E245 syllabus rev15

I-Corps E245 Syllabus Revision 17 page 1 of 33
I-Corps 245: The Lean Launch Pad
Course Title: The Lean Launch Pad
Instructors: Steve Blank, Tom Byers, Jon Feiber John Burke, Tina Seelig
Co-Instructors: John Burke, Alexander Osterwalder, Kevin DeWalt, Tony Mak
TA’s: Thomas Haymore, Stephanie Rose Glass
Curriculum Guides:TBD (Select previous participants)
Days and Times: Oct 10-12th at Stanford University (Classes 1, 2 and 3)
Oct 18 – Nov 15th Five video lectures at your school (Classes 4 – 9)
broadcast Tuesdays 9am –noon PST
Dec 13 -14th at Stanford University – “Lessons Learned” pitches
Workshops: Getting out of the building, Customer Discovery, Presentations
Office Hours: by appointment
Takeaway: “Commercialization Potential” scorecard
Webpage: http://i245.stanford.edu
Texts: Business Model Generation - Alexander Osterwalder
Four Steps to the Epiphany - Steve Blank
This curriculum requires in depth preparation and significant effort outside of the lab.
Read http://steveblank.com/category/lean-launchpad/ from the bottom up to get an idea.
See http://www.slideshare.net/sblank/tag/stanford for final team presentations.
Prerequisites: 1) Attend as a team consisting of Entrepreneurial Lead, Commercialization
Mentor and Principal Investigator. 2) Each team member must commit to class time plus 15
additional hours a week for Customer Discovery.
Goals: 1) Give the I-Corps team an experiential learning opportunity to help determine the
commercial readiness of their technology. 2) Enable the team to develop a clear go/no go
decision regarding commercial viability of the effort, 3) Should the decision be to move the
technology forward to market, develop a transition plan to do so.
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 NSF 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
see page 21 - 29 for
teaching team bios

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. If you can’t commit the time to talk to customers, the I-Corps effort is not for you.
Class Culture
Startups communicate much differently than inside a university and lab. It is dramatically
different from the university culture most of you are familiar with. Given your stature inside your
institution, 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 research and technology idea 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. Finally, you’ll see how agile development
can help you rapidly iterate your product to build something potential customers will use and
buy. Each week will be new adventure as you test each part of your business model and then
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.
See http://steveblank.com/category/lean-launchpad/ for a narrative of the class.
Class Organization:
I-Corps Workshop:
The class starts with entire I-Corps team (Entrepreneurial Lead, I-Corps Mentor & PI) at

Stanford, Oct 10-12 for the first lectures.
Post Workshop, Out of the Building Effort
When I-Corps teams return to their institutions, they will be required to get out of the lab to test
their business model assumptions. This is a team effort. It is the heart of the class.
Post Workshop, Online Curriculum:
The instructors will run five weekly on-line lectures, Oct 18 – Nov 15th that will guide the teams
search and testing their business model canvas hypotheses.
Weekly Presentations and Progress Tracking
Each team will present a 10-minute weekly progress report. This is how we monitor your
progress and give you guidance.
Weekly Blog Tracking
Teams will record their progress basis using a Wiki. 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, Dec 12 – 13th. 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; Entrepreneurial Lead, Commercialization Mentor and
Principal Investigator must participate in all out of the building customer discovery activities.
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 is an integral part of your deliverables. It’s how the team’s progress is
measured (along with the “Lessons Learned” presentations.)
Takeaways: A “commercialization potential” scorecard
At the end of the course, each team will be provided feedback in the form of a scorecard on the
potential for commercializing their research and innovation. This scorecard will provide feedback
to the team about: gaps in the business model, team, product that remain, and provide specific
suggestions for how to improve and fix them.

