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View Longhorn Startup Seminar. Syllabus LONGHORNSTARTUP UT Austin Fall 2019 Syllabus as of 09/02/2019 by Joshua Baer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Longhorn Startup Seminar (LSS): Interdisciplinary Entrepreneurship Lectures ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Longhorn Startup Seminar (LSS) is a lecture-based course in the Fall semester that features prominent entrepreneurs telling the stories of how they founded their companies and answering questions from the students. Students get to pitch their idea to the class and participate in speed-dating events to meet potential co-founders and get advice from mentors. Any student from any college can register. For more information visit LonghornStartup.com Class Format 5:45pm Pizza arrives 6:00pm Open Pitches from the UT Austin community 6:30pm Announcements 6:45pm Guest Speaker 8:00pm Adjourn Meeting Times Thursday 6:00pm-8:00pm in GDC 2.216 • August 29 - How to Start Starting a Company with Joshua Baer • September 5 - Co-founder Speed Pitches • September 12 - Lean Startup with Ash Maurya • September 19 - Founder Stories • September 26 - Austin Startup Crawl (downtown) • October 3 - Founder Stories • October 10 - Founder Stories • October 17 - Founder Stories and AMA • October 24 - Founder Stories and AMA • October 31 - Founder Stories and AMA • November 7 - Intro to Incubators and Accelerators • November 14 - Intro to Fundraising • November 21 - Thanksgiving • November 28 - Lab Interviews (Capital Factory) • December 5 - Lab Interviews (Capital Factory) * Seminar topics subject to change Course Numbers Open Registration ES177 = Longhorn Startup Seminar (Cockrell ENG) CS178 = Longhorn Startup Seminar (CNS/CS) FA160 = Longhorn Startup Seminar (Fine Arts) COM125 = Longhorn Startup Seminar (Communications) MAN137 = Longhorn Startup Seminar (McCombs) Motivation Our motto at The University of Texas at Austin is: What Starts Here Changes the World. One of the most effective ways of changing the world is innovation through startups. The Longhorn Startup Seminar is intended to inspire undergraduate students at the University of Texas to pursue entrepreneurship and to serve as a funnel of prospects to the Longhorn Startup Lab taught in the Spring. Instructors Joshua Baer helps people quit their jobs and become entrepreneurs. In 2008 he founded Capital Factory, a startup incubator and co-working space in Austin, Texas. Josh founded his first startup in 1996 in his college dormitory at Carnegie Mellon University and now teaches a class at the University of Texas for student entrepreneurs. Josh was recently recognized as the Austin Community Leader of the Year, Tribeza Person of the Year, Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, Eisenhower Fellow and a member of the National Committee on US-China Relations Young Leaders Forum. Josh lives in Austin with his wife Amy and three children. You can follow him on Twitter @joshuabaer. Mellie Price is the Executive Director of Commercialization at the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin and a co-founder of Capital Factory. She is also the co-founder of SoftMatch, a service company that connects Fortune 1000 enterprises with the highly fragmented global startup ecosystem. Ms. Price was also the Founder & CEO of Austin’s own Front Gate Tickets. Guest Speakers Previous guest speakers include: • Ash Maurya, author of “Running Lean” • Bob Metcalfe, inventor of Ethernet and founder & CEO of 3Com • Brett Hurt, founder & CEO of Coremetrics, Bazaarvoice, data.world • Cyan Banister, Partner at Founders Fund and AngelList • Mark Cuban, founder & CEO of Broadcast.com and Shark Tank shark • Dean Drako, founder & CEO of Barracuda Networks and Eagle Eye Networks • Heather Brunner, CEO of WP Engine • Jason Cohen, founder & CTO of WP Engine • John Hanke, founder & CEO of Keyhole (Google Earth) and Niantic Labs (Pokemon Go) • Kendra Scott, founder & CEO of Kendra Scott • Mellie Price, founder & CEO of Front Gate Tickets & co-founder of Capital Factory • Michael Dell, founder & CEO of Dell Technologies • Mike Maples, Partner at Floodgate and first investor in Twitter, Chegg, Lyft • Rony Kahan, founder & CEO of Indeed Faculty Office Hours Office hours are generally held prior to the lectures each week. Teaching Assistant Lingyu Kong & Ben Klenk (apply here) Email: [email protected] Office Hours: TBA at Blackstone Launchpad at FAC The Teaching Assistant assists with registration, organizing speakers and events, promoting them on campus, and screening potential Lab students. Undergraduate Catalog Course Description Longhorn Startup Seminar. Interdisciplinary entrepreneurship lecture series for students interested in entrepreneurship and the Longhorn Startup Lab. Learn from faculty instruction and successful