Summary
This is a team, multi-part deliverable. You should start looking at this at the start of the Term Project part of the course so you know what you are working towards. Don’t be scared by all the words below, I am just trying to be clear and detailed. Questions are welcome!
Remember, 9 out of 10 startups fail. It is not expected that each project yields something that merits investment. The important things are the journey, the process, and what you learned that will help you be a better entrepreneur.
Final Presentation Day (“Friendly Shark Tank”)
On Xday, December x at y time, we will have final presentations. Several industry and/or venture experts will be invited to listen to each team do their presentations, ask questions, and have one on one conversations while we munch on snacks and drink delicious beverages.
This 8 minute presentation. Will be delivered by all the students on a team (although they don’t all have to speak or speak the same number of minutes.) The presentation needs to be rehearsed and fit to the time constraint. Questions will be held to the end, and will go for up to 5 minutes. You can think of the audience as angel investors.
The Judges will ask to reviw the projects as if they were looking for angel funding. Their review will be based on the formal presentation. But your grade will be based on that plus the the additional deliverables described below.
Check out some photos from previous Presentation Days!
What Judges will be looking for
NB It is crucial that the reader/listerner clearly understand what your product is trying to do and for who. More than once I've seen the audience puzzled about the basic question: what is this product and what does it do? Don't let that happen to you! Test it with friends and family!
My instructions to them will be something like this:
- Students have been studying Lean Startup for 3 months
- They have worked in teams of about 4 on a product of their own devising
- They are given 8 minutes to present their business
- It is likely that they have pivoted at least once during the semester
- They have written a far more detailed report (but that you won’t be looking at
- Please look for the following:
- Can you really understand what they are proposing?
- Have they done a credible job backing up their story with ‘outside’ data?
- Are they persuasive in their presentation?
- Consider the proposed pricing, growth assumptions, and market segments
- Would you give this team seed money to develop the ideas further?
Specific Deliverables to Submit to Latte
Due on the last day of class, at 11:
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**: Slides for the presentation. These should be submitted for grading as a pdf. (Note that slides may be resubmitted up until the day before Showcase day.) (PDF)
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Term Project Final Report: Final Report for your project, with additional information (max 15 pages.) You can assume that whoever reads it also has the presentation slides. The report should be of an academic high quality (in terms of writing, formatting, grammar, spelling and so on.) You may think of the audience for this piece to also be angel investors. You should submit it for grading as a pdf. See term project report (PDF)
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Portfolio Web Site: A “portfolio” static web site, consisely reporting on the project, the process and the results. Here are some suggestions for the This is part of your portfolio which we will add to a Cosi Projects web site and you can use for letting other people learn about your project. (URL)
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Brandeis Projects Description File: A text file describing the project, following those instructions. This will create the entry for your project in BrandeisProjects (TEXT file - not .pdf, .html, .md, .jpeg, .rtf, or .doc)