Class Roadmap
Each 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.
Test
Hypotheses:
• Problem
• Customer
• User
• Payer
Test
Hypotheses:
• Demand
Creation
Test Hypotheses:
• Channel
Test Hypotheses:
• Product
• Market Type
• Competitive
Test Hypotheses:
• Pricing Model / Pricing
Test Hypotheses:
• Size of Opportunity/Market
• Validate Business Model
Test
Hypotheses:
• Channel
• (Customer)
• (Problem)
Customer
Development
Team
Agile
Development

Pre-reading For 1st Class: Read pages 1-51 of Business Model Generation.
Sunday Oct 9th 7pm – 9pm
Mixer K&S Ranch
Monday Oct 10th 8 - 9am
Breakfast
Location: MackenzieRoom, HuangEngineeringCenter
Monday Oct 10th 9 -9:30 am
Class Introduction: Teaching Team
 Team Introduction
 Class Goals
 Teaching Philosophy
 Expectations of You
Monday Oct 10th 9:30 – 10:30am
Panel: Scientist and Engineersas Foundersand Entrepreneurs
Panelists: Kevin Dewalt Founder ClaimAway,Jason Lohn co-Founder, CEO of X5
Systems, Dave Merrill Founder, CTO of Sifteo, KumarGoswami
 Why did we do a startup?
 What did we think it was going to be like?
 What was it really like?
 What do we wish we knew?
 What you should get out of this class?
Monday Oct 10th 10:30am -1:00pm
Class 1: BusinessModel/Customer Development
Steve Blank/Jon Feiber/Alexander Osterwalder/John Burke/TeachingTeam
Location: MackenzieRoom, HuangEngineering Center
Class Lecture: The Business Model
What’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?
Read:
 Business Model Generation, pp. 118-119, 135-145, skim examples pp. 56-117
 Four Steps to the Epiphany Chapters 1-2

 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 Deliverable for tomorrow Oct 11th
 All teams to present their first business model canvas hypotheses for each of the 9 parts of
the business model.
 Come up with ways to test each of the hypotheses:
o is the business worth pursuing (market size)
 Come up with what constitutes a pass/fail signal for the test (e.g. at what point would you
say that your hypotheses wasn’t even close to correct)?
 Find a name for your team.
 Start your blog/wiki/journal
Monday Oct 10th 1 - 2pm
Lunch
Location: Tressider Cafeteria
Monday Oct 10th 2 - 3pm – 4pm
Workshop: LaunchLab Tutorial Ben Mappen
 How to use the Lean LaunchLab to blog your progress.
Monday Oct 10th 4 – 5pm
Workshop: Mentor Tutorial Teaching Team
Location: MackenzieRoom, Huang EngineeringCenter
 The role of Mentors in the Lean Launchpad Process
Monday Oct 10th 5:30 -6:30pm
Workshop:Unleashing Creativity
Tina Seelig - Professor
 brainstorming the business model.
Monday Oct 10th 6:30 pm
Dinner

Tuesday Oct 11th
Tuesday Oct 11th 8 - 9am
Breakfast
Tuesday Oct 11th 9am - 1pm
Class 2: Value Proposition
Steve Blank/Jon Feiber/Teaching Team
Team Presentation for Today: 10 minutes each (all teams)
 What are your 9 Business Model Canvas hypotheses?
 How will you test them?
Class Lecture: Value Proposition
What 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 Oct 12th and Oct 18th
Value Proposition:
 Market Size estimates (TAM, SAM, addressable.) How big is the opportunity?
 What were your value proposition hypotheses?
 What did potential customers think about your value proposition hypotheses?
o Get out of the building and begin to talk to customers for Oct 12th
o Talk to 10-15 customers more by Oct 18th
o Follow-up with Survey Monkey (or similar service) to get more data
 Submit interview notes, present results in class.
 Update your blog/wiki/journal with progress customers and value prop
Read:
 Business Model Generation, pp. 161-168 and 226-231
 Four Steps to the Epiphany, pp. 30-42, 65-72 and 219-223
Tuesday Oct 11th 1-2pm
Lunch
Location: Tressider Cafeteria

