Course Overview

High Level Overview

  • The Lean Startup During the first weeks we will read a lot of the Lean Startup Book. We will also form teams to apply the techniques as we learn them to the Pilot Project.

  • Building Term Project For the remaining 9 weeks of the term, we form new teams, and begin work on the actual term projects. During class we continue to cover the Lean Startup further, and also delve into other topics that the Technical co-Founder needs to undertand: product design, user interface, architecture, and some businbess issues too: financing, pricing, growth and so on. The course culminates with a Project Showcase with invited guests and judges.

  • Guest Lecturers During the semester we will bring in real life entrepreneurs to talk about many of the topics that we cover in this class!

  • Project Showcases At the end of the semester we will have a Product Showcase (known as the “Friendly Shark Tank”) where each of the project teams will deliver a brief presentation and demo of their products.

The two major projects

  1. Pilot Projects During the first 4 weeks all students, working in teams of five attack the “Pilot Project”: Given a very brief vision statements, each team applies the Lean Startup framework to study and analyze the same product to figure out whether and how it should be formed into a company. This stage culminates in team presentations of findings.

    • Read more:* The Pilot Project: Description of the Pilot Project, how it works, what the deliverables are, and what the process is.

  2. Term Projects During the rest of the semester, all students work the “Term Project”, a product of their invention. New teams of 4 students are formed. They again apply lean startup methodology, this time much more comprehensively to reach the end of the term with a solid plan, again culminating in presentations.

    • Read more:* link_to_topic :cosi165a_term_project_outline: Description of the Term Project, how it works, what the deliverables are, and what the process is.