Jul

3

Be Willing To Kill Your Idea

July 3, 2008 | 1 Comment

If you’re like me, you love to come up with ideas. Inspiration strikes at any time and you immediately start to mentally construct the b-plan. What are my startup costs? What capital do I need to start this? What inventory will I need? What will be my distribution method? What will the company’s name be? What is the target demographic? How much do I need to sell in order to break even? Who do I know that would fit great on this team? If you’re not asking yourself these questions, you need to take your idea to the next level and start asking them! Not only do you have to ask all of these questions, write up your answers, run the numbers, and ask yourself whether or not you would be passionate enough about this idea, but also you have to ask yourself if this is feasible and worth your time

What Assumptions Are You Making?

After running through the planning stage and figuring out what situations would make the numbers work, I often find myself becoming too excited about the idea and wanting to immediately start the implementation. But, before you focus your attention like a laser, ask yourself whether or not your assumptions make sense. Do you really think you can sell that many cups of coffee in a day? Do you really think 10% of the people who visit your site will sign up? Did you pay yourself for the amount of time you will commit to this endeavor, the number of sleepless nights, the countless headaches? Be ruthless in your evaluation and if any of your assumptions are shaky, be willing to kill the idea. It’s better to let an idea die and move on to your next big plan than to sink hundreds of hours of your time into an idea’s implementation that ultimately fails.

What Questions Should I Ask?

  • Why hasn’t it happened? This is one of the best questions to ask because good ideas are a dime a dozen. Rather, it’s the implementation, execution, and timing that have more to do with success. Everyone thought video on the internet was going to be a big thing, but it wasn’t until YouTube came around that the conditions were just right - enough people had broadband internet, people had access to video equipment, and they made it super simple to upload your video and share it.
  • Is this something people will actually buy? A common sense question, but needs to be asked nonetheless. If you are targeting students and you are a student, would you buy your own service? If you aren’t part of the target demographic, ask someone who is.
  • Is there IP around it? What will prevent competitors like a Microsoft or Google from entering the field and doing what you do at a lower price? Is there something you can patent, a trade secret to be developed, or a business process to leverage? In the case of internet startups, this is much harder to do and is somewhat impractical, but in a medical devices company, you don’t have a company unless a patent is present.
  • How will you get distribution? In the Information Age, it is much easier to get exposure, yet also much harder. To get a website up and start marketing is simpler than ever before, yet because it’s so easy, what’s separating you from the other hundred websites competing for the same eyeballs? Distribution is key and by leveraging different marketing, publicity, and partnership streams, along with killer value, it may be just enough to gain traction in this sea of information.

Conclusion

As you can see, merely coming up with an idea and fleshing out some of the logistics isn’t enough. Sure, it all looks great on paper, but given the real-world business environment it becomes absolutely necessary to check if your assumptions are airtight. Any small hole could lead to a devastating failure. A quick story about the importance of assumptions is with my business mentor. He was in the process of starting a medical devices company. He had done all of the market research, had assembled a killer team, had worked out the numbers, and everything looked like a go. The only problem was that the patent holder had previously licensed the technology to a company that was now failing and instead of re-licensing the patent, he instead wanted to juice whatever he could from the failing company and essentially let the patent expire. As you can see in this case, setting up an agreement with the patent holder is a somewhat small but extremely critical part of starting this business, and after hundreds of hours were invested the business plan collapsed and is no longer viable. Final lesson: Check your assumptions, and if anything critical isn’t set in stone, be willing to drop the idea without looking back.

Mar

5

ETL - Ken Wilcox

March 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Today’s speaker, Ken Wilcox, is probably one of the funniest and most personable entrepreneur we have had come to the class. He shares the story of his life in becoming an entrepreneur and provides some pretty amazing insight into why he made the decisions he made and the wide ranging impact of said decisions. You can listen to the original podcast here or check out the notes below.