Tuesday Oct 11th 6 - 7pm
Dinner
Tuesday Oct 11th 7 - 8pm
Workshop: How to Get out of the Building whileProtecting My IP
 Team coaching on how to “get out of the building” for Customer Discovery.
 Expectations, speed, tempo, logistics, commitments.
 How do I protect my IP when I speak to partners
 Does Lean work for non-software efforts
 How do I interview”
 How is an interview different than a sales call

Wednesday Oct 12th
Wednesday Oct 12th 8am – 9am
Breakfast
Location: Li Ka Shing Building
Wednesday Oct 12th 9am - 1pm
Class 3: Customers/Users/Payers
Location: Li Ka Shing Building
 What did you learn about your value proposition from talking to your first customers?
 Update Business Model Canvas (show original, then show what you changed in new slide with
changes in Red.) focus on customer segment and value proposition
 Here’s What we Thought
 So Here’s What we Did
 So Here’s What we Found
 So Here’s What we Are Going to Do
Class Lecture: Customers/Users/Payers
Who’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?
Read:
 Business Model Generation, pp. 127-133
 Four Steps to the Epiphany, pp. 43-49, 78-87 224-225, and 242-248
 Giff Constable, “12 Tips for Early Customer Development Interviews,”
http://giffconstable.com/2010/07/12-tips-for-early-customer-development-interviews/
Deliverable for Oct 18th
 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 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/wiki/journal
Wednesday Oct 12th 1 – 1:30 pm
Panel: Scientist and Engineersas Foundersand Entrepreneurs
Panelists: Ari Tuchman CEOat Quantifind and MohitLad
Story of Ari Tuchman, a physicist turned entrepreneur/CEOatQuantifind.
Wednesday Oct 12th 2 - 3pm
Workshop: Video Setup
Preflight and checkout of your computer for use in remote lectures. Configuration of hardware
and software. How to present your slides and set up video, etc.

October 18th
Tuesday Oct 18th 9am - 1pm PST
Class 4: Distribution Channels
Location: Video lecture at your University
 Update Business Model Canvas (show original, then show what you changed in new slide
with changes in Red.)
Class Lecture: Distribution Channels
What’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)
Read: Four Steps to the Epiphany, pp. 50-51, 91-94, 226-227, 256, 267
Deliverable for Oct 25th
 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?

October 25th
Tuesday Oct 25th 9am - 1pm PST
Class 5: Customer Relationships
Team Presentation for Today:
Class Lecture: Customer Relationships/ Demand Creation
How 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?
Read:
 Four Steps to the Epiphany, pp. 52-53, 120-125 and 228-229
 Dave McClure, “Startup Metrics for Pirates”,
http://www.slideshare.net/dmc500hats/startup-metrics-for-pirates-seedcamp-2008-
presentation
 Watch: Mark Pincus, “Quick and Frequent Product Testing and Assessment”,
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2313
Team Deliverable for Nov 1st
 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 newsletter
o use Google Analytics to measure the success of your campaign
o 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?
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 working
o 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/wiki/journal.
o What kind of initial feedback did you receive from your users?
o What are the entry barriers?

November 1st
Tuesday November 1st 9am - 1pm PST
Class 6: RevenueModels
Class Lecture: Revenue Model
What’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?
Deliverable for Nov 8th
What’s your revenue model?
 How will you package your product into various offerings if you have more than one?
 How will you price the offerings?
 Draw the diagram of payment flows
 What are the key financials metrics for your business model?
 Test pricing in front of 100 customers on the web, 10-15 customers non-web.
 What are the risks involved?
 What are your competitors doing?
 Assemble a rough income statement for the your business model.
 Do the “Lifetime value” calculation for customers.
 Did anything change about Value Proposition or Customers/Users, Channel, Demand
Creation, Revenue Model?

