Startup Bootcamp - Instructor Instructions
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This document outlines an 8-session entrepreneurship bootcamp. Session topics include creativity and passion, traits of successful entrepreneurs, turning passions into business opportunities, startup steps, financials, presentation skills, intellectual property, and pitching business plans to judges. Each session provides instructional objectives and recommends engaging students through discussion, team exercises, and interactive learning about entrepreneurship concepts. The bootcamp aims to guide students through developing and pitching their own business plans.
Startup Bootcamp - Instructor Instructions
- 1. Entrepreneurship Bootcamp Instructor Instructions Author: Amit Seth - about.me/aseth Overall Course Framework: Session 1 - What is creativity? What is my passion? Session 2 - Behavior traits for a successful entrepreneur. Session 3 - Turning your passion into a business opportunity. Session 4 - Steps needed for your startup ... 1,2,3 GO. Session 5 - Financials of the business opportunity. Session 6 - Presentation skills, successful pitches, what ideas got funded. Session 7 - Filing your patent, patent gotchas, successes and failures. Session 8 - Pitch your business plan to VCs (only 12 spots will be available). Session 1: Topic: What is creativity? What is my passion? Instruction: - Accomplish setting objectives for and expectations from students and parents. o Set rules of operation, especially on attendance and criteria for success. - Walk through course structure for the 2 semesters, and how will judging be accomplished for the semesters. o Walk through what to expect in each week of first semester. o Establish the objectives for Tech Day and how top 3 will be chosen. - Get students involved from day 1 – all learning topics could be originated as questions being answered by students or ideas being introduced by students. - Setup a regimen of working in teams. o A mock in-class exercise that gets the rhythm going on team formation, team collaboration, and expectations of class work. Session 2: Topic: Behavior traits for a successful entrepreneur. Instruction: - Summarize first class. - My favorite class of the entire semester! - Students get very engaged when asked about their hero(s) – “who inspires you?” - Get students into a regimen of looking at slideware and introducing the respective topic, with further discussion from students on topic. o You will get complete coverage on the topic via this method. - Class exercise to get a rhythm going on students coming up to stage and presenting their homework on stage. - Build on first weeks ‘setting objectives and expectations’.
- 2. Session 3: Topic: Turning your passion into a business opportunity. Instruction: - This is the week when the startup starts to emerge. - Goal is to introduce the business plan and get students going on familiarizing with components of a business plan. - Building a founding team, and team-think is important. - Watch out for dysfunctional teams – quickly help with getting teams setup. o Pay attention to team dynamics of each team. If you identify any issues then try a fix (with parents included). Here are some example issues: § Team composition is too small - since there is a lot of work to do, it is best to have a team size of 4 to 6. § Team has members whose ages are very different – frustration builds when all are not carrying their load, and with a team with a young person teamed with older students this can be exemplified. § Team has only family members (brothers, sisters) – this is a flag as students do not really learn team dynamics in such a setup. § Team has ‘one’ overpowering leader – watch out for a member of the team wanting to run everything their way (other students in the team miss out on learning and developing confidence). Session 4: Topic: Steps needed for your startup ... 1,2,3 GO. Instruction: - Builds on momentum of Week 3 to reinforce Business Plan learning - Introduces Venture Capital, Corporate Structure, etc. - Students get excited on learning about ‘exit’ (IPO or selling the company). Concept of ‘Paper Money’ is an exciting one as well. - Gets students going on team work and collaboration - Facilitates converting team to a real startup structure – with CEO, CTO, Head of Technology and such. Session 5: Topic: Financials of the business opportunity. Instruction: - This is an important class as pretty much all of the learnings here would be new to students – Financials - Recommended teaching style is to correlate daily activities of kids to financials to facilitate better understanding. o One good way is to look at the Apps economy as most would relate to it. - Costs of doing business is a gotcha with most students as they (naturally) gravitate to revenue. Making sure they understand this and how it is reflected in the Business Plan is important.
- 3. Session 6: Topic: Presentation skills, successful pitches, what ideas got funded. Instruction: - This class is about Marketing, with a focus on how to build presentation skills for the Business Plan competition (Week 8+). - Introduce the concept of how to tailor your speaking to the intended audience. - This class could be beefed up to cover a larger topic (of Marketing, in general). Session 7: Topic: Filing your patent, patent gotchas, successes and failures. Instruction: - Intellectual Property – this is an intense class due to the numerous new concepts students learn. - Students learn about Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights. Session 8 (or 9): Topic: Pitch your business plan to VCs (only 12 spots will be available). Instruction: - Students may need a week in between to do mock runs of their plans for instructor(s) to provide feedback o Establish judging criteria in mock runs. o Provide each team feedback on how to ‘complete’ their respective plans. - Business Plan competition: invite VCs, successful entrepreneurs to competition. o Provide judging criteria matrix to judges to help evaluate o Top 3 announced and rewarded, including Certificates