15.399  Entrepreneurship Lab

A few of you have emailed aout TA positions for the 2012-13 schoolyear.  To be fair to all, we wanted to write a short note to post the position.

We are planning on teaching E-Lab in both Fall and Spring of AY12-13.  The Fall course will be on Thursday evenings, and we anticipate that the Spring section will also be on Thursdsay evening.

The E-Lab TA position is a key component of building a successful E-Lab course.  In particular, the TA is responsible for working with and coordinating the enrollment process for companies in the summer (or over IAP in January), getting all the registrants onto the website prior to class, and serving as an informal mentor to the teams throughout the semester.

It is a challenging and rewarding position, and one that allows you to interact directly with a range of startup companies in the Kendall Square area, as well as closely with both Jim and I as we develop the course and the action learning experience.

If you are interested, please email all three of us a short note and, if it is easily available, a CV, prior to Friday, May 11.  Please indicate whether you would be interested in one semester (and which one) or serving as a full-year TA.  We are open to both options.

We will finalize the selection process in the next week, so that we can meet before the semester is over in order to plan for any activities that must take place during the summer.

We are looking forward to a great finish on Thursday, and thank you for your participation in E-Lab this semester!

Scott, Jim, and Brian

Brian, Jim and I are looking forward to your final in-class presentations this Thursday evening (May 10).  We have really enjoyed the semester so far, and are looking forward to bringing your projects together for one last time together in advance of your presentations with your host company.  We are all available between now and Thursday to discuss the project and/or presentation, either in person or by email with any of us.

Here are the guidelines:

Format:  The presentations will consiste of ~ 15 minutes of formal presentation, followed by 10 minutes of Q&A with the class.  We will then provide some oral feedback for each team in advance of your meeting with your host company.  We will take a brief break between the first two presentation and the second two, and anticipate wrapping up class by 8:15 or so.

Organizing Your Presentation :   While the overall scope and rhythm of each project is different (and you should adapt your presentation outline to make sense for your project), an effective E-Lab presentation should include the following:

·          Problem Statement:  What problem did your team and host company choose to address?  (Briefly), why is this question and issue important for your host company?

·          E-Lab Team Approach:  How did your team evaluate the problem?  What types of primary and secondary data did you gather to investigate the issue?  What types of framework or tools are you relying on to develop a solution?  What are the key assumptions you are making in your analysis, and what did you do to test those assumptions as your project proceeded?  Finally, spend at least some of your time describing the “evolution” of your project.  What were some of the main challenges you faced, and how did you overcome them (and which did you just decide to punt on)?  In other words, within the scope of your problem statement, how did your interactions with your host company, feedback during E-Lab, and your own internal group dynamics contribute to settling on the particular project and plan that you eventually completed?

·          E-Lab Proposal:   What are the main recommendations that you are planning to make to your host company?  How do these recommendations address the problem statement?  How do these recommendations follow from the analysis you performed?  What are the strengths and weaknesses of your proposed approach, and what are the main contingencies that you should be looking out for?  How can your proposal be implemented, and what challenges to implementation do you foresee?

·          Take-Aways:   For the last few minutes of your presentation, focus less on your proposed solution for your host company, and instead focus on what lessons your team has gleaned from your E-Lab experience. What are the main things you learned about start-ups and entrepreneurship?  About working with a senior management team?  About working on an action-oriented group project?  What are the main takeaways you have gotten from your project and this class?

  Logistics:  Please bring 3 printed copies of the presentation to class.  Also please email the presentation to Brian in advance of the class.

We will re-convene at the Muddy immediately after the final presentation!

We are very much looking forward to your presentation!  Good Luck!

Scott, Jim, and Brian

Thanks to all the teams for the great work on your interim presentations last week.  We will be sending you some individual feedback by Friday but just wanted to let you know that we felt that the projects were all in the right direction.

We wanted to provide a number of updates and a few requests.

First, as a reminder, there is no formal class tomorrow, as the time is reserved for a group work day.  Scott will be around to meet anytime from 4 PM onwards if any team would like -- please email in advance so we can set up times and perhaps meet over in E62.

Second, you should have all by now received an invitation to the Trust Center Celebration of Entrepreneurhsip on April 19.  That is currently on the syllabus as a class day;  however, one of the main objectives of E-Lab is to give you a real opportunity to meet with others within the MIT Eco-system, so we will cancel class on that date.  We will  send out a revised syllabus sometime later this week, and also make a decision as to whether and how we might reschedule the "Leveraging Your Eco-System" lecture.

Third, the Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship would like to not only invite you to join us for the MIT Celebration of Entrepreneurship but is seeking volunteers to help make that event a success.  We are looking for two key things -- students who will be willing to man a phone bank for a session or two over the next week to ask for RSVPs for the event, and some students to help with name tags, etc, at the beginning of the event on the 19th.  If you are willing to help out, please contact Pat Fuligni directly at the Trust Center at pfuligni@mit.edu or 617-253-3972.  Thanks in advance -- this has been an activity that many prior E-Lab students have participated in, and it is a low-cost way to really engage more broadly with the Trust Center and the MIT entrepreneurial eco-system.

I thnk that is it for now -- we are happy to meet with any project teams as you move forward from last week's presentations, and we look forward to seeing you all next week at the Celebration!

Scott, Jim and Brian