Lecture 3
January 11, 2012
Mentor introduction
Teams
Market Hypotheses
Vision Statement
Introduction of mentors
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Elizabeth Tito
Al Schneider
Kevin Scanlon
Bob Buce
Ananth Natarajan
Hal Zerem
Al Schneider
• President (2007-9 ) Los
Angeles Network Tech
Coast Angels
• Co-founder, ViceChairman Pasadena
Angels
Kevin Scanlon
• Tech Coast Angels, Pasadena Angels.
• Senior Management, Director and Vice President
for Cancer at Schering AG, Berlin (1996-2000).
• Helped start a gene therapy company, Xenex
• President, International Society of Cancer Gene
Therapy (2001-2004).
• Editor, The Cancer Gene Therapy Journal;(1991present)
Robert Buce
Principal and Advisor- numerous Start-
ups.
Former Partner and member of Board of
Directors- KPMG Consulting
Clients include CarsDirect.com, Intel,
Toshiba, National Semiconductor,
Verizon, Pacific Bell, Mazda, and
Samsung
Ananth Natarajan
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Co-founder, CEO Infinite Biomedical Technologies (IBT) in
1997 and has been the CEO of the company since then.
BSE in Biomedical Engineering and Electrical Engineering
Duke University
MSE in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins
University
MD from the University Of Chicago Pritzker School Of
Medicine.
Associate Professor of Clinical Obstetrics & Gynecology
USC
Ananth has several publications, presentations, and
patents to his credit. Cited by Technology Review
magazine as one of the top 100 young (under 35)
Innovators and Leaders in Technology in the world
Member of the Caltech Associates
Hal Zarem
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PhD Caltech
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Silicon Light Machines
President and CEO
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JDSU
Vice President of Sales and Marketing
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Ortel Corporation General Manager
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Authored/Co-authored 34 publications
(advisor: Amnon Yariv)
Current Teams
Team
Name
Members
Anchovi:
Teresa Xu, Tommaso Rosi, Peter Welinder, Lita Yang
Earthquake Early Warning
System:
Vanessa Heckman, Stephen Wu, Shiyan Song
Cloud Control:
Wael Halbawi, Mariya Vasileva, Kyung Keun Park, Amit Alon (Cole Herskskowitz, Ka Suen, Sam Jones)
Locality:
Neha Samdaria, Nnoduka Eruchalu, Chris Pombrol, Mike Paluchniak (Michael Wu and William Candrick)
Fluidica:
Granton Jindal, Shell Zhang, Mason Freedman (Vedran Coralic, Prof Tim Coloniuus)
Unu:
Xida Zheng, Angie Wang, Phillip Young (?)
ImaginLabs:
Xiaodi Hou, James Leet, Ran Duan (Sebastien LePrince)
Agenda - Teamwork
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Why work together in a team?
Evolution of a team
Team structure (roles and responsibilities)
Getting the most out of group work
Activity
• Thanks to Andy Downard
Forming
Evolution of a Team or a Partnership
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Create team
Introduce yourself with teammates
Learn about opportunity
Begin setting objectives
Split up the work and get started
Work and think independently
Storming
Evolution of a Team
• Reassessment of initial plan
– What is realistic to solve?
– What is each member best suited to address?
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Different ideas compete for consideration
Egos come out and can clash!
Can be an uncomfortable experience
Risk - Getting stuck here for entire project!
Norming
Evolution of a Team
• Work together and identify with team
• Establish roles and rules
• Motivation increases
– Higher quality work
– Enjoy working with team
• Risk - Groupthink (What is this?)
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Stop questioning
Reinforce beliefs
Minority is suppressed
Can take time
Getting the Most Out of
Group Work
• Avoid GROUPTHINK
– Let your own opinions be known
– Don’t suppress other’s opinions
– Solicit, if necessary, other’s opinions
• What are historical examples that illustrate the risks of
groupthink?
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Housing bubble
Dot com
German groupthink that the Nazis were doing a good job
Y2K
WMD
Performing
Evolution of a Team
• The best teams will reach this highest level
• Members are knowledgeable and motivated
• Disagreements are resolved within team
– Use established norms
– Little or no need for supervision
Suggested Reading
Evolution of a Team
Wikipedia Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forming-storming-norming-performing
Original Tuckman Article (1965):
http://dennislearningcenter.osu.edu/references/GROUP%20DEV%20ARTICLE.doc
Team Structure
Roles and Responsibilities
• Defining roles increases efficiency
– Focuses team
– Decreases conflict
• Key roles for E102 projects
– Leader
– Recorder
– Timekeeper/Process Monitor
• Alternation is fine
Leader
Roles and Responsibilities
• Plan meeting
– Set agenda
– Coordinate a date and time
• Run meeting
– Execute plan set by agenda
– Ensure that team rules are followed
– Mediate disagreements
– Process discussion at end
Recorder
Roles and Responsibilities
• Take notes at meeting
– Key points of issues discussed
– Emphasis on action items Who What When
• Organize notes after meeting
• Send meeting minutes to team members
Timekeeper
Roles and Responsibilities
• Work with Leader to budget time for
discussion of agenda items
• Periodically inform Leader of how actual
progress compares to schedule
• Can also be process monitor
– Is everybody contributing?
