Growing Lean Startups

Students from across the UCSB campus, whether graduate or undergraduate, from the humanities to sciences, seek out the Technology Management Program’s TMP 148 and TMP 149 courses with an eye towards starting a startup and competing in the New Venture Competition at year’s end.

The courses are based on the principles of the lean startup methodology that favors experimentation over elaborate planning, customer feedback over blind intuition, and iterative design over traditional “big design up front” development. Students are attracted to the fast-paced practical approach of testing and building a “lean startup,” and amazed by how far they come, and how many improvements to their startups they uncover in 12 short weeks.

An element of the attraction comes from the stories of many successful ventures that were started by students at UCSB and have made a major mark on the world, growing to become public companies, divisions of global enterprises or continuing to grow and innovate. Even more critical is the close involvement and contributions from a host of industry experts, experienced entrepreneurs and more than a few alumni who have built high-growth, innovative companies in and around Santa Barbara.

Starting with an idea, a team and whole lot of passion and drive, students in these courses are immediately faced with the cold, hard reality of business - can we satisfy a customer’s needs? The teams are put through their paces interviewing dozens, and often over 100, prospective customers to develop their understanding of the problem they are solving before they attempt to build a solution.

This year our students had the opportunity to work with and learn from dozens of mentors and business leaders, including:

    
Jim Semick, co-founder of Product Plan, shared his hard won expertise developing a startup’s initial customers and mapping a product roadmap to fit their needs from his work with Citrix, Appfolio and many others. Today, Product Plan is literally a product built on the purest principles of customer development and product/market fit.

Chris Webb, co-founder and CEO of restaurant ordering and management software ChowNow, shared the story behind his company’s fundraising strategy and walked students through its competitive advantage in the face of a $1 billion competitor and dozens of vc-backed startups.

Matt Walker, co-founder and President of Lull Mattress helped students appreciate how a top-quality product combined with superior customer service help his company stay competitive in a market with numerous replacement products. Sharing how Lull acquires customers in the most cost-effective means possible, provided students with real-world appreciation for the costs and care that are involved in a highly complex transaction.

TMP’s lean startup courses demand the rigor of data-driven product development, teach the process of validating customers’ problems and help teams determine whether their startup’s proposed solution is valuable enough to get paying customers, let alone create a viable business model. Moreover, the contributions of leaders like these and the countless hours from mentors in our business community, ensure that UCSB startups and the Technology Management Program itself have promising futures.

If you are a UCSB undergraduate, graduate or faculty interested in starting a new venture, the Technology Management Program has the resources, network and support you need to get started and get growing. If you would like to contribute to the lean startup efforts in TMP, or you know someone who could, please contact Matthew Stotts or Jason Spievak.

Matthew Stotts and Jason Spievak are part of the teaching teams for TMP 148: New Venture Seminar and TMP 149: Creating a Market-tested Startup Business Model, respectively. They serve as mentors to students participating in the New Venture Competition.

By Matthew Stotts and Jason Spievak