Get advice for creating a new product and launching your idea. Our authors are faculty, staff, students and professionals. Read what lessons they can share about ideation, prototyping, company formation, law, marketing and more.
“I wish I knew what to do with all of this extra time on my hands…” said no college student ever. If your life is anything like ours, you would love six extra hours at the end of every day. But how come amidst textbooks, midterms, finals, homework and parties, many students have realized that […]
As the producer of BIOTA, a science documentary web series focused on educating millennial audiences about creating symbiosis in their world, entrepreneurship is essential. BIOTA started in 2013, when my close friend Sabah Ul-Hasan and I discussed our angst of my having experienced prejudice working as women of color in our fields, for me as […]
Successfully founding a startup is hard. One of many challenges is the necessary shifting between your long-term vision for the business, on one hand, and rigorous short-term testing of critical hypotheses about it on the other. I call these different perspectives the telescope and microscope. The telescope represents the big-picture vision for a startup. It’s […]
Ask me how many times I have to write “entrepreneurship” just to spell it right. Entrepreneurship is something I have to explain to everyone I meet. “How do you study that? Wouldn’t it be more beneficial to just start a company?” Those are valid questions! The term itself is somewhat ambiguous. But here is what […]
No matter what your circumstances, becoming an entrepreneur is not easy. The hours are long. The future is uncertain. And challenges hit you at every turn. If you want help finding your path to success, it helps to find a good role model … someone like Sariah Tate, one of many female entrepreneurs on the […]
Have you ever wondered what it is like to work for a startup? What is it like to have an idea and make it a business? Do you like entrepreneurship? Do you like to be challenged? It was about a year ago when I started thinking about these same questions. That’s why, after graduating as […]
The most important piece of advice I can offer anyone looking for an internship during college is to “be interested, not interesting.” It worked for me. Let’s flashback to my junior year in college when I was struggling to connect the post-graduation dots. At the time I was (and still am) deeply passionate about startups […]
Entrepreneurs are notorious for giving marketing efforts a backseat to product development, funding and other immediacies. This oversight costs them. A solid marketing strategy should be built into the business plan from the start and implemented as soon as you have a minimum viable product (MVP). As Mark Cuban says, “sales cure all.” The inverse corollary would be that a dearth of sales dooms an enterprise.
You’re launching a venture. Things are happening fast. It’s all you can do to manage the day-to-day as your outlook veers from rosy to dire and back to rosy. Developments come at you like waves. In the chaos and exhilaration of the startup experience, globalizing your business might be the furthest thing from your mind. […]
A little more than a year ago, I found myself in the back seat of a car with Brody King. After discussing our previous business experiences and aspirations, he told me a story: “I was shadowing a surgeon when I noticed that he was frequently adjusting the overhead light. I actually ended up stepping on […]