Background

Ken Wilcox is president and CEO of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) Financial Group. Since January 2000, when he took on the role, he has successfully pursued a strategy of expansion and diversification while remaining focused on the company’s core niches of technology, life sciences, private equity and premium wineries.

Wilcox joined SVB in 1990 when he co-founded the company’s East Coast Technology Division. In this role, Wilcox managed the first regional office of Silicon Valley Bank and was responsible for all lending activity east of the Mississippi River. After being promoted to chief banking officer in 1997, Wilcox moved from Massachusetts to California and became president and CEO within four years.

Prior to joining SVB, Wilcox spent two years as a member of the Technology Lending Group with the Bank of New England and five years at Shawmut Bank in Boston. Before he began his banking career, Wilcox was a professor of German at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Wilcox received a bachelor’s degree in German studies from Oakland University and a Ph.D. in German Studies from Ohio State University. He also earned a master’s of business administration from Harvard Business School. Finally, Wilcox is a member of the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group.

Personal Narrative of History

As a little bit of history, Wilcox tells us that he went to Harvard Business School, because he didn’t get into Stanford’s Business School. From there he started pursuing his wife and adds a humorous anecdote that he is still pursuing her. Just before he graduated, he realized that he didn’t have a job and needed to get one somehow. After being denied left and right, he ended up at a banker’s meeting and went up to the speaker afterwards and told him that it was the most interesting speech he had ever heard. Right then he was hired as a banker, and 25 years later he is lending money to technology startups.

His first career job was at the Bank of New England, and after posting a loss of $1 billion in 1990, which was the largest posted by a bank in US, he decided to move out of Bank of New England. He brought his boss and some friends around, and they left to a better bank - SVB.

Silicon Valley Bank

Wilcox passionately and simply states that their mission is to ‘Help entrepreneurs succeed.’ After that, he articulates that their vision is to be the leading provider of innovative financial services to entrpreneurial companies of all sizes worldwide. It doesn’t seem to have been a bad idea because today they employ 1,200 people, and if you include the contractors from India, the number grows to 1,300 people. They have 50% marketshare of backing for venture companies, they are the bank for more than half of the existing venture funds, and they invest in more than half of the existing venture funds. SVB is one of 8000 banks, and only top 250 get attention. Because they are the 100th largest, they consider themselves the littlest big bank or biggest little bank.

How Silicon Valley Bank Works

As a simple banking lesson, there are depositors and borrowers. They take money that is deposited and lend it out to others. Technology companies in specific deposit seven times as much as other industries deposit, and this can result in a big drag on return on investment (ROE) and return on assets (ROA) if not lent out. To take advantage of this return on investment and make money for the bank, Wilcox analyzes the three CEO’s and what they did right and wrong. The first CEO, Roger Smith, lent money to real estate developers. The real estate developers borrow the money and buy buidings, and when a recession comes, they can’t pay you back. As a result, they had their first and only loss in history. The second CEO, John Dean, decided to lend money to underserved niches. Ultimately, they discovered that they were underserved for a good reason - it wasn’t a good niche. Examples include churches and independent film makers, and to highlight the failure is that they found out that 15 of the films they invested in would not sell at the box office. But, because it occurred during the boom of 1999-2000, their massive warrant gains from investments compensated for the niches’ failures. After that, he came on as CEO and decided to put the money in broker dealer - CD’s, etc - and that ended up being a huge success. In fact, it worked so well that they now have $7 billion in the bank and $22 billion in the broker dealer (and held on to the premium wineries niche).