November 8th
Tuesday November 8th 9am - 1pm PST
Class 7: Partners
Class Lecture: Partners
Who are partners? Strategic alliances, competition, joint ventures, buyer supplier, licensees.
Deliverable for Nov 15th
Action: What 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?
 Assemble an income statement for the your business model.
Creation?
 What are the incentives and impediments for the partners?

November 15th
Tuesday November 8th 9am - 1pm PST
Class 8: Key Resources & Costs
Class Lecture: Resources and Cost Structure
What 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?
Final Deliverable for December 14th
What’s your expense model?
 Assemble a resources assumptions spreadsheet. Include people, hardware, software,
prototypes, financing, etc.
 Access to resources. What is the best place for your business?
 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?
 When will you need these resources?
 Roll up all the costs from partners, resources and activities in a spreadsheet by time.
Creation/Partners?
 Prepare for December 13th and 14th at Stanford
o 20 –minute Team Lessons Learned Presentation
See http://www.slideshare.net/sblank/tag/stanford for sample final team presentations.

Dec 13th 10 - 11am Workshop at Stanford Howto Present
Oren Jacob
Team coaching on how to develop “a lesson-learned” presentation.
See http://www.slideshare.net/sblank/tag/stanford for final team presentations.
Time TBD
10 Dec 13th 10am at Stanford Rehearsal Day
Deliverable: Each team will present a dry run of their 20 minute “Lessons Learned” presentation
about their business.
We’ll run 25 teams in two parallel tracks.
Dec 13th 7pm Workshop at Stanford Howto Present
MackenzieRoom, HuangEngineeringCenter
Mentor evaluation of your presentation.

11 Dec 14th 9am at Stanford Lessons Learned Presentations
Deliverable: Each team will present a 20 minute “Lessons Learned” presentation about their
business in front of the teaching team and potential investors.
We’ll run the presentations of the 25 teams in two parallel tracks. (9 -2pm?)
I-Corps “Lessons Learned” Presentation Format
Slide 1 – Team Name, with a few lines of your initial idea and the size of the opportunity
Slide 2 – Team members – name, background, expertise and your role for the team
Slide 3 – key NSF funded technology and/or innovation
Slide 4 - Business Model Canvas Version 1 (use the Osterwalder Canvas).
Slide 5 - So here’s what we did (explain how you got out of the building)
Slide 6 – So here’s what we found (what was reality) so then, …
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,
We iterated or pivoted… explain why and what you found.
Etc…. Every presentation requires at least three Business Model Canvas slides.
Side n – “So here’s where we ended up.” Talk about:
1. what did you learn
2. 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.
Dec 14th 5pm at Stanford Graduation Get Together

Teaching Team
Tom Byers - Academic Director, Stanford Technology Ventures Program
tbyers@stanford.edu
@tommybyers
650-387-8517
Steve Blank – Lecturer, Stanford Technology Ventures Program
sblank@stanford.edu
@sgblank
415-999-9924
Jon Feiber – General Partner Mohr Davidow
Jdf@mdv.com
650-302-0011
Ann Miura-Ko
ann@floodgate.com
@annimaniac
650-269-9409
Tina Seelig – Executive Director, Stanford Technology Ventures Program
tseelig@stanford.edu
@tseelig
650-464-7736
John Burke - General Partner True Ventures
jburke@trueventures.com
@andemca
650-319-2150
Kevin Dewalt - Entrepreneur in Residence Innovation Accelerator
kevindewalt@kevindewalt.com
@kevindewalt
703-608-7829
Tony Mak – Entrepreneur in Residence
tony54321@hotmail.com
@TonyMak

Teaching Assistants
Thomas Haymore – Phd Candidate, Stanford MS&E, J.D. Stanford Law School 2013
thaymore@stanford.edu
@tchaymore
512-970-0567
Stephanie Rose Glass
srglass@stanford.edu
Eve Byer-Young- Associate Director, Stanford Center for Professional Development
evebyeryoung@stanford.edu

