Yesterday’s slides are posted under Module 3, technology and Markets, Market Analysis, and this evening’s slides are posted under the Communication Module, Business Plan:
In case you didn’t get Harold Slawik’s company name written down, his website is at: www.newcounsel.com
I enjoy when Harold presents because he is very honest and fully discloses the realities of starting new technology companies. He could have tried to sell us on how great of an entrepreneur he is, or how great of an attorney he is, but he was very forthright about his experience, and very willing to answer questions. It’s a great opportunity to have some sort of access to a guy like this, who has experience and is trustworthy.
I think he touched on good points about how some things, like equity ownership division among team members, have to be re-negotiated and adjusted, and it’s not just about contracts. This is the perspective of an attorney, who could shroud his opinions in legal-speak, but instead acknowledges that to get things done, people have to be reasonable. What did you think?
This headline is likely to boost NewWater, a group based on UMN technology from last year’s class. A new study relates to the problem that NewWater helps to solve: concentration of the herbicide atrazine in runoff. The study is one more piece of evidence that their team can use to support their claim that there really is a problem. Read about it, today’s USA Today article, “Tap Water contaminant ‘castrates frogs” or MoneyTimes article “Weedkiller atrazine alters sex of frogs“.
FYI, we have made a few updates to the schedule shown on the syllabus, and have posted an updated version of the syllabus with those changes. The most important are as follows:
2/23 – We will not have the Business Reference Librarian come again. Maybe when most of the groups are further along in their business concepts.
1. I posted slides from the yesterday under Readings and Discussion/Module – Communication.
2. I added the Industry Creation Report under assignments. The grading rubric that we will use is listed there, along with the pairings. The industry creation signup tab was taken off the webpage.
Next class:
No reading for next class. We will have a quiz on the the first two modules. The final two groups will present their business concepts. We will begin discussion of the Module on Technology and Markets, and have a tinkertoy activity to illustrate this.
You need to select the industry on which you will write your industry creation report today by midnight. These reports are scheduled to be due on March 2nd, which is coming up fast. As I wrote in my e-mail, when you select your industry, write down a sentence explaining how this industry is defined.
This article from the economist discusses whether business processes should be patentable. It has a good discussion of the purposes for patents and whether they actually serve those intended purposes.
I have posted the projects that have been presented in class on the page “Project Team Selection”. Please log on to the site and post your top three preferences in a comment. You will need to be proactive about searching to find a group. We are not going to assign groups. Once you have a group formed (no more than 4 students), please tell us and we will record this.
I have also posted the reading for Thursday. This reading is particularly important for those who plan to work in a tech startup that is based on technology connected with universities.
I posted an example of the business plan, the worksheet that you will use for the feasibility analysis, and the business concept worksheet on the “Assignments” tab, which shows on the front page. We will be going over them in more detail later.
Also, if you’re interested in the statistics that we shared on entrepreneurship in general, you can see the book that we based it on:
We’ve updated the course website by adding the current syllabus (see sidebar), which has changed significantly from Spring 2009. A description of the course is shown below. Several students have signed up already, so it looks like we will have a pretty full class. The writing intensive designation process is progressing, so it should be approved soon.
Please register on the website so that you can post comments to the website. This website is intended to facilitate out-of-class learning and knowledge-sharing. If you have any questions, please send us an e-mail: Hans at rawho003@umn.edu; Nachiket at bhawe001@umn.edu.
MGMT 4080, Applied Technology Entrepreneurship, is a new course that provides a unique understanding of how technology-focused firms are created, and provides students with experience commercializing real technologies. Technology commercialization topics that lie at the intersection of technology and business will be the focus of the class, and upper-division technology and business students are the target audience. Topics will include intellectual property, technological convergence, industry creation, technology standards, modularity, and technology strategy. Students will apply these principles by assessing the commercial potential of real technological ideas, either their own, or ideas provided by UMN’s Office of Technology Commercialization. The final outcome of student group work will be a business plan for commercializing the new technology.
This semester we have been provided two portfolios of intellectual property from UMN researchers. The first is in medical educational simulation (virtual reality training and learning related to surgeries). The second portfolio is based on intelligent surveillance and monitoring. Two student groups from first offering of MGMT 4080 in Spring 2009 are currently proceeding with start-up activities. If you would like to learn more about the class, please visit our class website: http://www.techventuresource.orgor e-mail bhawe001@umn.edu for more information.
I think that this is great idea. I don’t know any time when I actually read the textbook in high school, and I was as studious as they came. I had a huge blue duffle bag with all of my textbooks and notebooks that I drug along with me everywhere (I never used the locker room). I hope that this will be the tipping point that will start the tidal wave away from paper waste and huge, needless expenditures on pricey books that no one really reads.
Designed to be an “open-source” learning resource for entrepreneurship. An important part of this course which brings together technology and business school students to turn ideas into viable businesses.
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class. A new study relates to the problem that NewWater helps to solve: concentration of the herbicide atrazine in runoff. The study is one more piece of evidence that their team can use to support their claim that there really is a problem. Read about it, today’s USA Today article, “
