The Foundry William Schulze & Robert Wuebker Department of Management The David Eccles School of Business University of Utah Special Recognition in Entrepreneurship Education Innovation Awards

The Foundry: Forging Entrepreneurs for Life

What happens if you build a business plan before properly validating your business concept?

What happens if you RIGOROUSLY validate your business concept before launch?

The Foundry Since its launch in May 2010, three Foundry Classes have: Proposed and researched 114 ideas Rigorously tested 69 business concepts Incorporated and launched 56 companies As of 9/30/11:43 of 56 still active $5.5 million total revenue (all ventures) 75 (paying) jobs One acquisition Two angel investments

A Simple Proposition Skills & Knowledge Needed to Validate a Concept Skills & Knowledge Needed to Launch a company These are very different activities, so let’s teach them as distinct activities

What do you need to build a company? A great product concept How to build it How to distribute it How to market it How to hire people How to manage people Real product knowledge Managerial Experience Mentors Access to Capital and so on

What do you need to validate a business concept?

Stuff …learn how to deal with the “stuff you don’t know you don’t know” problem

So what is the problem? Fleshing out and really testing an idea is hard work Asking questions is scary (and hard) Its lonely … you need support to keep on going Its feels risky … there is always a chance you will have to kill your dream Execution is difficult … its easy to manage things inside a company but entirely different when you are on your own

So how do we do it? 1.Group Activities: 1 one-hour team meeting per week Weekly (bi-weekly) evening education sessions featuring guest speakers Monthly Project Review -- Instructor along with community members grill team on progress 2. Online Instruction available 24/7 via our YouTube Channel instructional videos available on all topics 3. Online Resources used to support team activities (dropbox, facebook, salesforce.com, quickbooks, and so on.

Execution Problem: Entrepreneurs must know how to execute … but most of our students have no idea how to manage a project or execute. Solution Teach Students how to be effective managers by teaching them (and insisting they use) a simple, lightweight management reporting system developed at Oracle. Management reports MUST be filed weekly 24 hours before weekly management meeting.

Weekly Management Meeting Problem: Entrepreneurs must know how to find answers to questions that are hard to define, difficult to figure out how to find answers, and difficult to ask Solution: Use weekly management meeting entirely for problem- solving, where students learn to work, as a community, to help solve each others problems Meetings are student-led and peer-driven: Our job is to pour coffee and shut up … it is NOT to answer questions Taking risks in front of others generates trust, friendship, support, and provides the emotional supported needed to do what needs to be done.

Provide Quality Educational Content Problem: Entrepreneurs need answers now, not when we are available. Entrepreneurs need to develop judgment about the quality of information provided Solution: YouTube Channel: usparkfoundrytv has 168 short videos on entrepreneurship basics, available 24/7 and free to all Weekly Evening Socials featuring carefully selected guest speakers. Social time is crucial as it is when the seeds of a student-drive mentor relationships are sown

Provide Needed Technical Support Problem: Entrepreneurs have no money, but have technical and other resource needs Entrepreneurs need to learn that they DON’T need money Solution: Extensive Reliance on free on-line tools (we pay for salesforce.com and for quickbooks.com when they are ready). We are entirely free: We charge no fees, take no equity, offer no funding, and are open to anyone, not just U of U students

Enterprise file sync and backup = $0 Mail, messaging, calendar = $0 PBX for 20+ teams = $0 Marketing budget = $0 Video server for curriculum = $0 RSS and messaging feeds = $0 Video/audio conferencing = $0 Facebook: ( All these services are free! TOOLS

What’s unique? Free: no fees or rent and we do not take an equity stake or claim intellectual property as a condition of entry. Open to any type of startup -- high growth, lifestyle, social venture. Focus on training the entrepreneur, not on the company. Teams use peer-driven methods to solve problems and self- identify emerging educational needs. Teams seek out their own mentors – they are not provided or assigned. Unprecedented opportunity for community engagement and exchange of resources (career services, training, investment, participation).

Why Exciting? Lightweight, low-cost, highly imitable Robust – three classes, taught three different ways, three different leaders: same outcome Works across industries: Teams vary from cupcakes and social media, to consumer products (ski company) and life sciences. We have 14 social ventures slated for Spring ‘12 Fleshes out and compliments existing entrepreneurship programs, does NOT compete with them.

Developments: Press: Businessweek; NY Times, Forbes, Local TV New Foundry Programs Launched US : Foundry RPI, Foundry U of Pacific, Foundry Pace, Foundry U of Washington International: Foundry Armenia, Foundry Torku, Foundry Ghana YouTube: 20+ new videos, 64,000 views to date Social venture experiment – Spring 2012

Robert Wuebker The Foundry Forging entrepreneurs for life. William Schulze See: