As the Lean Startup Advisor at the University of Windsor, I just finished mentoring part of the future of Windsor Essex – and there are good reasons to be optimistic!
I was part of supporting a group of startup founders that incubated their business ideas over a 12 week period provided by the EPIC Innovation Centre at the University of Windsor. Their efforts culminated in a demo-day on July 31, 2015.
The growth and evolution of their business idea is fun to watch, but by far the greatest joy is to see the personal development of each founder. They courageously stepped out of their comfort zones to expand their skills and mindsets and they also developed an appreciation for how the complimentary skills across a mutli-disciplinary team are required in a startup. Please read more about the event here.
We used our Test Your Business Idea program with this cohort in order to tackle a common challenge for startups – premature product building! A startup founder (especially a technical founder) will naturally want to start building a prototype and invest their time reducing their “product risk” or tackle the technical challenges. However, the biggest risk is the customer risk or market risk. Reducing this risk is not just about randomly going out and interviewing potential customers though, there is a scientific method that reduces the potential biases and a necessary mindset of learning and discovery required to get it right.
This cohort embraced the mindset and the methods and got great learning and discovery from the best source – their future customers. Some of these experiences helped them understand what Mark Twain meant when he said:
It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.
This cohort of student entrepreneurs now “gets it”. They know how to challenge their assumptions and validate or invalidate them. I am proud to have contributed to the experiential learning they received.
We need to invest more time and effort in programs like this one. Our future depends on it – and today, thanks to these brave young minds, that future is looking brighter!
