A 10-week curriculum covering the strategy, the numbers, and the founder decisions that most courses are too cautious to put on the syllabus.
⏰ Registration opens Aug 17, 8:30 am PT · enrollment capped at 35
The barrier to building has never been lower. AI can draft your pitch, prototype your idea, and generate your landing page in minutes. So why do 9 out of 10 startups still fail? Because the hard part was always finding a real problem worth solving. 🎯 Now that AI has collapsed the cost of building to almost nothing, finding the right problem is most of what remains of the founder's job.
Real customer discovery — not confirmation shopping.
Unit economics and a business model that holds up.
A GTM strategy built from your actual customer, not a template.
Pivot or persevere. Co-founder tension. When to quit.
Every session pairs the concept with practice inside a safer sandbox — a running case study that grows class over class, or every exercise on your own venture, with your own interview quotes and product. You choose your lane. 🛤
The moment I watch for: when a student stops asking me what to do next — and decides for themselves.
This hands-on course takes first-time founders through every critical stage of early venture development, in a deliberate sequence that mirrors how real companies are built. By the final session, you'll leave with a validated concept and clarity on your next step. 🧭
Thursdays, 5:30–7:00 pm PT
Sep 24 – Dec 3 · 10 weeks
No class Nov 26 · recordings available
Online · 1 unit · no letter grade
Enrollment limit: 35
Tuition $685 · refund deadline Sep 26
Real customer discovery · problem validation · an MVP as a learning tool · unit economics · a beachhead GTM · AI without losing founder judgment · a sharper pitch.
Spinning out research from a university lab comes with its own pressures, timelines, and stakeholders. This curriculum has supported Stanford staff and researchers taking their work from lab to market for the first time.
Not every great business is built to scale. Some are built to last, to support a life, or to serve a community exceptionally well. This curriculum works just as well for the founder building a childcare space, a coffee shop, or a sports league as it does for the one chasing venture funding.
"I walked in thinking entrepreneurship was about finding the one perfect idea. What I left with was something harder to explain — it's a way of thinking, not a destination."
"Turns out I'd been doing customer research completely wrong — confirming what I already believed instead of actually testing it. That distinction alone was worth the whole course."
"No concept, no direction — just a vague sense I wanted to build something. Week two I had an idea I actually believed in. That surprised me."
"It's not theoretical. You're on the phone with a real customer by week two, whether you feel ready or not. That was uncomfortable. It was also the point."
"What struck me was how tailored it felt. Not a canned curriculum — she was reading the room and adjusting constantly."
Registration opens Aug 17, 8:30 am PT. Enrollment is capped at 35 — the cohorts fill.