Johns Hopkins team at NCIIA’s VentureLab
As I witnessing 12 university teams from around the nation converge on Amherst Mass for the NCIIA’s VentureLab three-day workshop which just ended, I am reminded of the importance of value proposition. Sometimes that term gets bandied about as part of MBA-entrepreneurial speak, but it’s a very important concept. As the late Don Jones (Pittsburgh entrepreneur who recently passed away) always said, “To understand the customer you have to walk a mile in their moccasins.” An entrepreneur must focus on the customer and understand their needs, wants, desires. To do that you have to talk to them, interview them, interact with them. You have to know them, deeply to understand if what you have has value to them. Value such that they will pay for your solution. How can you do that in a vacuum? How can you presume to know if you do not really know?
James Barlow at VentureLab
Steve Blank, acclaimed Silicon Valley entrepreneur, author of books, and teacher at notable places like Stanford and for the NSF I-Corps program, calls it “Get out of the building.” There’s nothing better than doing that for entrepreneurs seeking to validate their ideas about needs, customers, markets, and solutions. But before many are ready to do that, you can do a lot to prepare nascent entrepreneurs via education. This happens to jive nicely with the mission of my new employer, the NCIIA. This non-profit has been around 15+ years focused around encouraging, supporting and educating our university students on how to develop and grow new technology ventures. From the lab, from a class, from their heads – from an idea to a reality; from the university to the market. And 12 teams from across the nation were in Amherst to learn how to do that. The three-day intensive (VentureLab) led by James Barlow, who works with the NCIIA as well as other organizations and Tufts University.
The Ohio State University team at VentureLab
You CAN teach entrepreneurship. I know because I have done it for 15+ years. Of course you can’t make someone into an entrepreneur if he/she doesn’t have what it takes in the first place. But, as I have written in the past, I can unleash the entrepreneur within. However, a willing, bright and energetic entrepreneur does not a viable venture make. For that, he/she needs to identify a business opportunity – which means a need that can be fulfilled. And to circle back to where I started from, you have to validate the need deeply by walking in the moccasins of your customer. How do we do start that process from the classroom?
A couple of ideas based on my experiences, reinforced by the VentureLab program:
Your aim is to KNOW the customer (and all the sets of customers/users). THEN you can start to articulate your value to each set. If you are doing this right, you might have different value propositions to each set of customers/users.
No matter how great YOU think that your product is, the business is about finding customers, selling to customers, servicing customers, and reaching breakeven/sustainability/profitability! Good luck!
Muses on value proposition
Johns Hopkins team at NCIIA’s VentureLab
As I witnessing 12 university teams from around the nation converge on Amherst Mass for the NCIIA’s VentureLab three-day workshop which just ended, I am reminded of the importance of value proposition. Sometimes that term gets bandied about as part of MBA-entrepreneurial speak, but it’s a very important concept. As the late Don Jones (Pittsburgh entrepreneur who recently passed away) always said, “To understand the customer you have to walk a mile in their moccasins.” An entrepreneur must focus on the customer and understand their needs, wants, desires. To do that you have to talk to them, interview them, interact with them. You have to know them, deeply to understand if what you have has value to them. Value such that they will pay for your solution. How can you do that in a vacuum? How can you presume to know if you do not really know?
James Barlow at VentureLab
Steve Blank, acclaimed Silicon Valley entrepreneur, author of books, and teacher at notable places like Stanford and for the NSF I-Corps program, calls it “Get out of the building.” There’s nothing better than doing that for entrepreneurs seeking to validate their ideas about needs, customers, markets, and solutions. But before many are ready to do that, you can do a lot to prepare nascent entrepreneurs via education. This happens to jive nicely with the mission of my new employer, the NCIIA. This non-profit has been around 15+ years focused around encouraging, supporting and educating our university students on how to develop and grow new technology ventures. From the lab, from a class, from their heads – from an idea to a reality; from the university to the market. And 12 teams from across the nation were in Amherst to learn how to do that. The three-day intensive (VentureLab) led by James Barlow, who works with the NCIIA as well as other organizations and Tufts University.
The Ohio State University team at VentureLab
You CAN teach entrepreneurship. I know because I have done it for 15+ years. Of course you can’t make someone into an entrepreneur if he/she doesn’t have what it takes in the first place. But, as I have written in the past, I can unleash the entrepreneur within. However, a willing, bright and energetic entrepreneur does not a viable venture make. For that, he/she needs to identify a business opportunity – which means a need that can be fulfilled. And to circle back to where I started from, you have to validate the need deeply by walking in the moccasins of your customer. How do we do start that process from the classroom?
A couple of ideas based on my experiences, reinforced by the VentureLab program:
Strategy map at VentureLab
e basic premise of whether your business is focused on selling to businesses or consumers. The value proposition varies greatly between the two
Your aim is to KNOW the customer (and all the sets of customers/users). THEN you can start to articulate your value to each set. If you are doing this right, you might have different value propositions to each set of customers/users.
No matter how great YOU think that your product is, the business is about finding customers, selling to customers, servicing customers, and reaching breakeven/sustainability/profitability! Good luck!
babscarryer
Related Articles
How to kill a university spin out
Is Algeria ready for entrepreneurship?
Ayan Kishore, Mona Abdel-Halim, Paul Sutcliffe: Resunate.com