entrepreneurs as guest speakers. Speed dating events to help meet co-founders and mentors. Speakers vary each semester, so the course can be taken multiple times. Prerequisites This course has no prerequisites. Other Teaching, Speaker, and Mentoring Resources There is a wide array of entrepreneurship teaching resources available on the Internet. These include written course materials and videos from the McCombs School of Business, MIT Open Courseware, and the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, to name only three of the best of many. The instructors will be using some of these materials for preparation assignments. Guest lecturers will also be invited, which have in past semesters included former Tivoli CEO Frank Moss, Dell Founder-CEO Michael Dell, National Instruments Founder-CEO Dr. James Truchard, Bazaarvoice Founder/CEO Brett Hurt, and Jonathan Coon of Impossible Ventures. Connecting Longhorn Startups to the resources they need to advance is an important part of the practicum. The instructors and mentors will be looking to provide these connections. A particular resource to be recruited toward the end of the semester will be professional investors — angels, venture capitalists, and strategic partners — who will be invited to “Demo Day” near the end of the semester to witness presentations, see demos, and consider making investments in Longhorn Startups. There are many other resources for entrepreneurs at UT, around Austin, and beyond. The instructors and mentors are always looking for opportunities to help connect teams with those external resources, among them other courses, recruiting mixers, conferences, entrepreneur networks, startup workshops, startup accelerators (for example, UT Austin’s Austin Technology Incubator (ATI), McCombs’ Texas Venture Lab, Dell Social Innovation Challenge, Y Combinator, Capital Factory), and business plan competitions. Textbooks The course textbook is Ash Maurya, Running Lean, O’Reilly Media, 2012. Among our optional, recommended readings are: Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich Steven Gary Blank, The Four Steps to the Epiphany, 2006. E. Ries, The Lean Startup, Crown,, 2011. P. Denning and R. Dunham, The Innovator’s Way, MIT Press, 2010. Peter Drucker, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Harper & Row, 1985. Bill Aulet, Disciplined Entrepreneurship, Wiley, 2013 R. Dorf, T. Byers, Technology Ventures: From Ideas to Enterprise, McGraw Hill, 2008. T. Hopkins, Selling for Dummies, Wiley, 2011. Course and Instructor Evaluations Evaluations of the course and instructors will be conducted during and especially near the end of the semester. Academic Dishonesty The University of Texas Honor Code will be followed regarding academic dishonesty, which will not be tolerated. Students with Disabilities UT Austin provides academic accommodations for qualified students with disabilities. For such, call Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) at 512-471-6259 (voice) or 816-329-3986 (video). Please notify LSL instructors or TAs as quickly as possible if material being presented is not accessible to you. Behavior Concerns Advice Line If you are worried about someone associated with our class who is acting oddly, you may use the Behavior Concerns Advice Line (BCAL) at 512-232-5050 or visit http://www.utexas.edu/safety/bcal. Course Drops By state law, the number of course drops for academic reasons is limited to six (6). What does this mean? Best you find out from your academic advisors when thinking about dropping this class. Communications Policy Students are responsible for keeping the University informed, as to changes in their email addresses. Students are expected to check email frequently enough, say daily, to stay current with University-related communications. Important updates will be posted to CANVAS. In addition, it is strongly advised that students join the Longhorn Startup Facebook group and Slack channel in order to receive real-time information from the instructors and other relevant individuals. If you do not have a Facebook account you will need to create one in order to join the groups. Emergency Evacuation Policy You are required to evacuate and assemble outside University buildings when a fire alarm is activated or an announcement is made. Please familiarize yourself with all exit doors and get confident that you could exit promptly in an emergency. Collaborative Practices At any given time during the practicum, all team members should be fully engaged in practicum activities, including preparation of written and oral reports. Tasks should be assigned to team members evenly, but in a way that capitalizes on individual strengths and experience. If your strengths lie in particular project areas (for example, planning, proposing,
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