Look forward to seeing you all. Cheers, Alan.

Announced on 24 March 2010  11:54  a.m. by Alan D MacCormack

Lunches and Mentor Meetings

Hi all, we have open slots for lunch tomorrow if you are free? If so, please let Juliette know and come to the E-center rear conference room with your lunch at noon. Also, I am waiting to hear from Gen9 and Scanscout about a mentor meeting. Please email me with your availability. Many thanks,

Cheers, Alan.

Announced on 10 March 2010  4:01  p.m. by Alan D MacCormack