Steve Blank
After 21 years in 8 high technology companies, Steve retired in 1999. He co-founded
my last company, E.piphany, in his living room in 1996. His other
startups include two semiconductor companies, Zilog and MIPS
Computers, a workstation company Convergent Technologies, a
consulting stint for a graphics hardware/software spinout Pixar, a
supercomputer firm, Ardent, a computer peripheral supplier,
SuperMac, a military intelligence systems supplier, ESL and a video
game company, RocketScience Games.
After he retired, Steve wrote a bookabout building early stage
companies called Four Steps to the Epiphany. He moved from being an entrepreneur to
teaching entrepreneurship to both undergraduate and graduate students at U.C. Berkeley,
Stanford University and the Columbia University/Berkeley Joint Executive MBA
program.
In 2009, Steve was awarded the Stanford University Undergraduate Teaching Award in
the department of Management Science and Engineering. In 2010, he was awarded the
Earl F. Cheit Outstanding Teaching Award at U.C. Berkeley Haas Schoolof Business.
Steve followed his curiosity about why entrepreneurship blossomed in Silicon Valley
and was stillborn elsewhere. It has led to several talks on The Secret History of Silicon
Valley.
In 2007 the Governor of California appointed Steve to serve on the California Coastal
Commission, the public bodywhich regulates land use and public access on the
California coast. He’s on the board of Audubon California (and its past chair). In 2009
he joined the board of the California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV).
Steve was the commencement speaker at Philadelphia University in 2011. Text of the
speechis here.

Tom Byers
Tom Byers is a professor at Stanford University where he focuses on
technology and high-growth entrepreneurship education. He is founder
and a faculty co-director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program
(STVP), which serves as the entrepreneurship center for the engineering
school. STVP includes the Mayfield Fellows work/study program,
Entrepreneurship Corner website of videos and podcasts, and a set of
global Roundtable on Entrepreneurship Education conferences for
educators. Tom is co-author of a leading entrepreneurship textbook called
"Technology Ventures: From Idea to Enterprise" published by McGraw-Hill.
At Stanford, he is the chairman of the Committee for Undergraduate Standards and Policies (C-
USP) and deputy chair of the Management Science and Engineering department. He is an
affiliated faculty member of the Woods Institute for the Environment and Precourt Institute for
Energy at Stanford. Tom is a faculty director of the annual Stanford Executive Institute. Tom has
also been a visiting professor at the UAE's Higher Colleges of Technology, London Business
School, and University College London.
Tom has served on the governing boards of Flywheel Ventures and other technology enterprises.
In addition, he has served on advisory councils of the World Economic Forum regarding
entrepreneurship, Harvard Business School's California Research Center, UC Berkeley's Center
for Entrepreneurship and Technology, Conservation International, and Network for Teaching
Entrepreneurship (NFTE) regarding disadvantaged youth. Before joining Stanford, Tom worked
at Silicon Valley companies for over a decade including executive vice president and general
manager of Symantec Corporation during its early years. Tom started his professional career at
Accenture.
For his efforts at Stanford, Tom holds endowed chairs in engineering regarding entrepreneurship
education and another called the McCoy University Fellow in Undergraduate Education. Tom has
received Stanford's Gores Award for excellence in teaching (the university's highest award) and
its Tau Beta Pi Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching (the engineering school's highest
award). In 2009, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) awarded Tom and Tina Seelig its
Gordon Prize, which is the profession's highest honor recognizing innovation in engineering and
technology education. He is a member of the Hall of Fame at UC Berkeley's Haas School of
Business.
He is also the recipient of several other national teaching awards including the Olympus
Innovation Award from the NCIIA, the ASEE Kauffman Award, the USASBE Entrepreneurship
Educator of the Year Award, the Academy of Management's Innovation in Entrepreneurship
Teaching Award, and the Leavey Award. Earlier, STVP was named the NASDAQ Entrepreneurship
Center of the Year and Tom was named Northern California Entrepreneur of the Year in Ernst &
Young's competition.
Tom holds a BS in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research and an MBA from UC
Berkeley. He also earned a PhD in Business Administration (Management Science) at UC
Berkeley.

