mit 15.s56 (in)validating your startup ideas - day 1
TRANSCRIPT
welcome
15.S56:(in)Validating Your
Startup IdeasIAP 2013
What's ahead
● Monday: From bad ideas to good ideas
● Wednesday: Dig deeper
● Friday: Showtime! (short presentations)
R. Colin Kennedy● Randstad
Corporate Services○ $250M Corporate
New Venture
● Startups○ Grinnit & Ringtela
● Martin Trust Center○ Helping Founders
Who are we?
Will Whitney● MIT Course 6
○ Senior year
● StartLabs○ Key team member
● Startups○ Crashlytics○ Bump
Now your turn
(in)Validating?
What does that mean?
Why is this important?
Confirmation bias is a tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses. People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. For example, in reading about current political issues, people usually prefer sources that affirm their existing attitudes.They also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position.
Confirmation bias
Narrative Fallacy
The narrative fallacy addresses our limited ability to look at sequences of facts without weaving an explanation into them, or, equivalently, forcing a logical link, an arrow of relationship upon them.Explanations bind facts together. They make them all the more easily remembered; they help them make more sense.Where this propensity can go wrong is when it increases our impression of understanding.
Failure modes
TRYTO
QUIT
Your time is the most important thing
Highest opportunity cost
What have you wasted time on
that you could have avoided?
Bad Ideas
If people don't want it,it's a bad idea.
If people do want it,it might be a good idea.
Know what you're working with.
Test it.
Key Performance Indicators (KPI's)
Testable Hypotheses
Group Work:what's testable
1. Three ideas not discussed in class that could have known better, and how
2. For Wednesday's group work○ Bring three of your own ideas, with three failure
modes■ Testable hypothesis
○ One simple way to test each one - that you can do on Thursday
Wednesday● Light breakfast at 9 AM (optional)● Class starts at 10 AM sharp
Homework