Week 4: Summer Venture Program 2017
Customer Discovery Workshop
Lots of events and activities happened during week 4 of Summer Venture Program!
During team updates, SVP Director David Chang put up each start-up’s company brief that were filled out during the first week of the program. So many things have changed since the program started! Some have accomplished their top millstones, some have solved their top challenges, and some have encountered new blockers. Shout out to everyone for making great progress.
Keith Hopper
Keith Hopper, one of our SVP advisors, was the speaker during Monday’s Lunch & Learn session. Keith is an expert in product, team strategy and skill development. He has a lot of experience working with start-ups, focusing on product-market fit. One of his favorite quote is “No business plan survives first contact with a customer” by Steve Blank. Keith believes that in order to make a good, right product, entrepreneurs need to listen and learn from their customer. Aside from talking about why customer learning is important and what entrepreneurs can take advantage of from this learning process, Keith also shared some methods that start-ups can use to test their product or business value and get customer feedback.
Lunch with David Chang
Credit to David for this great selfie while he was out for lunch with Ravish Majithia (Magnomer), Chad Caisse (BioStructures), and Eagle Wu (Vinci). SVP Gentleman Squad was formally formed 🙂
We had two Hot Seat sessions this week, where OSAM and Project 99 both presented their business pitch and received
OSAM
constructive feedback. OSAM is a start-up that produces stylish, high-tech bottles with a phase-changing material layer that can keep your drink at a stable drinking temperature. OSAM showed their prototype for the first time during the pitch, which provided the audience a chance to actually touch and feel the product. Project 99 is a service company that develops immersive experiences that inspire and enable millennials of color to become the leaders of tomorrow’s workforce. With the help of their peers, both start-ups were able to make their pitches more relatable and attractive to their audiences.
Jeff Schiebe
It was a delight to have Jeff Schiebe as our guest speaker Thursday. Jeff was a previous SVP director, is a Babson alum, and has over 30 years of international experience in business development, marketing and sales. Our entrepreneurs were able to get one-on-one consultations on marketing and sales during Jeff’s office hours.
David Chang and Yulkendy Valdez (Project 99) at Boston TechJam
Week 4 ended with David and Yulkendy Valdez of Project 99 participating in a panel at Boston TechJam. Boston TechJam is a collaboration between local tech companies, leading industry groups, the City of Boston, and you.
Come back for next week’s recap and more exciting happenings about SVP 2017! Want to know more about SVP? Visit Summer Venture Program website and follow us on Twitter and Instagram with #babsonsvp! Also save the date for Venture Showcase on Thursday July 27th. More details to come!