SVB 4 Points of strategy

  • Focus exclusively on technology. 95% of everything they do is technology and the other 5% is premium wine. Even though many VC’s and CEO’s drink wine, it’s still a pretty flimsy argument for maintaining this niche.
  • Expand product set. Because you only have the startup as long as they can use your your products, you have to expand in order to keep them longer.
  • Keep businesses longer. The key is to get the startups before they seek venture capital, hopefully as early as when they have an idea and business plan. What essentially happens is that as they get larger and the product set no longer fits, they drift off. What Wilcox realized is that they were nursing these startups and then spinning them off to Wells Fargo who would get all of the profits.
  • Expand geographic scope. They now operate in Boston, Shangai, Bangalore, Mumbai, London, and Israel.
  • Make more money by spending less. This is a very simple and obvious one, but Wilcox decides to point it out anyway. He noticed that in 2006 they had a 19% growth in expenses. They were spending $17,000 per employee, and in order to save money they started to 1) squeezing vendors 2) outsource tasks to people who can do it less expensively and 3) reduce steps in business process. The result is only a 2% growth in expenses for 2007.

Culture is Key

Most people in most corporations are unhappy. 50% of people are looking for a better, happier job, and Wilcox decided to highlight some of the keys to their success in establishing a great culture. The culmination of these lessons has led SVB to be the 6th best performing bank in the nation.

1) Who we hire vs who we try to keep.

  • Hire intelligent people - Hiring intelligent people allows you to develop better solutions to problems and act on them more quickly.
  • Hire a Diverse Set of People - SVB’s employees speak over 50 first languages, and over half have never worked at bank before.
  • Hire People Who Can Work as a Team - To put solutions into effect, you need a team. Encourage people to work in a team through the culture you create.

2) Culture promoted.

  • Be respectful - There is nothing that can destroy morale quicker than a work environment that disrespects the individuality of the individuals who work there.
  • Use metaphors - These are especially helpful at describing what you want to accomplish. In the case of SVB, the whole organization is an orchestra, with every part being equally important and requires that everyone needs to play simultaneously in order to make beautiful music. A second metaphor they use is a boat with oars. Everybody has to have an oar and pull on it in unison, otherwise they start to go in circles.

Q: Day to day basis, how do you influence culture?

First, by maintaining awareness when interacting with others. Second is by unit evaluation that is done in groups and is evaluated by peers.

Q: Do you have venture fund?

There is over a billion invested in venture funds. They put it into best funds they can, with 1/4 of the total invested in debt funds and another 1/4 put into their own venture funds.

Q: What other markets are you looking at for international expansion?

Canada potentially. Vietnam and Eastern Europe are emerging markets, so they don’t want to bite of more than they can chew.

Q: When should startups come talk to you?

As soon as you’re serious about looking for money. Even before a little bit is fine.

Q: What services do you offer?

As a simple answer, all the things that you could get in other places. One other major benefit is that they arguably know more people than any other bank in the startup ecosystem. Their goal is to help people find capital and give good advice too. Essentially, one thing a startup should realize early is that it is best to let others do what isn’t your expertise, and that’s where SVB comes into play. They can help introduce you to things you need, such as bookkeeping, attorneys, method of payment for employees/vendors, capital, equity and debt capital.

As a point of insight from a bankers perspective, Wilcox points out that all lenders need 2 sources of repayment. The first has to be pretty certain, and the second has to be dead certain. The salary is a good source of first repayment, and the second source is the house. In a business, the first source is cashflow and the second is saleable assets (stuff banker can sell).

Conclusion

Ken Wilcox provided an illuminating and interesting perspective on the world of banking. I found it particularly insightful and advantageous (at least in my humble opinion) to have SVB as my bank for a startup because they not only can provide me with the banking services I need but are also willing to help me find other people I need in the ecosystem. The obvious benefit, even though it is a little delayed, is more business for them in the future. Finally, the talking points about a great culture and working as an orchestra was particularly powerful and worth sharing when I’m in team environments.

Feb

27

ETL - B-Corporation

February 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Today’s entrepreneurs are Andrew Kassoy, Bart Houlahan, and Jay Coen Gilbert. They are thee founders of B-Corporation, a nonprofit that’s looking to create a hybrid corporate system (like C-corporations and S-corporations) that bakes a social mission right into the Articles of Incorporation. It’s a great idea and these guys have a lot of work ahead of them, but they definitely have an interesting story to tell. Here’s the original podcast or read the notes below.

