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We simply completed the 15thannual Lean LaunchPad class at Stanford. The category had gotten so fashionable that in 2021 we began instructing it in each the winter and spring periods.
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 per week on the category, about double that of a traditional class.
This Class Launched a Revolution in Instructing Entreprenurship
This class was designed to interrupt out of the “learn how to write a marketing strategy” because the capstone of entrepreneurial schooling. A marketing strategy assumed that each 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 learn how to seek for a enterprise mannequin.
A number of government-funded packages 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 technique for startups, utilizing the Enterprise Mannequin Canvas because the laboratory pocket book.”
Beneath are the Classes Realized displays from the spring 2025 Lean LaunchPad.
Staff Cowmeter – early detection of cow infections via organic monitoring of milk.
When you can see the Staff 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, at the side of the Nationwide Institute of Well being, I took the UCSF curriculum and developed and launched the I-Corps @ NIH program.
Staff NowPilot – AI copilot for enhancing focus and govt operate.
When you can’t see the Staff NowPilot presentation click on right here
I-Corps at Scale
I-Corps is now supplied 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.
Staff Godela – AI physics engine – with a primary disruptive market in packaging.
When you can’t see the Staff 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.
Staff ProspectAI – An AI gross sales growth agent for lean gross sales groups.
When you can’t see the Staff 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.
Staff VLAB – accelerating scientific trials with AI orchestration of knowledge.
When you 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 actual fact, it’s extremely structured. The syllabus has been designed in order that we’re providing continuous implicit steerage, construction, and repetition. This can be a essential 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 steerage – they imagine they’ve an concept for a services or products (Lean LaunchPad/I-Corps) or have been given a transparent real-world drawback (Hacking for Protection). Coming into the category, college students imagine their aim is to validate their commercialization or deployment hypotheses. (The instructing staff is aware of that over the course of the category, college students will uncover that the majority of their preliminary hypotheses are incorrect.)
Staff Blix – IRB scientific trial compliance / A management layer for AI governance for monetary providers.
When you can’t see the staff Blix presentation click on right here
The Enterprise Mannequin Canvas
The enterprise mannequin / mission mannequin canvas affords college students steerage, express course, and construction. First, the canvas affords a whole, 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 supplies college students with a map of what they be taught week-to-week via their buyer discovery work. I can’t overemphasize the vital position of the canvas. Not like 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 learn how to flip an concept, want, or drawback into industrial observe, week by week a bit at a time.
Staff Plotline – A sensible advertising and marketing calendar for writer’s e book launch.
When you 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.) supply steerage and construction for college kids to work outdoors the classroom. The specific aim of 10-15 buyer interviews per week together with the requirement for constructing a continuing sequence of minimal viable merchandise supplies metrics that observe the staff’s progress. The obligatory workplace hours with the instructors and help from mentors present further steerage and construction.
Staff Eluna/Driftnet – Information Heart information aggregation and vitality optimization software program.
When you 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 submit, this class is a staff mission. 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 essential methods.
The instructing staff consisted of myself and:
- Steve Weinstein, associate at America’s Frontier Fund, 30-year veteran of Silicon Valley expertise corporations and Hollywood media corporations. Steve was CEO of MovieLabs, the joint R&D lab of all the foremost 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, Companion at Attain Capital the main schooling VC and writer of the Hacking for Training class.
Our instructing assistants this 12 months had 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. Due to 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 tip. 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 impression on buyer discovery and validation and we had every staff record the AI instruments they used. And sooner or later one other revolutionary break will take us to the subsequent stage.
Filed below: Buyer Growth, Lean LaunchPad |