Jon Feiber
It was a chance meeting that brought Jon Feiber into the venture industry.
Jon, then a vice president at Sun Microsystems, was
considering leaving Sun for a startup. After a
preliminary discussion about the startup at Mohr
Davidow, he got an offer to join the firm.
Today, he is among Mohr Davidow’s most senior
partners and is responsible for many of the firm’s
successful investments. Most of Jon’s investments
harness emerging technology. “I like the intersection
of emerging technology and big markets – geeky
projects,” he admits.
He began his career as a software programmer for mainframe maker Amdahl
Corp. “I tend towards entrepreneurs who have real insight into hard problems
and a sense of their need by customers.”
Mohr Davidow, he believes, will remain one of the technology industry’s
most successful investors because of its faith and commitment to
entrepreneurs. “This firm has always been known for being direct and open
in its relationships with entrepreneurs,” he explains. “Our enthusiasm for the
entrepreneur is matched by depth of knowledge and experience in the areas
that we choose to invest in.”
“Being a venture capitalist is one of the greatest jobs you can have,” he
continues. “I get to hang out with the smartest people in the world and help
them turn their ideas into world class companies.”
Jon holds a bachelor's degree in computer science and mathematics and
astro-physics from the University of Colorado

Ann Miura-Ko
Ann Miura-Ko isa co-foundingpartner atFLOODGATE where her investment
interests includethe innovationsin e-commerce,
security, and big data.   
In addition to servingat FLOODGATE, Ann isa lecturer
in the School of Engineeringat Stanford University,
where she got her PhD focused on mathematical
modelingof computer security.
She teaches High Tech Entrepreneurship withSteve
Blank and is a frequentlecturer in coursessuch as
Technology VentureFormation, High-tech
Entrepreneurship, and theMayfield FellowsProgram.
Many of her studentshave gone on to secureAngel and
VC fundingfor their ideas.    
Prior to joiningFLOODGATE and her stint at Stanford, Ann worked atCharles River
Venturesand McKinsey and Company.     Anngrew up in Palo Alto, Californiaand,
as a result, was exposed at an early age to the world of startups, technology and
venturecapital.
She developed an early passion for robotics and went on to major in electrical
engineeringat Yale University where she received her BS degree. For her senior
project, she was part of a five person team that designed four robots to
autonomously play soccer. That team placed fourth at the second annualRobocup
competition held in Paris, France in 1998.

Tina Seelig
Tina Seelig is the Executive Directorfor the Stanford TechnologyVentures
Program (STVP),the entrepreneurship center at
Stanford University's Schoolof Engineering. STVP is
dedicated to accelerating high-technology
entrepreneurship education and creating scholarly
research on technology-basedfirms.STVP provides
students from all majors with the entrepr eneurial
skills needed to use innovations to solve major world
problems.
Tina teaches courses on creativity, innovation, and
entrepreneurship in the department of Management
Science and Engineering, and within the Hasso
Plattner Institute of Designat Stanford. Tina was recently awarded the 2009
GordonPrize from the National Academyof Engineering, recognizing her as a
national leader in engineering education. She also received the 2008 National
Olympus Innovation Award, and the 2005 Stanford Tau Beta Pi Award for
Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. In 2004,STVP was named the
NASDAQ Entrepreneurship Center of the Year.
Tina earned her Ph.D. from Stanford University Medical Schoolin 1985 where
she studied Neuroscience.She has worked as a management consultant for
Booz, Allen, and Hamilton, as a multimedia producerat Compaq Computer
Corporation, and was the founderof a multimedia company called
BookBrowser.
Tina has also written 15 popular science books and educational games.Her
books include The Epicurean Laboratory and Incredible EdibleScience,
published by Scientific American; and a series of twelve games called Games
for Your Brain,published by Chronicle Books.Her newest book, published by
HarperCollins in Spring 2009,is titled What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20: A
Crash Course on Making YourPlacein the World.

