Last night was the UM Student Startup Showcase at the new TechArb location where 225 Ann Arbor entrepreneurs gathered to see not only the 8 most recent student startups to complete the TechArb program but also to meet the 20 new UM Student Startups entering TechArb for session #7 (Nov-2011 through April-2012). Many thanks to…
We have made great strides in developing and teaching skills and processes that help entrepreneurs figure out how to take their ideas, reduce risks and more efficiently test and validate (or invalidate) they’re assumptions. As you probably know I’m a huge fan of the lean startup model and customer development. I’m also really happy to…
A record number of University of Michigan student startup teams have applied for access to TechArb for the upcoming session (#7 – November 2011 through April, 2012). Tomorrow (Monday) we have interviews with each of the startup teams that are finalists for the remaining slots for most of the day. I really enjoy meeting entrepreneurs…
“(2030) Order edited or modified” is the latest status on my Chevy Volt order when I checked today… and I’m thrilled! It’s been two weeks since the last change to my Volt order (originally placed on 8/25/2011) and I was craving some update as to the status of my future car… incidentally, the update on…
40! Apparently, as that is the number of teams that have applied to be part of this year’s Michigan Clean Energy Venture Challenge (almost doubling last year)! This is really exciting as we have completely revamped the Michigan Clean Energy Prize to be an acceleration project instead of a business plan competition. The teams that are…
This is the final blog post of the Acceleration Project. See last week’s post for the Acceleration Phase and the first post in this series for an overview of what I’m rambling on about here. On the evening of Thursday, April 21, 2011, 40 student startup ventures met in the basement of the parking garage…
This is the third phase (fourth blog post) of the Acceleration Project. See last week’s post for the Skill Building Phase and the first post in this series for an overview of what I’m rambling about here. I was thinking back to a strategy session I was having at one of my early startups I…
Last week I posted an overview of the Acceleration Project concept, which I believe, is a much better substitute for business plan competitions. (see last week’s post for an overview of the concept) This week I wanted to spend more time on the first part of the Acceleration Project – the Application Phase. Why, you…
Today, Walt Haverstein, the CEO of SAIC co-lectured at University of Michigan’s Entrepreneurial Ownership course (ENGR 490.005). Walt shared the duty and case study review with Mary Ann Beyster, President of the Foundation for Enterprise Development and the daughter of SAIC’s founder, Dr. Beyster. This was a great opportunity for our students to see how…
Doug Neal 