Venture Validator - Institute for Entrepreneurship

Helping entrepreneurs ideate, innovate and launch businesses that make an impact

Spring 2023 featured our largest in-person cohort yet.

The Venture Validator Programs are free, open to all, where aspiring entrepreneurs meet twice a week for two weeks to test out their new business concepts. With the support of seasoned mentors and coaches, students conduct customer discovery and market research, create a business model, analyze their competitive landscape, and prototype products with the goal of launching successful ventures.

This intensive process is a necessary step in the entrepreneurship experience and ultimately sets businesses up for success, providing the knowledge needed to grow a venture while avoiding common pitfalls and frustrations. Starting a business is hard and requires a lot of research and planning before an idea can come to life. By interviewing potential customers, identifying problems in the product, and analyzing the current competition, major issues can lead to the early demise of a company can be avoided.

The Venture Validator Programs are led by people who have been through the real-world trials of creating and running their own companies. Their experience and insights will help you grow your business as they provide the tools, resources, and guidance you need to be successful. Institute for Entrepreneurship mentors help deliver this interactive workshop and weekly office hours are provided.

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Venture Validator 1.0

The Venture Validator 1.0 is the starting blocks for your entrepreneurial venture. Topics covered include:

Understand Your Customer

Knowing exactly who you are targeting with your product allows you to put yourself in their shoes while developing your business. A product geared towards a stay-at-home mom or dad may have different properties than a product geared towards a retired couple or a recycling fanatic living downtown in a large city. This will also help you to figure out who is not your customer.

Conduct Customer Discovery

There’s no way around it, you need to get out there and physically talk to your potential customers. Connecting with people who experience the problem you are attempting to fix can provide invaluable information as you work to launch your venture.

Clarify Your Value Proposition

What is the issue you see a need to fix or an opportunity to make better, why is your creative solution the right answer, and why do your potential customers care? Answering these questions and explaining your product or service in a way that’s easily understood is essential to reaching your target customers.

Start Your Business Model

Value Propositions, Customer Relationships, Channels, Customer Segments: This is a way to figure out exactly who benefits from your product, how you find and connect with your customer types, and what separates your venture from the competition.

Venture Validator 2.0

The Venture Validator 2.0 is a continuation of your customer discovery journey from the Venture Validator 1.0 and digs in on if there is a market opportunity for your business idea. Topics covered include:

Develop Your Competitive Landscape

It’s important to understand the other companies that are in the same field as you, or that serve the customers who you are targeting. You can learn from these companies to help determine what you will need to do to make your business different.

Finish Your Business Model

Key Activities, Key Partners, Key Resources, Cost Structure: The second half of your business model will focus on who you need to partner with, what daily operations will look like, what materials you will need, and how you will ultimately make money to sustain your business.

Explore Your Supply Chain and Partnerships

Entrepreneurial supply chains connect your products to suppliers and ultimately your customers. They are designed to achieve growth in the enterprise by recognizing and responding to needs and opportunities that call for growth-focused responses.

Build Your Minimum Viable Product/Prototyping

Creating an MVP does not have to involve a lot of money, labor, or be a technological feat. It just means creating a basic model of the product you want to develop to see how your idea functions in the real-world. Building your MVP is the critical first step in prototyping. Many problems can be identified and fixed in this stage and save you lots of time and money further down the road in prototyping.