teacher guide syllabus

The Lean LaunchPad Class

Course Title: Technology Entrepreneurship and Lean StartupsDesigned by: Steve Blank, Ann Miura-Ko, Jon Feiber Webpage: http://e245.stanford.edu/Texts: The Startup Owners Manual - Steve Blank

Business Model Generation - Alexander Osterwalder

This curriculum requires in depth preparation and significant effort outside of the lab.

Pre- class Assignments:Read pages 14-49 of Business Model Generation.Read pages 22-84 of the Startup Owners ManualReview course strategy at http://steveblank.com/category/lean-launchpad/ Review I-Corps team presentations http://www.slideshare.net/sblank/tagged/i-corps.

(note the number of customer contacts each team made over the course.)Each team comes into the 1st day of class:1. with a Business Model Canvas. You will present for 3-minutes on day 1 (see appendix A)2. prepared to make 10 or more customer/industry contacts at Stanford/Berkeley/UCSF and

around the San Francisco Bay area, when class is not in session

Prerequisites: 1) passion, curiosity, resilience and agility. Interest in discovering how an idea

can become a real company. 2) Each team member must commit to class time plus 15 additional

hours a week for Customer Discovery.

Curriculum Description: This curriculum provides real world, hands-on learning on what it’s

like to successfully transfer knowledge into products and processes that benefit society. It’s not

about how to write a research paper, business plan or a grant. It’s not an exercise on how smart

you are in a lab or a classroom, or how well you use the research library. The end result is not a

paper to be published or PowerPoint slide deck. Instead the entire team will be engaged with

industry; talking to customers, partners and competitors, as the team encounters the chaos and

uncertainty of transferring knowledge into products and processes that benefit society.

Amount of Work

Getting out of the lab/building is what the effort is about. It’s not about the lectures. You will be

spending a significant amount of time in between each of the lectures outside your lab talking to

customers and testing your hypotheses. If you can’t commit the time to talk to customers, the

this class is not for you.

Class Culture

Lean LaunchPad Syllabus - Using the Startup Owners Manual page 1 of 15

http://www.slideshare.net/sblank/tagged/i-corps

http://steveblank.com/category/lean-launchpad/

Startups communicate much differently than inside a university and lab. It is dramatically

different from the university culture most of you are familiar with. At times it can feel brusque

and impersonal, but in reality is focused and oriented to create immediate action in time- and

cash-constrained environments. We have limited time and we push, challenge, and question you

in the hope you will quickly learn. We will be direct, open, and tough – just like the real world.

We hope you can recognize that these comments aren’t personal, but part of the process.

We also expect you to question us, challenge our point of view if you disagree, and engage in a

real dialog with the teaching team. This approach may seem harsh or abrupt, but it is all part of

our wanting you to learn to challenge yourselves quickly and objectively, and to appreciate that

as entrepreneurs you need to learn and evolve faster than you ever imagined possible.

Teams

You’ll work in teams learning how to turn your ideas, research and technology into a product,

service or process that benefits society. You’ll learn how to use a business model to brainstorm each

part of an enterprise and customer development to get out of the lab/building to see whether

anyone other than you would want/use your product. Each week will be new adventure as you

design experiments and run hypotheses tests on each part of your business model and

customers. Finally, you’ll see how agile development can help you rapidly iterate your product to

build something potential customers will use and buy.

Weekly, in a 10-minute presentation you’ll share the hard earned knowledge with the rest of the

class. Working with your team you will encounter issues on how to build and work with a team

and we will help you understand how to build and manage the startup team.

Suggested Projects:

While your first instinct may be a web-based startup we suggest that you consider a subject in

which you are a domain expert, such as your graduate research. In all cases, you should choose

something for which you have passion, enthusiasm, and hopefully some expertise. Teams that

select a web or mobile-based product will have to build the site for the class. Do not select this

type of project unless you are prepared to see it through.

Review http://steveblank.com/category/lean-launchpad/ for a narrative of the class.

See previous team presentations http://www.slideshare.net/sblank/tagged/i-corps

Class Organization:

Three Day I-Corps Workshop:

The class starts with your entire I-Corps team (Principal Investigator, Entrepreneurial Lead,


http://www.slideshare.net/sblank/tagged/i-corps

http://steveblank.com/category/lean-launchpad/

I-Corps Mentor) at Stanford, March 20th -22nd for the first lectures. In the three-day workshop

your team will present what you are learning to the entire class of 25-teams. (Presentation

formats will be provided.) At the end of each teams presentation we will offer observations and

guidance. When not presenting each member of your team will be grading your peers.

Post Workshop, Out of the Building Effort

When I-Corps teams return to their institutions, you are required to get out of the lab to test their

business model assumptions. This is a team effort. It will take at least 15 hours a week. Your

first slide each week is the number of customers talked to. It is the heart of the class.