– Is everybody able to contribute?
Getting the Most Out of
Group Work (cont’d)
• Effective Communication
– Choose a mode of communication (email, wiki, Facebook,
Google docs, face to face etc)
– Let group members know if you’ll be late
– Prevent interpersonal or work-related problems from
getting out of control
• Speak frankly with team members
• Periodically give each other feedback
• Use Vedran as a resource for mediation of problems
• Try to minimize time in commonly uncomfortable
‘Storming’ phase by establishing norms upfront
Activity 1
• Get together in teams
– Agree on the top three bad things that could happen.
– Discuss what you would do about it
E 102: ENTREPRENEURIAL DEVELOPMENT
SAMPLE TEAMWORK EVALUATION FORM
This form gives some general criteria that you can use to evaluate the effectiveness of your team
collaboration. Fill out one for each team member, including yourself, using a scale of 0 to 10
for each criterion.
Team member’s name:
Evaluator’s name:
Criterion
Comments
Grade
1. Is available when needed
and is punctual
2. Communicates clearly
and constructively
3. Does fair share
4. Contributes quality work
5. Helps to manage conflict
6. Completes tasks effectively
and on time
Thoughts on Team Rules
• Each team member will have deliverables for every
meeting
• No interruptions
• Disagreements resolved by vote and may be
discussed at subsequent meetings
• Face-to-face meetings >> online chatting
• Meeting notes can appear on wiki or Google notes
• Honest and open communication at all times
• Rotation a good idea
Teamwork Recap
• Good teams have…
– Open communication
– A set of rules that are agreed upon and followed
– Structured roles and responsibilities
– Shared motivation
• Good teams avoid…
– Suppressing opinions
– Groupthink
Vision Statement
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Market Hypotheses
Purpose of writing a Vision Statement
Structure of a Vision statement
Activity
Market Hypothesis
• Theory of the case
• Assumptions
– You need to make to proceed
– You need to verify
– You need to adjust
Market Hypotheses
• Your team aims to ‘push’ your technology out
to meet one or more market needs
• Key elements of market hypotheses for a
technology looking for a market
– Identification of possible niche markets
– Customer needs that are currently not met
– How (Does?) your technology meet these needs
Market Hypotheses (cont’d)
• Heuristic - pick ‘low hanging fruit’ first
– Customers who NEED your technology at any price
– Typically small markets
– Essential early sales that justify further investment
• Proves that there is a market
• Profitable sales before cost reduction from economies
of scale can be realized
Market Hypotheses (cont’d)
• State as an hypothesis that you need to prove
• Examples:
– There is a market for this product greater than
100M
– People in the identified market really need this
product
– So and so would make a great customer
– Etc.
Activity 2
• Get together in your Teams
• Brainstorm market hypotheses
• Prepare to present one potential market
hypothesis
Market Hypotheses for HW
• Submit three market hypotheses
• Use a ‘low hanging fruit’ niche as the input to
the Vision Statement
Purpose of Writing a
Vision Statement
• To Test Market Hypotheses
– Define scope of market research
– Identify and interview customers
• Organize and focus team
• Market research that follows should identify
early, profitable opportunities (‘Low Hanging
Fruit’)
Structure of a Vision Statement
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Name of Product
For [target customer segment(s)]
Who wants/needs [solution to dilemma]
[Company name ] provides [product features]
That provide [compelling reason to buy from
company]
• Unlike [main competitor]
• [Company’s key differentiator]
• As evidenced by [evidence]
Structure of a Vision Statement
(cont’d)
• Name: for the sake of this argument make the
company name reflect the product
• For: Be as specific as you can. Can include both
primary market segment and secondary market
segment
• Needs: Describe market pain you are addressing
• That provide: How do you alleviate pain?
• Unlike: Show how it is done now by others. (This can
include doing nothing!)
• Evidence: If any at this stage, If not, present where
you are in development
Elevator Speech
• By accident you find yourself in an elevator with a
potential investor. You want to convince him to
investigate your idea more deeply. You have one
minute (It’s a long elevator ride)
• This speech will be refined throughout the quarter
– You will know more about the business
– You will know more about effective delivery
• You will alternate team members in giving it
Right Now
• Begin Researching your project!
– Talk with Caltech contacts (if problems let me or
Vedran know)
– Search internet
Does it make sense??
Ref
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_90
.htm
Summary of HW for Next Tuesday
All Teams do this!!
– Talk with Caltech contacts
– All E-mail HW prior to noon on Tuesday to Vedran and Ken
– Volunteer two teams to present HW for Tuesday and two for
Thursday
– All send PDFs of PPT for presentation teams or PDFs of Word for
non-presenting teams
1. Prepare a signed Team Rules Statement
2. Show roles and names of people initially assuming these
roles
3. Present 5 Market Hypotheses
4. Present Vision Statement