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LaunchPad: A Founder's Guide to Starting a Company
LaunchPad is a d.school class at Stanford University for innovators and entrepreneurs. Started in 2009 and still running today. Founded by Perry Klebahn and Michael Dearing the course philosophy is built around a simple idea. Founders must learn through experimentation. In the class, Stanford students take an idea for a product or service and start an actual company in 10 weeks. Maybe one of the reasons it works is because we put our emphasis on the entrepreneurs, not the idea, and building their ability to experiment. We focus on doing, not planning. Since the class started in 2009, we've coached over 200 companies to launch and over half are still in business (see the course website for up to date listings of alumni companies).
This book is not a copy of our class syllabus (we don't have one). It is a snap shot of the learnings (as of 2016) we have gleaned and wanted to allow others to learn from our experiences. This book describes our unique point of view on the critical questions that must be answered in the early life of a new venture, andhow to use experimentation methods to answer these questions. These questions related to key risks facing many new ventures, and our firm belief is that these questions should be answered by taking action (rather than by analysis or planning).
The forthcoming pages include a series "Missions" a new venture must undertake to ultimately succeed. These "missions" include key questions founders must answer, our unique experience and observations of many start-ups as it pertains to these questions, and examples of the assignments we have given in our class at Stanford to help our students answer these questions by taking action. These show you the arc of the experience the companies have with us over the course of 10 weeks. It is our hope that considering these questions and undertaking the actions exemplified in the assignments can challenge any entrepreneur anywhere to get their business started by taking action and validating their concept in the market, and not by building a business plan.
This book is just a snap shot of the content that has contiunued to evolve with new colaborators. Please go to the course website for the latest intormation of the course.
This book is not a copy of our class syllabus (we don't have one). It is a snap shot of the learnings (as of 2016) we have gleaned and wanted to allow others to learn from our experiences. This book describes our unique point of view on the critical questions that must be answered in the early life of a new venture, andhow to use experimentation methods to answer these questions. These questions related to key risks facing many new ventures, and our firm belief is that these questions should be answered by taking action (rather than by analysis or planning).
The forthcoming pages include a series "Missions" a new venture must undertake to ultimately succeed. These "missions" include key questions founders must answer, our unique experience and observations of many start-ups as it pertains to these questions, and examples of the assignments we have given in our class at Stanford to help our students answer these questions by taking action. These show you the arc of the experience the companies have with us over the course of 10 weeks. It is our hope that considering these questions and undertaking the actions exemplified in the assignments can challenge any entrepreneur anywhere to get their business started by taking action and validating their concept in the market, and not by building a business plan.
This book is just a snap shot of the content that has contiunued to evolve with new colaborators. Please go to the course website for the latest intormation of the course.
- GenresStartup
57 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 10, 2016
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25 people want to read
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