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Rapid Startup School
Are you launching a startup? Trying to grow your business? Raising funding for a new venture? Rapid Startup School can give you the tools and knowledge you need to succeed.
Whether you are an experienced entrepreneur or are just starting your business, there’s a Rapid Startup School class for you. These classes, which are taught by leading practitioners and experts from across the Valley, are offered on a regular basis on a wide range of entrepreneurship- and startup-related topics.
To register, check out the upcoming class offerings below or visit our event registration page.
The following Rapid Startup School modules will be held at the the AREA48 formation space located at 699 S. Mill Ave. in Tempe and will be streamed live at the new Eureka Loft in the first Alexandria Co-working Network collaboration space at the Scottsdale Civic Center Library.
Thursday evenings from May 23 - June 27
Lean Principles for Startups
Lean Principles for Startups is a six-week series of classes and workshops designed to guide motivated entrepreneurs from business idea to execution. In this exciting hands-on series, participants will learn how to successfully transform their concepts and ideas into products and services that customers want to buy. In a nutshell, this series will teach participants how to validate their business opportunity in a way that will make customers want to buy and investors want to invest. Please register below and contact Tracy Lea at tracy.lea@asu.edu with further questions.
May 23, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Lean Principles for Startups
This is the first module in a six week series called "Lean Principles for Startups". This kickoff class/workshop will introduce you to new methodologies for launching and growing your business in the most effective way while providing some background on how lean principles found their way into to world of entrepreneurship and startups. Participants will also be introduced to and get hands on experience with the Business Model Canvas, a visual tool for mapping and communicating your business model. Register now!
May 30, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Finding Product Market Fit
During this second module of the six week series "Lean Principles for Startups", participants will learn the difference between problem/solution fit and product/market fit. Entrepreneurs will learn how to effectively utilize the Value Proposition Canvas to better empathize with customers by understanding the jobs that their target market are trying to get done, the pains associated with getting those jobs done, and the gains that they are seeking. Participants will then learn how to create products and services that relieve the pains experienced by their customers and create the gains they are seeking. Register now!
June 6, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Customer Development
This is the third module in the six week series "Lean Principles for Startups". In this module, participants will learn the methods of Customer Development and Lean Startups and tactical processes for implementating these conceptual frameworks. Participants will get to practice crafting hypotheses/assumptions around their Value Propositions and Customer Segments and learn how to "get out of the building" in the process of discovery and validation to determine whether or not they have found problem/solution and product/market fit or whether they need to "pivot". Register now!
June 13, 5:30-7:30 p.m.
Design Thinking
In this fourth module of the six week series "Lean Principles for Startups", participants will be introduced to the concept of Design Thinking, a customer/user centric approach to designing products, services, and solutions to the problems and challenges that your target markets face. Register now!
June 20, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Agile Engineering for Product Development
During the fifth module of the six week series "Lean Principles for Startups", participants will learn methods of Agile Engineering as a process for product development and understand its importance in building products and services in Lean Startups. Register now!
June 27, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
A Lean Startup Case Study w/Shower Start
In this last module of the six week series "Lean Principles for Startups", Troy Sherman of Hotwire Development will tell the story of one of their products, Shower Start, and explain how they applied lean principles and methods to take an idea to launch and grow scalable business. Register now!
Previously held, original Rapid Startup School courses
Military, Defense and Veterans
Rapid Startup School – Lean LaunchPad
Rapid Startup School - Lean LaunchPad, is a ten week program that guides motivated entrepreneurs from business idea to execution. In this exciting, hands-on course participants learn how to successfully transform their concepts and ideas into products and services that customers want to buy. In a nutshell, Lean LaunchPad teaches you how to validate your business opportunity in a way that will make customers want to buy and investors want to invest.
This program follows the Lean LaunchPad curriculum and methods developed by serial Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Stanford professor Steve Blank. Even better, it ACTUALLY WORKS! Lean LaunchPad ensures that you are able to implement immediately, working in teams to talk to customers, partners, and competitors, as you encounter the chaos and uncertainty of how a startup actually works. You’ll learn how to use a business model canvas to brainstorm each part of your company and customer development as you "get out of the building" to see whether anyone actually wants to use your product.
