Launch your own startup idea for less than $1,000

ASSIGNMENT

Your assignment is to MVP your own startup idea. It could be an idea you've had for a long time, a new mobile app concept, or a dream idea like opening a restaurant. The more creative, the better. Your constraints are to work with a $100 budget and a 2-week time period to validate the concept. By the end of this project, you’ll have an understanding of how your idea will perform in the real world and what you’ll need to do to optimize it. This is the first step towards turning your idea into a successful business!

Your project workspace is a place to document your progress as you build your MVP - think of it like a journal. The phases below should help guide your project development. Upload the deliverables as you go along to get feedback from your classmates.

PHASE 1 - Your Idea

Think about how you will pitch your idea to potential customers in the simplest way possible.

Deliverables:

An image that represents your idea visually
Your business name
1 sentence that describes your idea (a tagline)
A short description

PHASE 2 - Your Insights

Start to synthesize the learnings and insights you’re getting from your customer interviews and/or conversations with friends and family.

Deliverables:

The main themes and insights from your interviews
The ways you’ll improve your idea based on these findings

PHASE 3 - Your Customers

The fun part! Go forth and sell to your first 1-100 customers. Document what happened and think through what you need to do to optimize your idea.

Deliverables:

Description of what you did to MVP your idea
Results and learnings - what worked and what didn’t work? What will you do to iterate?

RESOURCES

Watch Entrepreneurs Can Change the World (2 minutes)

Watch “#7: Building the Minimal Viable Product” by Eric Ries (3 minutes)

Read “How to Launch Your Startup Idea” by Michael Karnjanaprakorn

Read “How DropBox Started As A Minimal Viable Product”

Read “Minimum Viable Personality” by Fred Wilson

R.D. McNeil

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