Background: Debra Dunn

Debra Dunn was our moderator for the interview. She is currently working as an Advisor to Social Ventures around the world and is an Associate Consulting Professor at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University. She originally worked at HP for 22 years, and he most recent role there was as Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Global Citizenship. While in that role, she was responsible for HP’s social and environmental initiatives, and her work resulted in numerous awards and widespread recognition. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Comparative Economics from Brown University and a master’s degree in business from Harvard School of Business.

Background: Andrew Kassoy

Andrew graduated from Stanford where he was a Truman Scholar and President’s Award winner, and went to work for 16 years in the private equity business. His most recent role prior to B-Corporation is as an affiliate of MSD Caital, a $12 billion investment vehicle for Michael Dell. Andrew is also a board member of several prominent organizations such as Echoing Green and Wall St. Without Walls.

Background: Bart Houlahan

Prior to B-Corporation, Bart was CFO, COO and President of AND 1, a $250 million basketball footwear, apparel and entertainment company. Bart joined AND 1 in its second year when revenues totaled just $4 million, and over the course of eleven years Bart helped scale the business to $250 million in revenue and distribution in over 85 countries worldwide. Bart is also a Stanford graduate and after graduation went to work as an investment banker with Stonebridge Associates, BNY Associates, and Prudential-Bache Securities, specifically focused on providing corporate finance and merger and acquisition services to small-cap businesses ranging in size from $20 million to $500 million.

Background: Jay Coen Gilbert

Jay is a co-founder of of AND 1 and was in charge of product development and marketing for most of his 13 years. He was also AND 1’s CEO during its period of most rapid growth. Jay graduated from Stanford University with a degree in East Asian Studies and then went to work for McKinsey and Co as well as several organizations in NYC’s public and nonprofit sectors. Currently, he is also co-chairman of Investor’s Circle, a national angel network dedicated to “Patient Capital for a Sustainable Future.”

What do these guys have in common?

All of them went to Stanford University and did the “respectable” career of investment banking right after graduation. Bart and Jay worked with AND 1, the sports apparel company, and then sold it off. They have all been extremely successful in business and financially, and now they’ve started to do the social entrepreneurship business.

What is B-Corporation?

The idea behind a B-Corporation is to use a business vehicle to create public benefit. This is done through three prongs:

  1. Standards. The business has to be comprehensive and transparent, to show both B-Lab (B-Corporation’s parent nonprofit) and consumers that they creating public good for society.
  2. Legal structure. The cool thing about this type of corporation is that it necessitates that the Articles of Incorporation includes the interests of employees, suppliers, the community, and the environment.
  3. B Corporation logo. The main point of having this is to show consumers that you have your social standards baked right into your business and set you apart as a responsible corporation.

How is it different from other certifications?

  1. Performance - The goal is to measure the company’s impact, while most other certifications are product specific or industry specific. The idea is to be more comprehensive and widespread that the other certifications, which makes it easier for consumers.
  2. Acccountability - Baking in the social mission right into the Articles of Incorporation is a way to ensure that the corporation is accountable to people besides shareholders.
  3. Transparency - By making your information publically available, it is easier for consumers and other interested parties to make sure you are doing what you say you are.

Why did you start B-Corporation?

Andy answered this question by putting together three “Aha!” moments. The first is that we live in a “schizophrenic society” in which people are becoming wealthier and pursuing the luxurious lifestyle, yet they are desperate to find meaning in their lives. The second is that 75-85% of all economic activity is private sector driven. Finally, the third is that there needs to be a legal structure/standards body that supports the goals of creating public benefit in a corporation.

Who has signed up?