John Burke
John is a founder of True Ventures, with a passion in early stage investing
and growing companies. For eight years, he lived
through the balancing act of building his own
company at BMI Software, which he founded in
1989 and sold in 1997.
He began his venture career at ABS Ventures in
1999, working with Phil Black, and then, after
the acquisition of Alex Brown and Sons by Deutsche Bank, continued on
with DB Capital Partners. Before founding True, John was a Managing
Member with Blacksmith Capital. He recently crossed an important threshold
in his professional life: he has now been a venture capitalist longer than he
was a CEO. However, like most life changing events, he can still remember
the late nights dealing with HR issues, the relief of meeting payroll, and the
satisfaction of delighting a customer.
Having lived through the tough decisions required in entrepreneurship, John
is now able to guide his portfolio companies through the difficult times with
a deftness that only those years of operating experience bring. John holds a
BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from U.C. Berkeley, a BA degree in
Economics from U.C. Santa Cruz, and a MBA degree from Harvard Business
School. When he is not thinking about how to create a more valuable
company, you can probably find him bird hunting with his German Shorthair
Pointer, teaching his kids to ski, or building furniture in his shop.

Alexander Osterwalder
Alexander Osterwalder is an entrepreneur, speaker and
business model innovator. He co-authored Business Mod el
Generation, a global bestseller (over 120,000 copies) on
the topic of business model innovation.
In the words of Fast Company Magazine in naming Alex's book one of the
Best Books for Business Owners in 2010, "In Business Model Generation,
Osterwalder encourages owners to plot out their business model using
something he developed called the "business model canvas." It forces
entrepreneurs to communicate their business model visually, which
Osterwalder says sharpens their thinking and allows them to get what's in
their head onto a canvas for others to see and contribute to. Once your vision
has been exported from your head onto a canvas your employees helped to
create, you'll have a business that can grow without you calling all the shots
— which is the essence of a sellable company. This is by far the most
innovative book on how to think about putting together a business."
He holds a PhD from HEC Lausanne, Switzerland, and is a founding member
of The Constellation, a global not-for-profit organization aiming to make
HIV/AIDS and Malaria history.

Kevin Dewalt
Kevin M. Dewalt is a technology entrepreneur in
Arlington, VA. He is an authority on new product
innovation, having held roles in hands-on
engineering, fundraising, sales, and market
development. He is currently Entrepreneur in
Residence with Innovation Accelerator, a public-
private partnership with the National Science Foundation.
At In-Q-Tel, the investing arm of the Central Intelligence Agency, Mr.
Dewalt helped make over $20M of venture investments in 25 start-ups &
helped deploy the technologies to the federal market.
As a founder of 2 startups - ManyWheels, an automotive logistics service and
Soapbox.com, a consumer web subsidiary he incubated at The Motley Fool –
he secured $2M+ funding and brought both products to market.
He began his career as an engineer & project manager with the US Coast
Guard and at FINRA where he ran a worldwide engineering team regulating
NASDAQ Stock Market.
Mr. Dewalt received a BS in Electrical Engineering as the #1 graduate from
the US Coast Guard Academy and an MS in EE from Stanford University.
He also an active leader in driving innovation as:
 Board member of SENS Foundation, funded by Peter Theil to develop
regenerative medical solutions to the diseases of aging.
 Investment panel reviewer for the National Science Foundation.
 Blogger, speaker, and event organizer supporting the start-up ecosystem
in the Washington DC metro region.
Although his lifelong ambition is to play professional golf – a dream cut
short at birth by an utter lack of talent – he still plays the game regularly with
his wife in Arlington.

