Course Description
Are you working on a startup? Are you wondering what you should do next? Which way to jump? Then this course is for you.
Maybe you completed a Challenge Lab and you want to build on your momentum. Maybe you just got through BMOE Bootcamp and the team wants to stay together to see where you can take this thing. Maybe you have a prototype you love, and you think you’re ready to start selling. Maybe you are generating revenue and think you’re ready for a big investment, or admission to a famous accelerator. Or maybe you and some friends just crystallized “the best idea ever.” Whatever stage you have reached, the annoying truth is that most teams get stuck or fall apart before they can ever deliver their full potential. Let’s work to avoid that outcome for you.
You will work closely with a lead instructor who has lived both success and failure through every stage of startup creation and development. Together we will honestly address real and difficult startup challenges to seek the truth about the future for each idea, team, and market opportunity. Teams will work in a hands-on collaborative environment actively engaging their own startup’s challenges while also helping their classmates, learning from the instructor, each other, and possibly outside speakers & mentors.
Some of you may need to focus on team dynamics and development, others on concept development and customer discovery / validation, still others on demo / prototype / product development, and more. We will work together to design and deploy real-world solutions to accelerate each team’s progress, based on their specific immediate challenges. This acceleration will either increase the likelihood and speed of success, or could possibly drive faster realization that the business will not work as designed, and you need to pivot or stop.
Access to this course is by application which will open in July. For acceptance you must have a team of at least two people working on your startup, but not all team members need to be in the course.
This is a project-based course, and some class meetings may be held virtually on Zoom.
Application will be made available in July 2024.
Instructor
Mark Searle
Mark Searle is an award-winning serial entrepreneur and instructor from the US. He currently serves as Lecturer & Industry Fellow at the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology (SCET) at UC Berkeley and as Managing Director of the Innovation Acceleration Group (IAG). During more than 20 years as co-founder, CEO or COO of eight different early-stage and growth-stage startups, Mark worked across multiple industry sectors including enterprise software, cyber security, big data analytics, consumer-facing internet marketing, online dynamic image hosting & delivery, artisanal food distribution & retail, vertical farming / agro tech, 3D printing / rapid prototyping and more. He holds an MBA from Harvard, an AB cum laude from Princeton and studied in the Ph.D. program in English at UC Berkeley. Mark was named a Distinguished Graduate Student Instructor in the UC Berkeley English Department,, received the Richard H. Holton Teaching Fellow Award from the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship at the Haas School of Business, and was named Best Instructor for Fall 2021 and Fall 2022 at SCET. In his younger days he was a member of the US Alpine Ski Team Downhill Training Group.