Jay responded by saying 80 organizations signed up in first few months. A couple examples are Method, Seven Generation, King Arthur Flour, Good Capital, TBL Capital, Agora Partnership, 17 different states, and a couple of industries. If you go to their website, you can find more information on the organizations that have signed up. :)

What do you get out of it?

Bart took the liberty to answer this question with the simple answer that it’s all about differentiation. The more companies use words like organic, social responsibility, etc., the less they mean. There has to be a legal component that ensures the mission is maintained over time. Even though there are a host of services available, they want to influence the market beyond individual organizations.

Andrew added a bit to the question by saying it is hard for mission oriented businesses to grow and create change. There is a tremendous amount of capital that’s layered upon layered and the result is that no one uses their own capital. The risk of this is that if there is a corporate takeover, there is a huge risk of losing the mission if it’s not baked in.

How does it work and how do you get the word out?

Jay answered by saying B-Corporations pay a small licensing fee to B-Lab - $1 per $1000. This money is used to further their goals through advertising, talking to policy managers, etc. There is a huge amount of potential for them because there are 20,000-30,000 business in the nation in a 40-50 billion dollar market. Now, because of their robust business model, they can take a cumulative approach to marketing. Because going green is good and the community is building in itself, it’s very similar to their story of spending $500,000 for an advertisement with AND1 and getting $60 million in stories. They are riding the momentum of the green wave and it makes their job much easier at getting the word out.

What’s it like sharing job and not having CEO?

Jay - The key to success is to get smarter people all around you and then ask them not to leave. By focusing on what needs to get done versus fulfilling roles, it enables you to do more and do it better. If you do it with people you love and respect, you can be really critical through total trust. Only through these friendships can people effectively bounce things around and correct bad ideas.

Bart - The team with most superstars wins. Also, the best ideas win. The only reason they have job titles on their business cards is because too many people didn’t know what they each did. Because you can’t do it alone, you always need a team. Finally, you have to have the humility to know that some good ideas come from outside organization; therefore you need to listen to your team, staff, and community.

Andrew - Ego was what won the day in previous environments. Because he’s not an entrepreneur or manager, but rather an investor, he knows his role and can function very well doing it. It’s all about knowing who’s going to take control of what and doing everything better as a team. You ultimately succeed or fail as a group.

What would a startup need to do to live up to B-Corp standard, and would that slow down the startup?

The best way to effectively become a B-Corporation is to provide all of the information from the get-go so it can be built in right away. If you are already incorporated, go to bcorporation.net, then you’ll see a survey and lists everything you want. Finally, do not incorporate in Delaware, because it is best for shareholders that are generally profit driven. Instead, incorporate in New York or Pennsylvania because the shareholder laws are recognizing the value of B-Corporations and having the mission portion baked in.

What does it mean to be a social entrepreneur and have a social enterprise?

Jay decided to answer this question by saying that a social enterprise is a business. We are not Ashoka and we don’t intent to be. We started in nonprofit, but bled into the for profit world. We really don’t want to get into that debate, but rather provide a new standard. Bill Drayton’s definition is broad and nebulous, and what they are doing is giving a focus to the term

Why B-Corp?

It’s a path towards formal legal recognition. The ‘B’ stands for the benefits created for everyone.

Conclusion

Overall, I feel that Andrew, Bart, and Jay have a long, uphill battle, but with their vision, skills, and tenacity I feel that they can get where they want to be within a few years. I don’t think B-Corporation has hit their inflection point yet, but if they build up enough momentum through the socially conscious businesses we have studied in my Social E ASB class, then I think they could make some real change. As for the key takeaway value-wise, I think these men stand as a testament to the idea that you should go into business to work with your best friends, have fun, and change the world.

Feb

26

Social Entrepreneurship ASB - Elliot Brown

February 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Class today was great because we had Elliot Brown of Springboard Forward talk to us. He had a very interesting story, which I will highlight below, and then for the last remaining portion we talked about “theories of change” - what they are, what they mean, and the impact they have. Overall a very good class, with a couple of lessons learned highlighted, and one of the better stories told about a nonprofit and their success.