Online Curriculum: Weekly Presentations and Progress Tracking

We will split the 25 teams into three groups. Each team will present a 10-minute weekly

progress report to members of the teaching team. (These slides are public. Do not put

proprietary information on them.) At the end of our presentation we will offer observations and

guidance. This is how we monitor your progress and give you guidance. When not presenting

each member of your team will be grading your peers.

Online Curriculum: Weekly Lectures

Immediately following the team presentations, all 25 teams will come together on-line for a class

lecture. The instructors will run five weekly on-line lectures, March 28th – April 12th that will step

through each of the 9 business model canvas hypotheses.

Weekly Blog Tracking

In addition to your presentations, teams will record their customer discovery progress basis

using a Wordpress blog to capture the narrative, contact information, learning and insight. This is

also how we monitor your progress.

I-Corps “Lessons Learned” Presentations

The entire I-Corps team (Entrepreneurial Lead, I-Corps Mentor and Principal Investigator) will

return to Stanford, May 22nd -23rd . There the teams will present to the teaching team and

Venture Capitalists the Lessons Learned in their exploration of commercial feasibility.

Team Organization: This class is team-based. Working and studying will be done in teams. The

teams will self-organize and establish individual roles on their own. There are no formal

CEO/VP’s. All three members of the team; Principal Investigator, Entrepreneurial Lead and

Commercialization Mentor must participate in all out of the building customer discovery activities.

Mentors have additional duties as spelled out in the separate mentor guide. Please read and

review it.


Deliverables:

1) if you’re a physical product you must show us a costed bill of materials and a prototype or

proof demonstration. If you’re a web product you need to build it and have customers using it.

2) Your weekly blog and its narrative of your customer discovery process is an integral part of

your deliverables. It’s how the team’s progress is measured (along with the “Lessons Learned”

presentations.)


Class RoadmapEach week’s class is organized around:

A lecture on one of the 9 building blocks of a business model (see diagram below, taken from Business Model Generation).

Team presentations on their “lessons learned” from getting out of the building and iterating or pivoting their business model.

Each team will capture their progression in Customer Discovery by keeping an on-line journals/blogs/wiki.

“Genius is the ability to make the most mistakes in the shortest amount of time.” Aspiring entrepreneurs need to become fast iterators.


Class 1: Business Model/Customer Development

Class Introduction Teaching Team Introductions Team Introduction – by each of the teams presenting their business model canvas Class Goals Teaching Philosophy Expectations of You

Class Lecture: The Business Model/Customer DevelopmentWhat’s a business model? What are the 9 parts of a business model? What are hypotheses? What is the Minimum Feature Set? What experiments are needed to run to test business model hypotheses? What’s “getting out of the building?” What is market size? How to determine whether a business model is worth doing?

Deliverables for the next class Read:

Business Model Generation, pp. 86-111, 135-145 Startup Owners Manual review pages 53-84 Steve Blank, “What’s a Startup? First Principles,”

http://steveblank.com/2010/01/25/whats-a-startup-first-principles/ Steve Blank, “Make No Little Plans – Defining the Scalable Startup,”

http://steveblank.com/2010/01/04/make-no-little-plans-–-defining-the-scalable-startup/

Steve Blank, “A Startup is Not a Smaller Version of a Large Company”, http://steveblank.com/2010/01/14/a-startup-is-not-a-smaller-version-of-a-large-company/

Team Presentation for the next class Market size Type of business: IP, licensing, startup, unknown Proposed experiments to test customer segment, value proposition, channel and revenue

model of the hypotheses: What constitutes a pass/fail signal for each test (e.g. at what point would you say that

your hypotheses wasn’t even close to correct)? Start your Customer Discovery Narrative blog in Wordpress

o Email the teaching team your URL


http://steveblank.com/2010/01/14/a-startup-is-not-a-smaller-version-of-a-large-company/

http://steveblank.com/2010/01/14/a-startup-is-not-a-smaller-version-of-a-large-company/

http://steveblank.com/2010/01/04/make-no-little-plans-%E2%80%93-defining-the-scalable-startup/

http://steveblank.com/2010/01/04/make-no-little-plans-%E2%80%93-defining-the-scalable-startup/

http://steveblank.com/2010/01/25/whats-a-startup-first-principles/

Class 2: Value Proposition

Team Presentations: 5 minutes each (all teams) Slide 1: Cover slide (appendix A, slide 1) Slide 2: Current business model canvas with any changes marked Slide 3: Tell us about your Market size (TAM/SAM/Target) Slide 4: What type of business are you building?: IP, licensing, startup, unknown Slide 5: What are your proposed experiments to test customer segment, value

proposition, channel and revenue model of the hypotheses:o What constitutes a pass/fail signal for each test (e.g. at what point would you say that

your hypotheses wasn’t even close to correct)?

