So#ware Entrepreneurship Project Georg Singer, Ivo Mägi 2013 February, Tartu Why this course Why this course? So this class is first about failure And then about this cycle And about how to opJmize the cycle To give you a model how to start a business 1.  Discovery 2.  Valida3on 3.  Efficiency 4.  Scale 5.  OpJmizaJon 6.  Renewal Startup genome project •  Study of 3,200 startups. DemonstraJng that you are more likely to be successful if –  You are adapJve in your path towards the goal –  You measure what you do –  You consistently seek for improvements •  But you are sJll doomed without –  Right team –  Good mentors –  … and bazillion other issues … What you might end up with? •  Discovery that the amount of unknowns is not for you •  Breaking up with your friends with whom you formed a team •  Finding out a#er another month of sleepless nights that the THIRD pivot also did not help •  … or you might find yourself a way of living. Extremely unlikely though J What is going to happen in the course? What is going to happen instead of lecturing What you will be doing? •  Building a business via –  Verifying your problem hypothesis –  Verifying your soluJon hypothesis –  Discovering your customer –  Building a MVP –  Ge[ng iniJal tracJon –  Finding the right business model –  … And you are going to fail What the teaching staff is here for then? •  We give you feedback –  … and criJque. •  Help out with problems we can. For example –  … share our contacts –  … and our own prior experience •  Give the framework to work in –  … by guiding you through the process –  … and se[ng the expectaJons. •  Encourage –  … when everything has fallen apart. •  Irritate –  … to make you prove us wrong. This course is not about • 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
Business model canvas Pitching lessons MarkeJng Business plans So#ware development Specific technology ... or any other parJcular topic … even though we are going to cover those skills. It will be all about you building your business. But this course will be about •  Building the actual product •  Ge[ng users to actually use your product •  Making your best to mone3ze the users •  So no, you will not pass the course by just creaJng bunch of PPT slides. Sample of a regular week •  We introduce a new topic on Monday –  Along with the specific tasks for you to carry out •  You are going to have a week to carry out the tasks –  Create new / adjust old hypothesizes –  Find a way to verify your guesses –  Carry out whatever is needed to verify your guess –  Analyze data –  Blog about your progress •  And on next Monday you are going to present the results to the classroom –  And get a part of the grade in return ComposiJon of the grade 5% iniJal project proposal 50% class presentaJons about your progress 15% blog posts about your progress 10% parJcipaJon in peer grading and feedback sessions •  20% final delivery • 
• 
• 
• 
Tasks for the next week •  All teams are formed and iniJal problems selected for team •  Everyone has watched and understood at least Lecture 0 and 1 from hbp://udacity.com/course/ep245 •  The team has created a site (Wordpress, Edicy, …) to be used for blogging during the course. The site contains at least ten iniJal hypothesizes around * Problem * SoluJon * Customer * Market * Business model * Channels … and about anything else you find relevant … •  Next week you are going to present your team, problem and iniJal hypothesizes. During the two weeks a#er •  You are going to formulate more precise problem hypothesizes •  Go out there and verify those guesses. •  Adjust your guesses about the problem. •  Formulate soluJon hypothesizes •  And go out there and start verifying your soluJon proposal Full disclosure •  We are also a startup here in front of a class •  We have never ran this course •  We have never tried reverse classroom principle to this extent •  We have never used MOOC as the baseline •  So forgive us if some of our original goals prove to be wrong •  … we are going to pivot I guess … Product/service introducJons Team formaJon Jme