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We simply completed the fifteenth<>annual Lean LaunchPad class at Stanford. The category had gotten so in style that in 2021 we began educating it in each the winter and spring classes.
In the course of the 2025 spring quarter the eight groups spoke to 935 potential prospects, beneficiaries and regulators. Most college students spent 15-20 hours every week on the category, about double that of a standard class.
This Class Launched a Revolution in Instructing Entreprenurship
This class was designed to interrupt out of the “the right way to write a marketing strategy” because the capstone of entrepreneurial training. A marketing strategy assumed that every one startups wanted to was to put in writing a plan, increase cash after which execute the plan. We overturned that orthodoxy after we identified that whereas current organizations execute enterprise fashions, startups are looking for them. And {that a} startup was a brief group designed to seek for a repeatable and scaleable enterprise mannequin. This class was designed to show startups the right way to seek for a enterprise mannequin.
A number of government-funded applications have adopted this class at scale. The primary was in 2011 after we turned this syllabus into the curriculum for the Nationwide Science Basis I-Corps. Errol Arkilic, the then head of commercialization on the Nationwide Science Basis, adopted the category saying, “You’ve developed the scientific methodology for startups, utilizing the Enterprise Mannequin Canvas because the laboratory pocket book.”
Beneath are the Classes Realized displays from the spring 2025 Lean LaunchPad.
Workforce Cowmeter – early detection of cow infections via organic monitoring of milk.
If you happen to can see the Workforce Cowmeter presentation click on right here
I-Corps on the Nationwide Institute of Well being
In 2013 I partnered with UCSF and the Nationwide Institute of Well being to supply the Lean LaunchPad class for Life Science and Healthcare (therapeutics, diagnostics, gadgets and digital well being.) In 2014, along side the Nationwide Institute of Well being, I took the UCSF curriculum and developed and launched the I-Corps @ NIH program.
Workforce NowPilot – AI copilot for enhancing focus and govt perform.
If you happen to can’t see the Workforce NowPilot presentation click on right here
I-Corps at Scale
I-Corps is now provided in 100 universities and has educated over 9,500 scientists and engineers; 7,800 members in 2,546 groups at I-Corps at NSF (Nationwide Science Basis), 950 members in 317 groups at I-Corps at NIH, and 580 members in 188 groups at Vitality I-Corps (on the DOE). 15 universities in Japan now train the category.
Workforce Godela – AI physics engine – with a primary disruptive market in packaging.
If you happen to can’t see the Workforce Godela presentation click on right here
$4 billion in Enterprise Capital For I-Corps Groups
1,380 of the NSF I-Corps groups launched startups elevating $3.166 billion. Over 300 I-Corps at NIH groups have collectively raised $634 million. Vitality I-Corps groups raised $151 million in further funding.
Workforce ProspectAI – An AI gross sales improvement agent for lean gross sales groups.
If you happen to can’t see the Workforce ProspectAI presentation click on right here
Mission Pushed Entreprenurship
In 2016, I co-created each the Hacking for Protection course with Pete Newell and Joe Felter in addition to the Hacking for Diplomacy course with Jeremy Weinstein at Stanford. In 2022, Steve Weinstein created Hacking for Local weather and Sustainability. In 2024 Jennifer Carolan launched Hacking for Training at Stanford.
Workforce VLAB – accelerating scientific trials with AI orchestration of knowledge.
If you happen to can’t see the staff VLAB presentation click on right here
Design of This Class
Whereas the Lean LaunchPad college students are experiencing what seems to them to be a totally hands-on, experiential class, it’s a rigorously designed phantasm. In reality, it’s extremely structured. The syllabus has been designed in order that we’re providing continuous implicit steering, construction, and repetition. This can be a important distinction between our class and an open-ended experiential class. Steering, Course and Construction –
For instance, college students begin the category with their very own preliminary steering – they imagine they’ve an concept for a services or products (Lean LaunchPad/I-Corps) or have been given a transparent real-world downside (Hacking for Protection). Coming into the category, college students imagine their objective is to validate their commercialization or deployment hypotheses. (The educating staff is aware of that over the course of the category, college students will uncover that the majority of their preliminary hypotheses are incorrect.)
Workforce Blix – IRB scientific trial compliance / A management layer for AI governance for monetary providers.
If you happen to can’t see the staff Blix presentation click on right here
The Enterprise Mannequin Canvas
The enterprise mannequin / mission mannequin canvas presents college students steering, specific course, and construction. First, the canvas presents an entire, visible roadmap of all of the hypotheses they might want to take a look at over the whole class. Second, the canvas helps the scholars goal-seek by visualizing what an optimum endpoint would appear to be – discovering product/market match. Lastly, the canvas gives college students with a map of what they be taught week-to-week via their buyer discovery work. I can’t overemphasize the essential function of the canvas. In contrast to an incubator or accelerator with no body, the canvas acts because the connective tissue – the body – that college students can fall again on in the event that they get misplaced or confused. It permits us to show the idea of the right way to flip an concept, want, or downside into business observe, week by week a chunk at a time.
Workforce Plotline – A sensible advertising calendar for writer’s e book launch.
If you happen to can’t see the staff Plotline presentation click on right here
Lean LaunchPad Instruments
The instruments for buyer discovery (movies, pattern experiments, and many others.) provide steering and construction for college students to work exterior the classroom. The specific objective of 10-15 buyer interviews every week together with the requirement for constructing a continuing sequence of minimal viable merchandise gives metrics that observe the staff’s progress. The necessary workplace hours with the instructors and help from mentors present further steering and construction.
Workforce Eluna/Driftnet – Information Heart knowledge aggregation and vitality optimization software program.
If you happen to can’t see the staff Eluna/Driftnet presentation click on right here
AI Embedded within the Class
This was the primary 12 months the place all groups used AI to assist create their enterprise mannequin canvas, construct working MVPs in hours, generate buyer questions, analyze and summarizing interviews.
It Takes A Village
Whereas I authored this weblog publish, this class is a staff venture. The key sauce of the success of the Lean LaunchPad at Stanford is the extraordinary group of devoted volunteers supporting our college students in so many important methods.
The educating staff consisted of myself and:
- Steve Weinstein, companion at America’s Frontier Fund, 30-year veteran of Silicon Valley expertise firms and Hollywood media firms. Steve was CEO of MovieLabs, the joint R&D lab of all the main movement image studios.
- Lee Redden – CTO and co-founder of Blue River Expertise (acquired by John Deere) who was a pupil within the first Lean LaunchPad class 14 years in the past!
- Jennifer Carolan, Co-Founder, Accomplice at Attain Capital the main training VC and writer of the Hacking for Training class.
Our educating assistants this 12 months have been Arthur C. Campello, Anil Yildiz, Abu B. Rogers and Tireni Ajilore.
Mentors helped the groups perceive if their options may very well be a commercially profitable enterprise. Because of Jillian Manus, Dave Epstein, Robert Feldman, Bobby Mukherjee, Kevin Ray, Deirdre Clute, Robert Locke, Doug Biehn, and John Danner. Martin Saywell from the Distinguished Careers Institute joined the Blix staff. The mentor staff was led by Todd Basche.
Abstract
Whereas the Lean LaunchPad/I-Corps curriculum was a revolutionary break with the previous, it’s not the top. Within the final decade enumerable variants have emerged. The category we train at Stanford has continued to evolve. Higher variations from others will seem. AI is already having a significant affect on buyer discovery and validation and we had every staff record the AI instruments they used. And at some point one other revolutionary break will take us to the subsequent degree.
Filed below: Buyer Improvement, Lean LaunchPad |
