GE 393 RLP Business Plan Workshop for Technology Entrepreneurs Week 1

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GE 393 RLP Business Plan Workshop for Technology
EntrepreneursWeek 1

• David E. Goldberg
• Department of General Engineering
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Urbana, Illinois 61801
• deg_at_uiuc.edu

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So You Want to Be an Entrepreneur

• Dot-com collapse was a craze, but it had a real
  component.
• Entrepreneurship is here to stay.
• Logical extension of Handys work portfolio.
• Forces of technology revolution, end of the Cold
  War, reduction in transaction costs.

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Business Plan as Ticket

• Business plans are tickets to technology-based
  entrepreneur.
• Garage-based ventures have grown up.
• Established rules of the game to start ups,
  funding, and new companies.

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Introduction

• What are goals of the course?
• Who are we? Who are you?
• Prerequisites seriousness
• Course materials
• Course schedule
• An aside on IP disclosure of ideas
• Business concept selection

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Intro (cont.)

• Team selection
• Course diary
• Course grading
• Sources of information
• Forms
• Concept selection
• Brainstorming

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Course Goals

• Create plausibly viable business plans for
  technology-based businesses.
• Means teams of students working with faculty and
  off-campus mentors with repeated presentation,
  QA, and close feedback.
• Not a lecture course.

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Deconstruct Goal

• Plausibly viable Must make persuasive argument
  for realistic business. No going through the
  motions, no half-hearted attempts
• Technology-based Technology must be integral
  part of business.
• Businesses not trading firms No license deals,
  no real estate deals, no security deals.

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Who Are We? You?

• Marianne Dickerson, marianne.dickerson_at_rrd.com
• David E. Goldberg, deg_at_uiuc.edu
• Other mentors.
• Who are you? How many different departments?
  Business ideas? How did you hear of class? Why
  are you here?

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Prerequisites

• Formal Junior standing or consent of instructor
• Informal GE 393 MJL, Technology Opportunity
  Assessment, TTh 4-520, 101 TB.
• Ideally Take tech feasibility plan and create
  full business plan
• If not, extra reading and work for student.

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Seriousness

• Engineering/science students think business
  courses are easy and not rigorous.
• GE 393 RLP is rigorous.
• Writing excellent business plan in 14 weeks is
  not easy.
• We will be writing excellent business plans here.

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Is BPWTE for You?

• Are you
• Entering Cozad Bplan Competition?
• Starting a business now or after school?
• Taking an entrepreneurial-related job?
• If yes, then you may be serious enough.
• If no, ask yourself if you want to work this hard.

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Course Materials

• TE
• TPW
• LLE
• HRFR
• NVC
• Optional GM, RM, LG, WSJ

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Course Schedule

• 14 weeks is not a long time.
• Important to get off and running quickly.
• Important to come prepared each week to meetings
  with mentors.
• Presentations are key milestones.
• Hard work (or lack) will show.
• Review the schedule.

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An Aside on IP

• IP Intellectual property not Illinois Power
• Ideas belong to inventors who are expected to
  protect their ideas.
• Concepts presented in class in BPs.
• If concepts cannot be presented without NDAs, not
  appropriate for this class

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Business Concept Selection

• Two types of concepts
• student-contributed
• OTM or faculty-contributed
• OTM faculty-contributed to be distributed
• Need form BC for student concepts today.
• Need concept champions today.

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Team Selection

• Teams consist of minimum of four (4) class
  members.
• Team members not enrolled need to sign up for
  continuing education credit.
• Next week will hold concept-team agora.
• Match students to concepts.

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Agora

• Concept champions will set up shop.
• Students will read over concepts.
• Students will talk to concept champions to try to
  enroll in teams.
• Team of four can declare itself closed.
• Concept champions can abandon idea.
• Unclaimed ideas can be claimed by new champions.

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Agora Aftermath

• Once teams settled, file form TS.
• Members can switch teams (subject to minimum
  number) until week 5.
• File form TS for any team change
  (members/names/concept).
• Concept champion is not necessarily CEO.
• Team organization between team mentor

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Course Diary

• All students required to keep course diary.
• Official IP record (legal document).
• Records progress and contributions.
• Turned in at end of semester to mentor to help in
  mentors assessment.

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Course Grading

• Grade decomposition
• Business Plan 50
• Final presentation 25
• Mentor assessment 25
• Grade influences
• Jury evaluation of presentations
• off-campus mentors
• Form PA

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Additional Info

• Great info on the web
• Plan to get business librarian to help us with
  searches.
• Look at links

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Forms

• Form BC Business concept submission
• Form TS Team selection/modification
• Form PA Peer assessment
• Form CL Course exit checklist
• Form BPC Business plan critique

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Business Concept Phase

• Handout OTM/Faculty concepts.
• Collect, copy, and handout student-submitted
  concepts.
• Identify student concept champions.

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Group Innovation

• A key challenge early on is to innovate as a
  group.
• Structured brainstorming as a solution to the
  problem.
• Motivation, props, and method of brainstorming.