1. NUvention Web Pre-Class
Session
Thursday, 11/10/11

2. Agenda
• Registration for the course
• Class Info
• Class Structure
• Team Assignments
• Tools
• Pre-Class Assignment
• Team Meet-up

3. Admission and Selection Process
• Tried to create teams with strong skillsets across:
– Business
– Development
– Design
– Project Management
– Experience
– Passion
• Partial Priority given to graduating students
– Double-edged sword?

4. 122 People Applied to Nuvention Web

5. 64 students were accepted

6. Confirmation/Registration
• Confirm or decline your acceptance to Elizabeth
McCarthy by noon on 11/11/11.
– Your slot will be assigned to a wait list student if you
do not confirm
• Prior to 11/14, you will then receive course
permission to register
• Register
– CAESER EECS 473-1 - 20 NUvention: Web - Part 1
– Kellogg ENTR 950-0; Confirmed will be automatically
enrolled

7. Class Logistics
• First Class is 1/3/12
• 12:15 -3:15 Jacobs Center Room TBD
– 12:15-1:45 Lecture/Discussion
– 1:45-3:15 Team Meetings in SG rooms
• 3/6/12 Mid Program Pitches
– During Weinberg Reading Week
– Last week of classes for all other schools
• 2 Week Break
• 6/8/12 Final Pitches FRIDAY
– Last day of classes/reading week
– NOT FINALs WEEK

8. Current/Prior Employment
• Students teams jointly “own” work product
developed on class as long as conform to NU
Patent and Invention Policy
http://invo.northwestern.edu/policies/patent-invention-
policy
• Need to be very cognizant of current or prior
employment agreements, NDA’s, non compete’s
– Please send scans to Elizabeth McCarthy
• Want to insure each team has Freedom To
Operate

9. Switching Teams
• We tried to meet all friend requests and failed
– Too many variables to manage
• Team member switching can occur if:
– Mutual agreement between students on 2 teams
– Faculty approval to insure no team skillset
deficiency
– Sandeep is point person for these requests

10. Team Focus Area
• 8 teams of 8
– iPad/Tablet
– Mobile 1,2,3
– New Media
– eCommerce/Deals 1-2
– Big Data
• Tried to match students to top priorities but did always succeed
• Areas are intentionally broad
– Should not be viewed as constraining
– You will pivot/change idea
• Faculty Team Adviser
– TBD
• Advisory Board Coaches
– TBD

11. Your Ideas
• No critical mass of teammates for any idea
submitted
• Feel free to pitch your ideas to your assigned
team
• Pitching your idea means you need to feel
comfortable sharing the equity in your idea
• If you are married to your idea
– Prepare for a divorce
– Ideas evolve and you will pivot – Adapt.ly
– Ideas are not businesses

12. Grading
• Grading
– Heavily team based
– Individual participation is factored in
– Peer & Class evals each quarter
• One grade for both quarters
• K grade given for winter and then changed in spring
• Revised Syllabus available later this month

13. NUvention Toolset
• Nuvnetion.northwestern.edu
• BaseCamp
• ThinkFuse
• GitHub
• Evaluating:
– LeanLaunchLab
– CloudHQ
– PhoneGap
– Heroku
• Your suggestions?

14. Advisory Board Role
• NUvention: Web advisory board members will assist in the
following areas:
–
– Curriculum Oversight – Advising faculty team on the best curriculum
for launching Web/software companies
–
– Networking – Assisting faculty and students to network to optimize
curriculum and learning to exceed NUvention Program goals
–
– Mentoring Students – Direct advising of a student team that is
working in an area of your personal interest
–
– Funding – Assist in obtaining support to defray program costs. The
Farley Center provides seed capital.