Tony Mak
Tony Mak is a Senior Associate at O’Reilly AlphaTech
Ventures (OATV). Prior to joining OATV, Tony worked
for Redknee (TSX: RKN) in Product Management and
Sales Engineering leadership roles. At Redknee, he was
responsible for the highest revenue generating product
line and built a new international sales organization. In
addition, he co-founded a social applications business
which was later sold to Zoosk, the largest social dating network.
Previously, Tony worked for Newbury Ventures and UBS Investment Bank
assessing new investments, conducting due-diligence, performing corporate
finance and M&A advisory. He has also held technical roles at Cisco
Systems, Ciena Corp and CGI Group. Tony has a BASc in Computer
Engineering from University of Waterloo and an MBA from UC Berkeley,
where he was awarded the Price Fellowship Award and Gloria Appel Award
for leadership in entrepreneurship.
www.tonymak.com

Welcome to I-Corps 245
This course provides real world, hands-on learning on what it’s like to actually start a high-tech
company. This class is not about how to write a research paper, business plan or NSF 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 getting their hands dirty talking to customers, partners, competitors, as you
encounter the chaos and uncertainty of how to commercialize your technology.
Getting out of the building is what the class is about. It’s not about the lectures. If you can’t
commit the time to talk to customers, don’t take the class
You’ll work in teams learning how to turn your research and technology idea into a great
company. You’ll learn how to use a business model to brainstorm each part of a company and
customer development to get out of the classroom to see whether anyone other than you would
want/use your product. Finally, you’ll see how agile development can help you rapidly iterate
your product to build something customers will use and buy. Each week will be new adventure
as you test each part of your business model and then 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.
Students
▪ I-Corps 245 is only open to NSF I-Corps students.
▪ We encourage the teams to recruit any and all resources to their teams. Non students can
serve as extra members of the teams.
▪ Each team must have 3 I-Corps students.
▪ This is very intense class with a very high workload. We expect you to invest at least 5-10
hours per week.
Attendance and Participation
▪ You cannot miss the first three classes at Stanford or the final presentations at Stanford
▪ If you anticipate missing more than one remote lecture, we recommend that you wait to
apply to the I-Corps when you can commit the time.
▪ Getting out of the building is what the class is about. It’s not about the lectures. If you
can’t commit the time to talk to customers, don’t take the class.

Help!
 What kind of support will our team have?
The teaching team consists of three professors, and a Teaching Assistant. In addition
each team will be assigned a Stanford “Mentor.” A mentor is an experienced
entrepreneur or venture capitalist assigned to your team. They’ve volunteered to help
with the class and your team because they love startups. Their job is to guide you as you
get of the building.
 How often can we/should we talk to our mentors?
Your mentor is expecting to meet with you at the first Stanford Workshop and talk to you
at least every two weeks. You can email them or meet with them more often as they
have time for.
 Can I talk to a mentor not assigned to my team?
By all means, do so. All the mentors are happy to help. However they cannot support
your team full time unless your mentor decides to swap places with them.
 I have a busy schedule and my mentor can’t talk when I want them to.
Mentors have day jobs. Asking them to talk or reply to you ASAP is not acceptable. So
plan ahead to allow for a reasonable amount of time for a reply or meeting. Be concise
with your request and be respectful of their time.
 I need help now.
You first stop is your TA’s. Email or sit down with them during the week if you have a
problem. Your professors have office hours every Tuesday at 3pm. If you need
something resolved sooner, email us.
 Who are the Mentors?
See the mentor list at the end of this document and on the class website.
Team Dynamics
 What roles are in each team?
Traditionally, each team member is part of the “customer development team”. You have to
figure out how to allocate the work.
 What if my team becomes dysfunctional?
Prepare to work through difficult issues. If the situation continues, approach the teaching
team. Do not wait until the end of the quarter to raise the issue.
 What if one of my teammates is not "pulling his/her weight"?
Try to resolve it within your team. If the situation continues longer than a week, please
approach the teaching team. Final grades will also reflect individual participation and
contribution.

E245 syllabus rev15

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E245 syllabus rev15