Frank Rimalovski Executive Director, NYU Entrepreneurial Institute - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Frank Rimalovski Executive Director, NYU Entrepreneurial Institute Instructor, NYCRIN I-Corps Node March 21, 2014

NYCRIN Node Leadership  Principal Investigator :  Gillian Small (CUNY)  Co-PIs :  Kurt Becker (NYU), John Blaho (CUNY), Chris Wiggins (Columbia U)  Instructors :  John Blaho (CUNY), Lindsey Gray (NYU), Frank Rimalovski (NYU)  Jim Aloise (Columbia), Micah Kotch (NYU), Ivy Schultz (Columbia)  Node Managers/TAs :  Christina Pellicane (CUNY)  Risa Cohn (NYU), Effje MacLachlan (CUNY)  Lead Developer :  Jennifer Rubinovitz (Columbia)

Level 1 Activities – what did we do?  2013: Two NSF I-Corps cohorts  Summer NYCRIN regional networking event  I-Corps info sessions/recruitment across Node/region  Evangelized I-Corps at other forums  Built Summer Launchpad around curriculum  Adopted curriculum for PowerBridge NY  Funded Lean Launchpad educator training -> 2 classes  2014: 1 st Regional NYCRIN I-Corps cohort

Level 1 Activities – what did we learn?  Curriculum universally useful across stages & sectors  Location! Location! Location!  NYC metro is great location for customer discovery  Abundant adjuncts, fewer willing mentors  Life sciences dominates regional cohort  $50,000 from NSF serves as both carrot & stick  Limited applicants outside of NYC so far  “I’m too busy…”/old-school cultures pervasive  Recruiting teams requires face-to-face contact s  Role models & success stories help  Regional cohorts require a lot of advanced planning

Level 1 Activities – what will we do next?  More of the same  Plan further ahead for next Regional I-Corps  Celebrate/showcase success stories  Explore life science specifjc support  Greater local outreach efforts  Greater outreach and support to region

Level 2 Activities – what did we do?  Node website, newsletter & social media  Engage & equip peers at regional universities  Directly engaged PhD/postdoc communities  Indoctrinated VCs & educators as adjuncts  Deepened Teaching Team bench  Engagement of previous NYCRIN teams

Level 2 Activities – what did we learn?  Great interest in participating in Node activities  Absent face-to-face outreach/meetings likelihood of application low  Need to more deeply engage & support regional schools  Effort to maintain website & social media  Need to fjnd leverage in model

Level 2 Activities – what will we do next?  Regional mentors database  2014 Annual NYCRIN meeting  Host more regional information sessions  Work to increase regional collaborations  More/better tools to enable regional peers  Leverage media resources to drive awareness and consideration  Roadshow?

Level 3 Activities – what did we do?  Analysis of NYCRIN teams  Follow federal SBIR/STTR funding  Exchanged best practices w SF & DMV nodes  NYCRIN Lean Workbench  Open source suite for Lean analytics & startup ops  Will use NYCRIN I-Corps teams as α/β testers Status: Close to MVP Launch  Customer Discovery complete   Now accepting signups  leanworkbench.com

Level 3 Activities – what did we learn?  Challenge to gather data on regional teams that have not gone through our cohorts  Teams willing to share successes, but not failures  All nodes very “open source”

Level 3 Activities – what will we do next?  Develop regional I-Corps grad network  Create formal quarterly survey  Track progress of regional I-Corps teams  Adapt toolkit to address needs of graduate startups  Continue to exchange best practices

Key “Take-Aways”  A lot of work…  But a lot more value