15. Faculty
• Lecturers
– Todd Warren, Mike Marasco, Chris Riesbeck (EECS),
Mohan Swahney (Kellogg), Carter Cast (Kellogg)
• Team Advisors
– In process
– Commitments:
• Marasco, Warren, Riesbeck, Birnbaum, Cast
• Team Mentors
– Advisory Board Members

16. NUvention Web First Quarter
Concierge MVP and Advisor Pitch and
•Define Customer Segments Customer Validation •Agile Development Demo
•Initial Concept Critique •Customer Acquisition
Preclass •Landing Page
•Tool and Environment
•Minimum Viable Product
•Value Proposition
Strategies
•Complete Business Model
•Pitch Development
•Concept Demo
Concept Selection •Hello World Application Canvas •Initial Development
Development •Storyboarding and UI •Real World Feedback
•Depth Customer Research
MVP and Initial
Product Hypothesis
Canvas

17. NUvention Web First Quarter
Development & Final Pitch,
•Critique of updated canvas Canvas Iterations •Building Awareness Product, Canvas
•Launch Planning •Positioning
•Revisiting the Canvas •Detailed Canvas
AB •Iteration Planning
•Understanding the Pivot •Agile Development
•Customer Recruitment
•Successful Launches •Practice Pitch
•Continuous Deployment •Financing your startup
Feedback •Startup Metrics
•Compelling UI •Real World Feedback
Time to Pivot? Soft Launch

18. Teams- Big Data and iPad
Big Data iPad/Tablet
• Gunjan Agarwala • Zahra Ali
• Yu Cheng • Jake Carter
• Sabil Huda • Diana Kost
• Christian Kletzl • Marzena Medlak
• Joe Mullenbach • Bhargavraj Patel
• Badhri Varanasi • Cameron Sieber
• Jiang Wang • Aaron Steinfeld
• Jeremy Watt • Candice Tse

19. Teams-eCommerce
eCommerce/Deals #1 eCommerce/Deals #2
• Dennis Ai • Joydeep Bhattacharyya
• Andrew Allen • Elton Cheung
• Richard Choi • Tabrez Ebrahim
• Vanessa Hsieh • Chase Jackson
• John Lynch • Dhrumil Mehta
• Sree Meenakshi • John Seo
Rachamadugu • Abhishek Sood
• Eleanor Vernon • Ross Yesikov
• Tarun Vijayvargiya

20. Teams-Mobile 1 and 2
Mobile #1 Mobile #2
• Rahim Daya • Thomas Boonsiri
• Joshua Eddy • Michael Davis
• Ross Epstein • Rachel Hepworth
• Paul Lieponis • Abdallah Jabbour
• Seth Nelson • Bharath Pattabiraman
• Felipe Saavedra • Nic Roth
• Taiyo Sogawa • Pubudu Silva
• David Tagler • Mitra Veeramasuneni

21. Mobile 3 and New Media
Mobile 3 New Media
• Peter Eck • Gabriel Brotman
• Tyler Hagen • Taylor Culbertson
• Moneik-Marie Lewis • Christopher Erwin
• Dan Lindquist • Jonathan Friedman
• Xudong Liu • Katherine "Scottie"
• Alexander Madjar Gambill
• Lawrence Shieh • Muhammad Kashif Malik
• Xin Zhao • Ryan McAfee
• Gabriel Peal

22. Pre-Class Assignment
• 5 potential product concepts
• 5 or more customer interviews in your target
market
• Due by morning before class Tuesday January
3, 2012

23. Minimum Viable Product
“the minimum viable product is that version of a
new product which allows a team to collect the
maximum amount of validated learning about
customers with the least effort.”
• Eric Ries, StartupLessonsLearned.com, August 3, 2009
http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/08/minimum-viable-product-guide.html

24. Product Concept
• Concept Name
• Brief Description “It’s a website that lets users
build and share profile pages designed for college
students”
• Target customers “We are targeting college
students in ivy league colleges first to use the
system. We will work with advertisers who want
reach this audience”
• Team skills: “Since we are college students we
have a unique view of what they want”
• Priority