Class Lecture: Value PropositionWhat is your product or service? How does it differ from an idea? Why will people want it? Who’s the competition and how does your customer view these competitive offerings? Where’s the market? What’s the minimum feature set? What’s the Market Type? What was your inspiration or impetus? What assumptions drove you to this? What unique insight do you have into the market dynamics or into a technological shift that makes this a fresh opportunity?

Deliverable for the next classRead:

Business Model Generation, pages. 146-150, 161-168 and 200-211 The Startup Owners Manual, pages 85-97

Team Presentation for the next class Get out of the building and talk to as many people as you can What were your value proposition hypotheses? Get out of the building and begin to talk to customers for March 22nd

o What did potential customers think about your value proposition hypotheses?o Follow-up with Survey Monkey (or similar service) to get more data

Update your blog and canvas


Class 3: Customers/Users/Payers

Team Presentations: 10 minutes each (all teams) Slide 1: Cover slide Slide 2: Current business model canvas with any changes marked Slide 3 - n: What did you learn about your value proposition from talking to your first

customers?o Hypothesis: Here’s What we Thoughto Experiments: So Here’s What we Dido Results: So Here’s What we Foundo Iterate: So Here’s What we Are Going to Do Next

Class Lecture: Customers/Users/PayersWho’s the customer? User? Payer? How are they different? Why do they buy? How can you reach them? How is a business customer different from a consumer? What’s a multi-sided market? What’s segmentation? What’s an archetype?

Deliverable for the next classRead: Business Model Generation, pages 127-133 Startup Owners Manual, pages 98 – 111, and 189-255, 406-412

Team Presentation for the next class Get out of the building and talk to 10-15 customers face-to-face What were your hypotheses about who your users and customers were? Did you learn

anything different? Did anything change about Value Proposition? What do customers say their problems/needs are? How do they solve this problem(s)

today? Does your value proposition solve it? How? What was it about your product that made customers interested? excited? If your customer is part of a company, who is the decision maker, how large is their

budget, what are they spending it on today, and how are they individually evaluated within that organization, and how will this buying decision be made?

Update your blog and canvas


Class 4: Distribution Channels

Team Presentations: 10 minutes each Slide 1: Cover slide Slide 2: Current business model canvas with any changes marked Slide 3 - n: What did you learn about your customer segments from talking to your first

customers?o Hypothesis: Here’s What we Thoughto Experiments: So Here’s What we Dido Results: So Here’s What we Foundo Iterate: So Here’s What we Are Going to Do Next

Class Lecture: Distribution ChannelsWhat’s a channel? Physical versus virtual channels. Direct channels, indirect channels, OEM. Multi-sided markets. B-to-B versus B-to-C channels and sales (business to business versus business to consumer)

Deliverable for the next classRead: Startup Owners Manual pages 227-256, 332-342

Team Presentation for the next class Get out of the building and talk to 10-15 potential channel partners face-to-face

(Salesmen, OEM’s distributors, etc.) What were your hypotheses about who/what your channel would be? Did you learn

anything different? Did anything change about Value Proposition? Update your blog and canvas

For web teams: Get a Low-fidelity web site up and running. See Startup Owners Manual page 211-217


Class 5: Customer Relationships: Get/Keep/Grow

Team Presentations: 10 minutes each Slide 1: Cover slide Slide 2: Current business model canvas with any changes marked Slide 3 - n: What did you learn about your channel from talking to potential channel

partners?o Hypothesis: Here’s What we Thoughto Experiments: So Here’s What we Dido Results: So Here’s What we Foundo Iterate: So Here’s What we Are Going to Do Next

Class Lecture: Customer Relationships/ Demand CreationHow do you create end user demand? How does it differ on the web versus other channels? Evangelism vs. existing need or category? General Marketing, Sales Funnel, etc. How does demand creation differ in a multi-sided market?

Deliverable for the next classRead: The Startup Owners Manual, pages 277-331 Watch: Mark Pincus, “Quick and Frequent Product Testing and Assessment”,

http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2313

Team Presentation for the next class For everyone:

o Present and explain your marketing campaign. What worked best and why?

For web teams: o Get a working web site and analytics up and running. Track where your visitors are

coming from (marketing campaign, search engine, etc) and how their behavior differs. What were your hypotheses about your web site results?

Actually engage in “search engine marketing” (SEM) spend $20 as a team to test customer acquisition cost

o Ask your users to take action, such as signing up for a newslettero use Google Analytics to measure the success of your campaigno change messaging on site during the block to get costs lower, team that gets lowest

delta costs wins. If you’re assuming virality of your product, you will need to show viral propagation of

your product and the improvement of your viral coefficient over several experiments.o Submit web data or customer interview notes, present results in class. o Did anything change about Value Proposition or Customers/Users?


http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2313

o What is your assumed customer lifetime value? Are there any proxy companies that would suggest that this is a reasonable number?

