Course Preview | Launching a Startup from Stanford Graduate School of Business

Hello and welcome to Stanford's executive education program for aspiring entrepreneurs. My name is Stefanos Zenios and my colleagues Baba Shiv and Jim Lattin and I are excited to join you as you embark on your journey toward becoming a top-notch entrepreneur.

In this program, we will guide you through a framework we call the Startup Canvas. This framework contains four key steps to guide you through product development, deployment, and profitability.

The modules you will complete contain methods and best practices from our own research and experience, as well as the experiences of other successful entrepreneurs. The activities you will complete each week will build on these concepts.

To begin, I will guide you through identifying your customers by introducing interviewing techniques and persona development. Then I will discuss the various prototyping models and show you how to determine which technique to use to best develop your initial product offering and gather valuable feedback about it.

I will explain the importance of developing a strong value proposition and lead you through a series of exercises to create a positioning statement and test your value proposition hypotheses. Next, I'll demonstrate the importance of an appropriate go-to-market strategy and show you how to determine the customer acquisition cost for launching your product or service. Stefanos and I will then provide methods to establish a winning profit model.

Finally, I will discuss the link between neuroscience and entrepreneurship by examining how biological factors such as stress can impact decision-making and decision-shaping for both you as the entrepreneur and your stakeholders. I will offer techniques to overcome the negative influences of these factors as well as proven methods for leveraging the positive influences.

At the end of the program, you will have the opportunity to synthesize your learning by completing each step in the Startup Canvas to develop your own idea to present to potential stakeholders. Again, we want to welcome you to the program, and we look forward to seeing your success.