25. The Overall Statement
• The X that does Y for Z is a useful formula for focusing.
– X: what it is; should be sufficiently narrowing and focused
– Y: The main function it solves
– Z: The unifying customer/user statement
• Examples:
– Microsoft Project is the desktop software that does critical
path tracking/planning/charting for project managers who
use PC’s
– Farmville is the social game that makes it possible to
plant/grow/share simulated farms for Facebook casual
gamers

26. What is on the back of the box?
XYZ Social
Validation
Top
System
Features Requirements

27. Motivating Scenario
• Describes the user problem and how the problem is
addressed with the product.
• “Jerimiah is a music lover in his 20’s. He owns an iPad,
and synchronizes some of his favorite music. He
wishes he could see more information about the music
he is listening to and find related information.
Groovebug takes his music collection and makes it an
interactive magazine, pulling the latest news and
videos of bands he’s heard about; and telling him
about related artists he may be interested in. He loves
paging through it”

28. Defining the Project Area
• An overall design challenge within your topic area
• Identify what you know
– What people need or want
– What technologies can help
– What solutions or idea are being tried in other areas
– Early hypotheses about how to solve the challenge
• Identify what you need to learn, e.g.:
– About what customers do or feel
– How customers value current offerings
– What future needs may be
– What are the challenges to implementing a solution
Source: IDEO Human Centered Design Sourcebook, 2009

29. Customer Segment Hypothesis
Interview
Source: Running Lean

30. Finding customers
• People you know
• People you view as “experts” in understanding
the area
• Places they hang out (e.g. to reach outdoor
enthusiasts, talk to people at REI, the Apple
store)

31. Successful NUvention Teams…
• Identified critical gaps in development knowledge/ambition
and worked with faculty to address
• Engaged face to face with stakeholders/customers early
• Started some development in the first 3 weeks of class:
“spikes”
• Picked an initial concept that was simply explained and
implemented, and started a customer conversation (MVP)
• Ran each meeting well with clear follow-up
• Had every member pitch in and refused to silo into
school/major stereotypes

32. Team Breakout
• Introductions and background
• Set pre-class meeting times/approach
• Initial concept discussion and assignment
approach

33. Team Assignments

34. Teams- Big Data and iPad
Big Data iPad/Tablet
• Gunjan Agarwala • Zahra Ali
• Yu Cheng • Jake Carter
• Sabil Huda • Diana Kost
• Christian Kletzl • Marzena Medlak
• Joe Mullenbach • Bhargavraj Patel
• Badhri Varanasi • Cameron Sieber
• Jiang Wang • Aaron Steinfeld
• Jeremy Watt • Candice Tse

35. Teams-eCommerce
eCommerce/Deals #1 eCommerce/Deals #2
• Dennis Ai • Joydeep Bhattacharyya
• Andrew Allen • Elton Cheung
• Richard Choi • Tabrez Ebrahim
• Vanessa Hsieh • Chase Jackson
• John Lynch • Dhrumil Mehta
• Sree Meenakshi • John Seo
Rachamadugu • Abhishek Sood
• Eleanor Vernon • Ross Yesikov
• Tarun Vijayvargiya

36. Teams-Mobile 1 and 2
Mobile #1 Mobile #2
• Rahim Daya • Thomas Boonsiri
• Joshua Eddy • Michael Davis
• Ross Epstein • Rachel Hepworth
• Paul Lieponis • Abdallah Jabbour
• Seth Nelson • Bharath Pattabiraman
• Felipe Saavedra • Nic Roth
• Taiyo Sogawa • Pubudu Silva
• David Tagler • Mitra Veeramasuneni

37. Mobile 3 and New Media
Mobile 3 New Media
• Peter Eck • Gabriel Brotman
• Tyler Hagen • Taylor Culbertson
• Moneik-Marie Lewis • Christopher Erwin
• Dan Lindquist • Jonathan Friedman
• Xudong Liu • Katherine "Scottie"
• Alexander Madjar Gambill
• Lawrence Shieh • Muhammad Kashif Malik
• Xin Zhao • Ryan McAfee
• Gabriel Peal