For non-web teams: o Get prototype demo workingo build demand creation budget and forecast. o What is your customer acquisition cost?o Did anything change about Value Proposition or Customers/Users? o What is your customer lifetime value? Channel incentives – does your product or

proposition extend or replace existing revenue for the channel? o What is the “cost” of your channel, and it’s efficiency vs. your selling price.

Everyone: Update your blog and canvas. o What kind of initial feedback did you receive from your users? o What are the entry barriers?


Class 6: Revenue Models

Team Presentations: 10 minutes each Slide 1: Cover slide Slide 2: Current business model canvas with any changes marked Slide 3 - n: What did you learn about how to Get/Keep and Grow customers?

o Hypothesis: Here’s What we Thoughto Experiments: So Here’s What we Dido Results: So Here’s What we Foundo Iterate: So Here’s What we Are Going to Do Next

Class Lecture: Revenue ModelWhat’s a revenue model? What types of revenue streams are there? How does it differ on the web versus other channels? How does this differ in a multi-sided market?


Startup Owners Manual pages 257-270 and 429 – 459 Business Model Generation pages 212-225

Team Presentation for the next class What’s the revenue model strategy? What are the pricing tactics? Draw the diagram of payment flows What are the metrics that matter for your business model? Test pricing in front of 100 customers on the web, 10-15 customers non-web. Update your blog and canvas


Class 7: Partners

Team Presentations: 10 minutes each Slide 1: Cover slide Slide 2: Current business model canvas with any changes marked Slide 3 - n: What did you learn about your Revenue Model?


Class Lecture: PartnersWho are partners? Strategic alliances, competition, joint ventures, buyer supplier, licensees.


Business Model Generation pages 200-211 Startup Owners Manual pages 406-412

Team Presentation for the next classWhat partners will you need?

Why do you need them and what are risks? Why will they partner with you? What’s the cost of the partnership? Talk to actual partners. What are the benefits for an exclusive partnership? Did anything change about Value Proposition or Customers/Users, Channel, Demand

Creation? What are the incentives and impediments for the partners? Update your blog and canvas


Class 8: Key Resources & Costs

Team Presentations: 10 minutes each Slide 1: Cover slide Slide 2: Current business model canvas with any changes marked Slide 3 - n: What did you learn about Partners?


Class Lecture: Resources and Cost StructureWhat resources do you need to build this business? How many people? What kind? Any hardware or software you need to buy? Any IP you need to license? How much money do you need to raise? When? Why? Importance of cash flows? When do you get paid vs. when do you pay others?

Deliverable for the next classRead: Startup Owners Manual pages 169-175

What’s your expense model? Assemble a resources assumptions spreadsheet:

o people, hardware, software, prototypes, financing, etc. o When will you need these resources?

Where is your cash flow break-even point? What are the key financials metrics for costs in your business model? Costs vs. ramp vs. product iteration? Roll up all the costs from partners, resources and activities in a spreadsheet by time. Prepare for the final presentations

o 10 –minute Team Lessons Learned Presentationo 1-2 minute “lessons learned” videoo 5 minute product video


Lessons Learned Presentations

1-2 minute Videos & Lessons Learned Presentations

Deliverable: Each team will present a 10 minute “Lessons Learned” presentation about their business in front of the teaching team and potential investors.

I-Corps “Lessons Learned” Presentation FormatFirst Play your videoSlide 1 Team Name, your product, what business you ended up in and number of customers

you talked to. Slide 2 Team members – name, background, expertise and your role for the teamSlide 3 key NSF funded technology and/or innovationSlide 4 the size of the opportunity Slide 5 Business Model Canvas Version 1 (use the Osterwalder Canvas).

So here’s what we did (explain how you got out of the building, experiments you can)Slide 6 So here’s what we found (what was reality) so then, …Slide 7 Business Model Canvas Version 2 (use the Osterwalder Canvas).

We iterated or pivoted… explain why and what you found.Slide 8 So here’s what we did (explain how you got out of the building)Slide 9 So here’s what we found (what was reality) so then,Slide 10 Business Model Canvas Version 3 (use the Osterwalder Canvas).

We iterated or pivoted… explain why and what you found.Etc…. Every presentation requires at least three Business Model Canvas slides. Etc…. Every presentation requires a channel diagram, distribution diagram and customer

archetype or customer flow diagram. Etc…. Every presentation requires hypotheses you tested, experiments you ran and results.

Side n – “So here’s where we ended up.” Talk about:1. what did you learn2. whether you think this a viable business, 3. whether you want to purse it after the class, etc.

Final Slides – Click through each one of your business model canvas slides.


teacher guide syllabus

Education

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class culture startups

startup owners manual

lean launchpad syllabus