Term project Kickoff (Wed Oct 1, lecture 9)

Homework due for today

  • Read and come with questions about how the term projects will work.
  • Watch 1 episode of “Shark Tank”, a TV show about fake venture capitalists. Deliverable: Write a blog post with some reactions and reflections. How did the show make you feel? What surprised you? Did it change your mind?
  • NB: There will be a 12 question quiz about The Lean Startup.

Quiz first

  • 30 minutes

Plan for today

  • Open discussion on working on projects in teams
    • New teams please sit together
    • Clarifying what it means to be on a project
    • Team dynamics is hard. Alignment is hard
    • Start by talking over what product your team wants to pick
    • What is your lattitude around the basic vision?

Choosing a Product

  • Be hard-nosed! Don’t go for what looks fun and cool ONLY
  • Challenge yourself and your teammates
  • Do a little research using your common sense!
  • Can you find other similar products, competitors, or related products, and is this a good or bad thing?
  • Look in Kickstarter and RocketHub. Are there any related projects?
  • Do you believe that you could actually get enough funding through Kickstarter or RocketHub to build a prototype?
  • What would the Sharktank say of it?
  • How big a real problem is this really solving?
  • For who, and do you think those people would be willing to pay for it?
  • How would you get it to them?
  • What kind of price do you think they would be willing to pay?
  • Are you pretty sure this can be productized (that is, not can we make a single one by hand, but can we make a lot of them?)

Next class