Entrepreneurial Design

We just completed Week 7 of Entrepreneurial Design, and it was a busy one.  In addition to our usual Wednesday class, we held a Product Sessions event at Orbital this past Saturday.

For the students, this event marked the final milestone prior to launch of their projects (which will be in 4 weeks) so the pressure is certainly on to start making some decisions.

The students gathered at Orbital and Christina and I invited a number of industry experts from our network to join us as advisors for the day.  Each student met with three different advisors for feedback and critique over the course of the day for approximately 45 minutes each, back-to-back.

The goal of the event was two-fold:

1. To provide the students with a range of perspectives on their projects
   
2. To help the students learn how to take in disparate viewpoints and from that make their own decisions–one of the hardest parts about launching your own idea
   

At the conclusion of the 4-hour event, we invited the advisors to share some closing thoughts.  Here are some brief notes from what they said:

• Constraints are your friend, start embracing them.
  
• Know your costs (know why things cost what they cost)
  
• Tell the story: know why are you doing what you’re doing and what’s in it for people
  
• Document your process
  
• Identify who can help you
  
• Don’t forget about the process of promotion
  
• It’s really hard to get people to do stuff on the internet, especially give you money
  
• Be specific about who you are trying to sell to, understand their motivations and why they would care
  
• Think about the motivation for the project and how & whether the rewards connect to it
  
• Be able to describe what you’re doing in a really succinct way
  
• Know what it is you’re selling–not what your thing is, but what the value truly is for people
  
• You only have 4 weeks left until launch.  Decide today what direction you’re going to go in and start going.
  

Thank you to our most excellent advisors who gave up their Saturdays to be with us.  This event literally couldn’t happen without the advisors and we’re grateful for their time, advice and support:

Andrew Mercando, Testmate
George Rohac, Breadpig
Hanna Yoon*, Etsy
John Kim*
Kilian McMahon, Kickstarter
Nicole He, ITP
Nicole Sylianteng*
Nick Barr
Phoebe Espiritu, 18F
Sally Chan, Spotify
Sam Carmichael*
Sean Salmon, Foursquare
Tom Harman*, Buzzfeed
Tara Suan, SOLS

* SVA IxD alumni

Onwards to launch!

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