We have made great progress in creating an entrepreneurship and innovation economy – and the university has been a major contributor — but now it is time to do more. In a keynote last week to the 12th Annual European Entrepreneurship Colloquium I focused on three challenges/opportunities for immediate action; reinvigorating innovation strategies of major … Continue reading »
Innovation Corps
How we changed the way the U.S. government commercializes science: Errol Arkilic — Part 1 of Episode 6 on Sirius XM Channel 111
My guests on Bay Area Ventures on Wharton Business Radio on Sirius XM Channel 111 were: Errol Arkilic, former program director for the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (NSF I-Corps), now founder of M34 Capital Steve Weinstein, CEO of MovieLabs Venk Shukla, president TiE Silicon Valley and general partner, Monta Vista Capital In my interview … Continue reading »
Why Translational Medicine Will Never be the Same
There have been 2 or 3 courses in my entire education that have changed the way I think. This is one of those. Hobart Harris Professor and Chief, Division of General Surgery at UCSF For the past three years the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps has been teaching our nations best scientists how to build a Lean Startup. … Continue reading »
I-Corps @ NIH – Pivoting the Curriculum
We’ve pivoted our Lean LaunchPad / I-Corps curriculum. We’re changing the order in which we teach the business model canvas and customer development to better-fit therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices. — Over the last three years the Lean LaunchPad class has started to replace the last century’s “how to write a business plan” classes as the foundation for entrepreneurial … Continue reading »
Why Lean May Save Your Life – The I-Corps @ NIH
Today the National Institutes of Health announced they are offering my Lean LaunchPad class (I-Corps @ NIH ) to commercialize Life Science. There may come a day that one of these teams makes a drug, diagnostic or medical device that saves your life. —- Over the last two and a half years the National Science Foundation I-Corps has taught … Continue reading »
Blinded by the light — The epiphany
“Epiphany e·piph·a·ny noun /iˈpifənē/ : A moment of sudden revelation or insight.” We now know how to teach entrepreneurs how to think about business models and use customer development to turn hypotheses into facts. But there is no process to teach how to get an epiphany. We can only try to create the conditions where this might occur. It all just … Continue reading »
2012 Lean LaunchPad Presentations — Part 1 of 2
Today, the first half of the Stanford Engineering Lean LaunchPad Class gave their final presentations. Here are the first five. It Feels Like 20 Years Ago Today It’s hard to believe it’s only been a year since we taught the first 10 teams in the Stanford Lean LaunchPad class. To share what we learned, we blogged each of those class … Continue reading »
Search versus Execute
One of the confusing things to entrepreneurs, investors and educators is the relationship between customer development and business model design and business planning and execution. When does a new venture focus on customer development and business models? And when do business planning and execution come into play? Here’s an attempt to put this all in context. Don’t throw … Continue reading »
The government starts an incubator: The NSF Innovation Corps
Over the last two months the U.S. government has been running one of the most audacious experiments in entrepreneurship since World War II. They launched an incubator for the top scientists and engineers in the U.S. This week we saw the results. 63 scientists and engineers in 21 teams made 2,000 customer calls in 8 weeks, turning laboratory … Continue reading »
Eureka! A new era for scientists and engineers
Silicon Valley was born in an era of applied experimentation driven by scientists and engineers. It wasn’t pure research, but rather a culture of taking sufficient risks to get products to market through learning, discovery, iteration and execution. This approach would shape Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial ethos: In startups, failure was treated as experience (until you ran out of … Continue reading »