Week 11 Update
- 10-Week Retrospective
- The Next Chapter
- It’s a Wrap!
10-Week Retrospective
Congratulations on a successful summer!
In just 10 weeks, you have done primary and secondary market research, gathered insights from your potential customers, evolved your solution, and worked on creating a viable business model and go to market strategy to build a financially sustainable venture.
You struggled… you may have lost motivation at some point… some things did not work out as expected. And yet, you prevailed, you learned, and you made progress. Great job all.
This is a great time for you to look back upon the 10 weeks of work you did on your venture, and reflect on the following:
- What did your team do well?
- What could your team have done better?
- How might your team do things differently?
- What have you learned about yourself and your team?
- What are your top priorities in the coming 12 months with emphasis on the next 3 months?
The Next Chapter
As you transition out of the summer, some of you are going full time, while others will be running your venture as a “side hustle”. If the latter is true, you will need to make decisions about how to continue working on your venture while balancing other demands on your time.
Now is a good time to rethink your goals and expectations for yourselves and your ventures, and make decisions about how you might proceed. If you have team members who are going back to school or starting a new job, you will need to work harder than ever on goal setting and prioritization. You will also need to recalibrate your expectations for the amount of progress you expect your team to make.
It will be uncomfortable – but that’s ok, as taking initiative to solve big problems is inherently uncomfortable. You are welcome to continue to use our Self-Guided Learning Center and Knowledgebase to help you make progress. Lastly, Tufts students and alumni have access to our 1×1 office hours and any events and workshops that are open to alumni.
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Pitching, reprise
Pitch Prep
You all have spent the entire summer preparing for your pitches, to get you in the best position for your pitches to be top notch as we go into the final week of programming. As you make your last changes to your pitches, here’s a few reminders to leave you with.
- Define your ask: You are all at different stages in your early stage venture. Some of you are ready for seed capital, some are ready for growth capital, while some of you are more in need of people (as a resource and/or as an additional team member.) Internalize where you’re at today at this stage of your venture and determine what your ask will be for the audience you’re pitching to. If you need capital, ask for it. If you need advisors or team members, ask for that as well.
- Be enthusiastic: Come ready to give all of your energy on the day of your pitch! This means you’re clear in articulating your venture and your ask. It also means that you deliver your presentation with a clear voice and clear command of the information you’re presenting. Make your audience believe in your ideas based on your enthusiasm.
- Be ready to answer questions: You’ve all be training for several weeks now on how to narrow down your pitch to under 5 minutes. The 5 minute metric for presenting your pitch is really focused around challenging you to deliver a compelling presentation that captures the attention of your audience, and then compels them enough to ask you questions after your pitch. If you’ve done a good job communicating your ideas during your pitch, be prepared to field questions after the fact.
It’s a wrap!
With that, it’s a wrap. Don’t be a stranger. Join our alumni group, the Tufts Entrepreneurial Network, and participate in local events. Share your Jumbo Wins with us so we can help you tell your stories. Come back to attend events at the Derby Entrepreneurship Center, and help build the next wave of entrepreneurial leaders at Tufts.
It’s been a pleasure working with you. Stay in touch!