Each block is a new adventure outside the classroom as you test each part of your business model and then share the hard earned knowledge with the rest of the class. You will learn more in 9 weeks with Lean LaunchPad than most entrepreneurs learn in their entire career!
We only accept a limited number of TEAMS of entrepreneurs that are passionate, curious and extremely agile. Each team member must be able to commit to 10-15 hours per week of customer development work as well as complete the assigned videos and readings each week.
For additional questions regarding the Lean LaunchPad course, please contact the course instructor, Benson.Garner@asu.edu.
Held Fall 2011 and Spring 2012
Rapid Startup School started as an evening ‘pracademic’ (e.g. modules taught by practitioners), free, evening startup program run in ASU SkySong in the fall of 2011. Due to overwhelming interest the program was run again in early 2012.
This initial Rapid Startup School is an overview of ‘doing a startup’ which occurs on a twice weekly basis over an 8 week period. The program was aimed at graduate students, doctoral students, postdoctoral researchers while also including a number of ASU alumni and some external participants. This mix of participants is designed into the program as we know that startup teams with mixed backgrounds tend to be more successful overall.
The main objective of Rapid Startup School (RSuS) is to two-fold:
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To allow doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers to get an understanding of commercialization (improve grant proposals)
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To stimulate this underserved part of the university ecosystem, a group that are often doing cutting edge research themselves and may have less to lose engaging in a startup along with external interested parties.
The program is made up of twelve mini- modules of 2-3 hours each, covering the key areas needed to start a new company. This overall startup program has been run twice in the last 10 months, both classes ‘sold out’ with seventy participants in each one. As opposed to standard academic modules and programs, this part-time program envisages a very ‘pracademic’ approach to developing an entrepreneurial mindset and real new venture creation. The program modules are taught by pracademic adjunct faculty from leading external organizations, supplemented by online modules from the ASU Venture Catalyst.
Rapid Startup School 101 Program Outline:
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Introductory session on entrepreneurship and speed networking among participants; begin the team formation and idea speculation phase
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Modules will be delivered in 2-3 hour sessions in late afternoons, once or twice a week for the duration of the program. Modules are delivered over a period of 7-8 weeks to allow for reflection and further development between modules.
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After the module schedule concludes, one-on-one meetings with relevant new startups to further develop their ideas, assign appropriate mentors, etc., will be scheduled with ASU Venture Catalyst team members.
A number of new startup companies have started including one of the new Edson startup cohort for 2012/13. Indeed we see this as a feeder to startup activity like the Furnace accelerator and the Edson student accelerator, with 8.5% of this year’s Edson applicants coming directly out of the RSuS class.
Although we will continue to run this Rapid Startup School 101 (as we are now calling it) ASU Venture Catalyst is also developing a series of specific Rapid School programs aimed at very particular areas or segments of the economy. These new programs will roll out from September 2012 onwards starting with our specially developed program aimed at helping to create a military technology cluster in Arizona.
Rapid Startup School – Military, Defense and Veterans
Many successful consumer companies have been created by military veterans: from Nike to Re/Max to FedEx to Arizona’s very own GoDaddy. The state has a long and proud military history and is home to so thousands of veterans and leaders in the current defense and aerospace industries.
In September 2012, ASU Venture Catalyst launched a new Rapid School "MDV" program targeting military, defense and veteran entrepreneurs with leadership, engineering and technology backgrounds. This program executed the first phase of a wider MDV strategy that ASU SkySong will implement during 2012-13 to help develop a new breed of startup companies in the security and defense sector.
Our objective is to help create new startups in military technology and related fields, including homeland security, personal security, information security, border security, supply chain solutions, defensive technologies and those military technologies with private or consumer applications.
Practitioners for the Fall 2012 Rapid Startup School MDV included:
Maj. Gen. Carl Schneider (Ret.), Dr. Werner Dahm, Director, ASU Security & Defense Systems Institute, Mant Hawkins, CEO, Kaonetics Inc., Chris Stalzer, Principal Designer, Juggernaut Defense, Paul Smiley, CEO, Sonoran Technologies, Dennis Merens, Venture Capitalist and former Managing Director of Dow Ventures, and Jay Rogers, CEO, Local Motors
Future MDV programs are in the works. For information or to join the mailing list, email Tracy.Lea@asu.edu.