COURSE NUMBER: MBA295I.1

COURSE TITLE: Entrepreneurship Workshop for Startups

UNITS OF CREDIT: 2.0

INSTRUCTOR: Doug Galen & Nancy Kamei

E-MAIL ADDRESSES: dgalen@gmail.com; KameiN@pharmacy.ucsf.edu

MEETING DAY(S)/TIME: Wednesdays, 2:00-4:00PM

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES: This course delivers an intensive and immersive approach to the study of entrepreneurship. This is a hands-on, highly interactive workshop where we will actively investigate and undertake actions and activities that create successful and scalable ventures. This workshop is intended for students who have their own venture project already under development. Teams of 2 or more class participants are required. We will also bring in guest speakers, mentors and other participants to the class to add start-up experience, domain expertise and perspective. One or two class meetings may be held off-site in an entrepreneurial environment such as a new venture accelerator, a startup, or shared workspace.

While the topics and activities may vary somewhat based on specific types of ventures, venture progress, and overall cohort composition, the class may expect to address many of the following items:

· identify and screen promising opportunities,

· create a minimum viable product and/or demo to share with the marketplace

· undertake early "customer discovery" activities

· develop an understanding of competitive positioning of products and companies

· gain understanding to "pitch" a new venture to investors and other stakeholders, including the development of key tools and skills

· obtain insights, tools and skills in effective leadership and communication in early-stage ventures and as companies grow

· address team recruitment, dynamics and communication, and culture setting

· consider and apply marketing and go-to-market strategies and tactics

· address core principles of effective branding and how to apply them

· incorporate and delineate financial models and business models, including implications of these on building and funding new ventures

· gain knowledge of broader legal issues ranging from entity formation and types to strategies to limit the liabilities of organizations and entrepreneurs

At the conclusion of this course student teams will formally present their venture to a panel of instructors, entrepreneurs and investors, replicating – and preparing for – the real world process that startup ventures undertake as they launch their company and obtain funding for growth. 

PREREQUISITE(S): MBA 295A or similar, or consent of the instructors. Many students will have previously developed a business plan and/or related materials in an academic or business environment, and/or studied entrepreneurship and start-up ventures such that they have a solid understanding of the required business tools and the business concepts underlying successful ventures. All students enrolled in the course should be actively investigating or developing a startup venture. All students must be willing to share sufficient business details with classmates, instructor and mentors as appropriate for such a workshop class. Teams of 2 or more are required.

CLASS FORMAT:  Highly interactive curriculum including much peer discussion, collaboration and input with in-class working groups and problem-solving sessions. Short lectures from guest speakers and panels. Student/company presentations with in-class analysis, critique and working sessions.

READINGS: 

Targeted excerpts from: 

· Kawasaki -"The Art of the Start"

· Livingston – “Founders at Work”

· Ries – “The Lean Startup”

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: Grades will depend on the student's progress in developing his or her team project, level and quality of participation in class discussions, working sessions and presentations, and the quality of their peer‐to-peer advising and consulting for other students’ projects along with how well the student incorporates and/or responds to input from instructor, mentors and fellow students.

Venture progress – 40% of final grade. At the start of the course students will define the current state of their venture and identify a set of assumptions they are operating under and will test, lay out core objectives for the semester with an understanding those may evolve rapidly based on market interaction and real-world findings, and identify initial tasks to be undertaken. Your grade for “progress“ will be based on the actual progress you make in developing/showcasing prototypes or minimum viable products, your interactions with prospective customers and partners any insights you take from those interactions, exploring options and iterating quickly, adapting to changing circumstances, and evolving and building the venture.

Participation – 40% of final grade. Your grade for participation includes topical presentations about your company and your efforts in starting the company, including being prepared every week to present a brief update on progress. You will be evaluated on the quality of your in-class questions and comments in instructor-led discussions and also providing feedback to your fellow students. Attendance will be a component of this portion of the grade.

Consulting – 20% of final grade. During the semester, each student will act as a consultant to another student in the course. Each student will have the opportunity to offer insights and advice to another student and their venture, and each student will also have the benefit of being a client receiving advice from fellow students. You will be judged on the quality and depth of the out-of-the-classroom work you undertook to develop your insights and recommendations, the manner in which you synthesize this information, and how the information is presented to your "client" including the ability for the good client, including how you receive the advice and integrate or act upon it.

INSTRUCTOR BIO:

Doug Galen

Doug is a seasoned entrepreneur, having held executive positions building disruptive and innovative companies. Doug most recently worked as Chief Revenue Officer at shopkick, backed by Kleiner Perkins and Greylock Partners, where he grew revenue from $4m to $26 million in 2 years. Prior to shopkick, Doug was Senior Vice President of BD and M&A at Shutterfly, where he helped grow the business from 100 people to 1,000 and increase the revenues from $50 million to $600 million, which culminated in a successful IPO. 

Prior to Shutterfly, Doug was Vice President/General Manager of New Ventures for eBay where he helped create eight new business units for the company including Tickets & Experiences, Real Estate and Health & Beauty with revenues of $500 million. Prior to eBay, Doug was employee #3 and Vice President of Sales and Business Development for E-LOAN, which grew to 1,000 people, over $150 million in revenue and a successful IPO. At E-LOAN, he was responsible for creating over 70 corporate alliances, joint ventures and acquisitions.

Doug serves, or has served, on the Board or Advisory Board of Ripple Labs, Voxeet, Edgemakers, Abe's Market, Prosper, Adchemy, Zip Realty, HomeGain, as well as the non-profit boards of PCA (Positive Coaching Alliance) and Jasper Ridge Farms.

Doug attended University of California at Berkeley where he earned a BS in Economics and a MBA with an emphasis on Real Estate and Finance. When Doug isn’t at work or with his family, you will find him on a bike cycling somewhere locally, in the US, or abroad in search of new roads to explore.

Nancy Kamei

Nancy Kamei is a serial entrepreneur and investor who is taking a Midlife Gap Year in 2014 to ponder how to spend her next ~30 years. She is currently an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at UCSF. Throughout her career, she has tried her best to balance “doing good” and “making money”.

After receiving her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from UCSF, she joined Merck to manage a $1.8m sales territory in suburban/rural Pennsylvania. After several years and Stanford Business School, she was recruited to the biotechnology industry where she was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Institutional Venture Partners and a serial entrepreneur - having been on the start-up teams of four successful biotechnology companies: Onyx Pharmaceuticals (sold to Amgen/ONXX), Tularik (sold to Amgen/ TLRK), GlycoGen (sold to Cytel/CYTL), and ImmuLogic (IMUL). She then became an analyst/portfolio manager at Capital Group Companies responsible for public equity investments in biotechnology, healthcare services and facilities, and healthcare information technology. She then transitioned to venture capital: managed minority equity investments for Intel Capital, the venture capital group of Intel Corporation, worked on an investment strategy in Global Health for Aberdare Ventures, and served as the Venture Capital Fellow for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

She is also a dedicated volunteer: Chairman of the Investment Committee for the San Francisco Zen Center, Governor of the Japanese American National Museum, Standing Member of the Stars in Global Health Review Committee (Government of Canada); and a National Instructor in the NSF’s ICorps (Lean LaunchPad) Program. She lives in Marin County and has one son, who has started his own career as an investor.