Elliot Brown Background

Elliot is a Stanford graduate who started working at Sun Microsystems corporation in their philanthropic arm to get a feel for the CSR landscape. After working there he worked at an East Palo Alto office running a small program and learned how not to do many things. One of the biggest downfalls was that there wasn’t enough talent in the environment, but one of the major bonuses was getting a view of how about thirty organizations worked. Then, he left that organization and started doing some consulting. One thing he started to notice is that when organizations are looking for manpower, they call temp agencies versus nonprofits that are working to find employment for their constituents. In other words, he was perplexed at why companies would pay temp agencies for workers when certain nonprofit groups were providing the service for free.

The Birth of SpringBoard & SpringBoard Forward

It was at this insight that led to the development of his first company - SpringBoard. The idea was to take the nonprofit people’s and provide them with jobs by being a middle man staffing agency “cover.” After four years, he started SpringBoard Forward, a nonprofit, that focused on helping these unemployed individuals develop the skill and mindset to succeed in the workplace. After  running two organizations for six months, he definitely felt taxed and decided to shut down the for-profit and focus on the nonprofit. The reason being is that with a nonprofit you can be market driven, get funding, and have access to resources that regular businesses don’t have access. But, he also admits that he felt he needed to learn how to run a business before jumping to the nonprofit idea.

Where is SpringBoard Forward Today?

Even though traditional nonprofits have problems of scaling (due to lack of resources), he is working to create a much larger organization that can accomplish the vision of the organization. The issue that he has identified is that many of the individuals being placed by these temp agencies are low income and don’t have hope in the process of getting out of poverty and going places. His job is to help them develop and come to the job with a completely different attitude - come in with a passion, belief, and vision for the future. The ideal question he wants the people he’s helping to ask is, “How can I use the position I’m in to get where I want to go?”

While they feel they have some initial results, it hasn’t been in effect long enough to develop the proof of concept they need to scale more effectively. Because the lowest paid employees interact the most with the customers (and are Eliot’s target “client”), companies want these individuals to be engaged and effective. As such, the goal is to cut turnover in half and measure employee engagement in the process to determine effectiveness. They have a small amount of success for the people they help because 44% are promoted and receive a raise within four months of employment. But, this doesn’t do enough to establish much business value. One test he would like to do is perform several projects on a pretty big scale and evaluate the results. Did sales go up in the project group or control group?

Personal Training

This was my favorite part of the talk and stemmed from a question I asked, and that was, what is the process you provide to help these people figure out what they want to do with their lives? Elliot starts out with the amazing insight that the ethic used to be to have a good living and now it is to love what you’re doing. This developed because of the emptyness many felt from monetarily successful jobs. The idea, then, is to provide a 1 on 1 coach that asks you wat you want and what are you going to do about it? Most have the mindset that SpringBoard Forward is going to help them, but the problem is that the individual doesn’t know what to do after the coach is gone. Instead, the coach kicks them in the @ss and keeps them going. They also spend eight hours going through a “9 Step Process to Clarity.”

Getting Managers on Board

A second prong is to work with managers so that they are bought into the value of helping employees.  For example, if the employee is interested in being a plumber and is working in a hotel, the manager could hand off all plumbing jobs to that employee. The result is a completely changed relationship, and this relationship is important because the #1 factor for turnover is relationship with the manager.

Lessons Learned

  •  Build small successes before shooting for huge ones. Prove the concept before trying to score huge deals that would most probably collapse in failure.
  • Think outside the box. The idea of creating a for profit placement agency that used the nonprofit’s people was creative and worked to accomplish goals for all parties involved.
  • Inspire hope. This is a bit about philosophy, but inspiring hope and meaning into a person’s life provides that individual with a sense of purpose.
  • Identify and eliminate biggest impediments to success. If the number one reason for problems that prevent your success aren’t being addressed - like managers in Elliot’s case - then you will never attain the level of success you are looking for.
  • Set up metrics to measure progress and maintain accountability. Even though Elliot is the manager, and admits he isn’t very good at it, he is still accountable to his board and the board can fire him if he’s not performing.

