15.390  New Enterprises

Dear Section B of Spring 15.390 Class,
 
It has been great having you all in the class this spring and I hope you learned a lot and realized that entrepreneurship can be fun too.
I have just read and completed grading all the business plans that were delivered on time and made detailed comments for you.  They are available at the Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship (E40-1st floor) at the desk of Audrey Dobek.

A few parting comments:
1.      I was very happy with the quality of the final business plans.  You all clearly put a good deal of work into them to incorporate the fundamental principles presented in the course.  Kudos!  (but I have to note two things that most plans had wrong – 1: cash flow is what matters not income statements, focus on CF, 2: TAM should be explicitly stated in units of USD$/year)
 
2.      As noted at the beginning of the class, this is an academic environment where are mission is to teach people.  We plan to use your plans (or parts of them) as examples to help others learn unless you explicitly tell us not to.  This is important for the ongoing learning process for students and we appreciate your cooperation in this.  If you feel this is not possible, please email me ASAP.
 
3.      Lastly, as noted at the beginning of the course, this has been an academic exercise.  What has come out of the class is learning and in no way entitles anyone to any part of a company.  In fact, the teams were put together in a rapid fashion without a lot of opportunity for “dating”.  At this point, you should consider your team closely going forward.  Is it the best team for this opportunity?  If it is, great, but more often it is not.  Entrepreneurs should be kind and compassionate but brutally intellectually honest, otherwise you will fail.  If it is not the right team, then wish each other well and those that wish to pursue can do so with a strong team.  I make this recommendation and often students see it as a disclaimer and not as advice and counsel – and they have asked me to make this clear to students when they realize how important it is.  This is advice and counsel to help you not just a disclaimer.  I made the mistake as have many others and we want to help you all avoid this trap.  With people, good enough never is if you want to be great and have a scalable business.  You should be very excited about your team or think very hard about making changes.  At the end of the day, technology, products, markets and strategies will change and what remains constant in a company is most often the team.

Best of luck in pursuing your entrepreneurial/intrapreneurial ambitions and we are here to help.
 
Best regards,
 
Bill
 

Hello entrepreneurs,

We hope to see you tonight for the MIT 100K finale!  In the meantime, a few announcements:

- Please fill out the survey for yesterday's class here
- Wednesday's class will include an "in-class" exercise.  You will be given a start-up and asked to go through the steps of creating a business plan.  The exercise is open notes, open book, open laptop.  Please bring your laptop-- you will submit your assignment via e-mail, and you can use either powerpoint or word.
- Final business plans are due Thursday at 4pm in both hard copy & on stellar.  For Section A, please submit in hard copy under Howard's door in E62-360.  For Section B, please submit your assignment into the mail folder for Julie Lein (in the hallway between buildings E62 and E52).

Thanks-- good luck!
Ryan & Julie