Entrepreneurship for Defense

You can use the Qualtrics form at this link.

Graduate and undergraduate students from any discipline may apply.

Teams will be assigned based on student interest in the project balanced with the Instructors’ requirement to assemble a team with diverse backgrounds and experience to maximize project success.

We are currently collecting and curating those problems and they will be posted here soon.

Contact the teaching team and we’ll connect you to a sponsoring agency.

Here are the general requirements:

• You cannot miss the first class without prior approval
• This is very intense class with a very high workload. If you cannot commit to 15­-20 hours a week outside the classroom, this class is not for you.
• The startup culture at times can feel brusque and impersonal, but in reality is focused and oriented to create immediate action in time­ and cash­constrained environments.
• If during the semester you find you cannot continue to commit the time, immediately notify your team members and teaching team and drop the class.
• If you expect to miss a class, please let the TA and your team members know ahead of time via email.
• We expect your attention during our presentations and those of your fellow students. If you’re getting bored, tired or inattentive step outside for some air. If we see you reading email or browsing the web we will ask you to leave the class.
• We ask that you use a name card during every session of the quarter.
• During your classmates’ presentations you will be required to give feedback the online log. Please bring a laptop to every class and be prepared to give your undivided attention to the team at the front of the room.

If you’re working with a university related­technology (i.e. either research from one of the team members or University IP), you must check with the Office of Technology, Licensing to understand the university’s ownership rights in any resulting IP.

1. You own what Intellectual Property (patents, hardware, algorithms, etc.) you brought to class with you. No one (other than the university) has claim to anything you brought to class.
2. You all own any intellectual property developed for the class (such as code for a web­based project) developed during class. You are agreeing to open­source your assets developed within the class. Your DOD/IC sponsor will have access to those materials.
3. You and your team members need to disclose to each other and your DOD/IC sponsor what IP/Licensing rights any company you’ve worked at has to inventions you make at school.
4. If any or you decide to start a company based on the class, you own only what was written and completed in the class. You have no claim for work done before or after the class quarter.
5. If a subset of the team decides to start a company they do NOT “owe” anything to any other team members for work done in and during the class. All team members are free to start the same company, without permission of the others. (We would hope that a modicum of common sense and fairness would apply.)
6. By taking this class you have agreed to these terms with your team. You may decide to modify these terms before the class by having all team members agree in writing before the team is accepted in the class.

This is more than likely the wrong class to take. Your slides, notes and findings will be publically shared. Your team owns everything done in class. Discuss Intellectual Property rights with your team from the beginning. If you can’t come to agreement with the team, join another team, pick another project, or drop the class. Remember anything you do and learn in the class is public.

NO. This is an open class. There are no non­disclosures. All your presentations and Customer Discovery notes, business model canvas, blogs and slides can, and most likely will, be made public. Some exceptions may be made in the case of select sponsor organizations or problems that require a certain level of privacy but these will be the exception.

This class is not an incubator. At times you will learn by seeing how previous classes solved the same class of problem by looking at their slides, notes and blogs. Keep in mind that successful companies are less about the original idea and more about the learning, discovery and execution. (That’s the purpose of this class.) Therefore you must be prepared to share your ideas openly with the class. It is a forum for you to “bounce” your ideas off your peers.

Don’t take this class.

The teaching team consists of professors, a TA, at least two mentors and ideally one military liaison per team.

• A mentor is an experienced defense/IC official, investor or consultant assigned to your team. They’ve volunteered to help with the class and your team because they love hard problems and they love startups. Their job is to guide you as you get out of the building. If you are assigned a military liaison, they are available to help you.
• Where possible, currently serving members of the military or individuals with significant military experience are assigned to student teams as Military Liaisons. These liaisons help student teams interact effectively with their DOD/IC problem sponsors.

Your mentor is expecting to meet with you at least every week face-to-face or video chat. You can email them or meet with them more often if they have time.

By all means, do so. All the mentors and military liaisons volunteered to support students in the course and are happy to help. However, they cannot support your team full time unless your mentor decides to swap places with them.

Mentors have day jobs. Asking them to meet or reply to you ASAP is not acceptable. So plan ahead to allow for a reasonable amount of time for a reply or meeting. Be concise with your request and be respectful of their time.

Professors are available during regularly­scheduled office hours. If you need something resolved sooner, email us.

Traditionally, each team member is part of the “customer development team”. You have to figure out how to allocate the work.

Prepare to work through difficult issues. If the situation continues, approach the teaching team. Do not wait until the end of the quarter to raise the issue.

Try to resolve it within your team. If the situation continues longer than a week, please approach the teaching team. Final grades will also reflect individual participation and contribution.

Continual feedback weekly. Substandard quality work will be immediately brought to your attention.