The Curriculum
LaunchPad is not a class about entrepreneurship; it is an accelerator.
(It is a place to launch a business)
It’s an intense, action-based program designed for those who are primed to build their business through action (not planning). Over the course of 10-weeks, teams will incorporate, develop robust prototypes and test them, and find key customers and investors, and ultimately prove their offer viable or not.
Launchpad does not offer roadmap, no secret formula (in fact you can look at some great materials in the resources section nothing secret). Launchpad offers the chance for founder to take action, in effect launch smaller parts of the business, fail (almost always), learn and iterate. FAST.
Ai is integrated in everything we do. For the past year we have used Ai tools to build, organize, evaluate, and even launch business prototypes. We work quite hard on finding the limits of AI and what value the founder can add in partnership with thee AI tools.
The History
Launchpad was founded in 2009, by Michael Dearing and Perry Klebahn. The one singular idea was that student founders needed to take action and build their start ups (not plan) and in doing this be part of a program that allowed them to learn through (sometimes) relentless, build, test, fail, and iterate cycles. Although so much has changed with the times in terms of the materials we use in Launchpad, That simple idea sits in the middle of everything the program does now as it did in 2009.
Key principles of the program
1 | Sell First, find the Pain Point
Find your customer, sell them the offer, prove our you hypothesis about the problem they have then iterate a solution. plan later (or never)
2 | Experiment
Eliminate risk and uncertainty through experimentation. We accept founder with a proven history of experimenting. This is the ONLY criteria we choose founders by.
3 | Support Fellow Teams
Collaborate with and help other founders. Your ability to see an opportunity in another founder’s start up they can jot is profound. We leverage this.
4 | Inspire others
Articulate your vision for you business quickly and routinely be able to inspire interest in others.
5 | Compost your failures
Fail fast, learn and iterate faster than the competition
6 | Learn to move faster
Iteration and learning quickly is the key metric for the zero to 1 start up. We focus on nothing else.
Key differentiators of the program
Access to a vibrant startup network:investors, market experts, Stanford alumni, mentors, renowned incubators and accelerators (i.e. Alchemist, Y Combinator, etc) and work space in Silicon Valley
Get to market NOW - prove product market fit in 10 weeks
Launchpad is entirely applied nothing is done that is not about getting your company started.
This is not a class - it is an accelerator. Your startup is a business not a project in Launchpad