Theory of Change

The general idea is to identify the major problems that prevent your goal from being implemented. Then, for each of these problems, figure out some action that can be done to take care of this issue, then follow up by measuring your success. Performing case studies on a couple organizations was very helpful in understanding the significance of this process and I think it is a great idea for any mission-driven organization.

Conclusion

Very cool class that provided a lot of insight into the life of a nonprofit. Elliot was very insightful and someone I would like to see in the future to hear how SpringBoard is progressing. The idea of a theory of change is definitely interesting, and I think it is necessary for any nonprofit to use this method of evaluation every six months to keep a hold on what they are doing and whether or not it is furthering their mission.

Feb

22

Discovering Entrepreneurship - E-Week Kickoff!

February 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment

So, the moment I have been waiting for all quarter - the Entrepreneurship Week Kickoff and world premiere of the movie “Imagine It!”. The video is about entrepreneurship week last year at Stanford and did an absolutely FANTASTIC job at highlighting what entrepreneurship is all about and I highly recommend anyone interested in entrepreneurship to watch it. That said, here’s a quick overview of what’s happening throughout the week… Or check out the website.

Saturday 2/23: “Pump Up Your Creativity” Workshop

Tina Seelig, who I’ve mentioned here, here and here, is hosting this and should be absolutely fantastic. It will be a great workshop for pumping up the creative juices for the Innovation Challenge!

Sunday 2/24: Funding Social Enterprises: Panel & Showcase

There will be four individuals on the panel and they are all involved with social entrepreneurship in different ways.  Here’s a quick list of the people.

  • Jenny Shilling Stein, Executive Director of the Draper Richards Foundation
  • Jessica Jackley Flannery, Co-Founder and Director of Business Development of Kiva.org
  • Amy Clark, Ashoka, Global Fellows Program Leader
  • Suzanne McKechnie Klahr, Ashoka Fellow and Founder of BUILD

Monday 2/25: Innovating for Health — BYOB! (Bring Your Own Brain)

Interesting looking event in which the audience will help with a brainstorming activity to help solve the problem of child obesity. A panel of experts has been invited to discuss the top five issues in this area, and after the panel there will be a kick off  for a three-day competition - the Innovating for Health Challenge. The winner will be announced at the Entrepreneurship Week Closing ceremony.

Tuesday 2/26: Be Careful What You Wish For - Getting Media Attention for Your Company

To develop awareness, many entrepreneurial endeavors look for media coverage. The only problem is that it can be a minefield, and thus requires very careful planning to get the message right to prevent greater problems later on. In this information session, we will find out how to get a journalist’s attention.

Wednesday 2/27: ETL - B-Corporation

This week’s ETL involves Stanford graduates as founders of B Corporation. Jay Coen Gilbert, Bart Houlahan, and Andrew Kassoy are the founders and they’re goal is to set standards for corporate responsibility and hold companies to their promises. It should be an extremely interesting presentation and they have a super ambitious goal…

Thursday 2/28: “Startup 101″ Job Fair

Cool job opportunities from a wide range of industries from Web 2.0 to cleantech, medical devices, and biotech. Some cool Stanford startups will be there as well as some “traditional” companies like Google and Facebook.

Friday 2/29: Innovation Tournament Showcase and Closing Ceremony

This is the close of Entrepreneurship Week and we’ll be finding out who won prizes for Most Money, Most Social Value, Most Creative, Biggest Flop and more.

And the surprise item for the week… Rubberbands!

So the goal for this week in the Innovation Challenge is to create the most value - however you define value - with rubberbands. I already have a couple ideas, so it should be really interesting… For the next few days I’ll be working with a team to do what comes to mind!