Term Project Assignment: Opportunity Analysis
"I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one." ~ Mark Twain
Assignment
Mentors
Key
Deliverables
Contents
The
Process of Opportunity Analysis
Milestones
Suggested Resources
Tips
for Interviewing Primary Sources
FAQ
The Assignment
This is an exciting assignment to practice and hone your skills in entrepreneurship. You are expected to work in teams to investigate an entrepreneurial opportunity, keeping in mind the key distinctions between an "idea" and an "opportunity". Your analysis should thoroughly illustrate and document a pressing market need that could be solved with a high technology product or service.
Some thoughts to keep in mind as you begin:
The Mentors
The instructors have assembled a group of professional mentors from all over Silicon Valley -- venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and people all around and in-between -- to work with your teams in defining, developing, and honing your opportunity analysis. Each team will be assigned one mentor "relationship," and that relationship will consist of either one or possibly two people, depending on whether a mentor is working alone or has chosen to work with another individual. We will distribute the list of mentors at Session #2 and ask that, after your form your teams, you submit your list of mentor preferences by Session #3 (Monday October 1), which (as you see below) will be the date that you also have to submit your list of the members on your team.
You can see the full list of mentors HERE.
This project accounts for 30% of your total course grade (20% for the presentation and 10% for the written report). The completeness of your Website and timeliness of your deliverables will be accounted for in the presentation grade. Please remember that the quarter is short, so start working on this project early!
Contents
Your opportunity analysis is an
extended executive summary, NOT a complete business plan. It should focus
only on recognizing and defining a market opportunity and the necessary
requirements for seizing that opportunity. Your analysis should serve as the
basis for a decision by potential partners and investors as to whether to
develop a more complete plan to pursue the opportunity. Consequently, your
paper should combine elements of both a research paper and a sales pitch.
You should address the following topics:
Concept:
o Where did the idea come from (Office of Technology
Licensing vs. other)? Explain what the market opportunity is and what your solution
might be. What makes your solution particularly compelling? Do you have
personal experiences with this market? Is there existing intellectual
property that you must license or new intellectual property you must develop in
order to pursue this opportunity? Has anyone tried something like this before?
If so, why did they fail or succeed, and why is the opportunity still
attractive?
Opportunity Recognition (Market):
o Trends. What industry are you addressing? Why is this market attractive? What segment of the overall market are you pursuing? What market research data can be gathered to describe this market need? What are the total industry or category sales over the past three years? What is the anticipated growth for this industry? If this is a new market, what is the best analogous market data that illustrates the opportunity? Project the potential market size and growth for your opportunity.
o Customers. This is extremely important. You need to have a clear idea of who your target customer is. What does the customer need? Why does the customer need it? What is the customer using today? What is the customer willing to pay for your solution? Why? How will you reach this customer? You should include both primary research and secondary research, emphasizing primary over secondary. One suggestion that is often very illuminating is to consider a day-in-the-life of the target customer and how your solution will impact that scenario.
o Competition. Who else
serves this customer need? Who might attempt to serve this market in the
future? What advantages and weaknesses do these competitors and would-be
competitors have? What share of the market do specific competitors serve? Are
the major competitors' sales growing, declining, or steady? What are the
barriers to entry for you? What are the barriers to entry for additional
competitors?
Seizing the Opportunity (Implementation):
o Partners and Allies. Small companies can not do everything. Which companies or organizations will help you achieve your goals? What value will your partners contribute? What value will you bring to your partners? How will you align your interests with those of your partners?
o Business Model. How do you intend to make money and grow the business? Is this an original business model or is it similar to another business? What products or services would you develop to seize this opportunity? How much will people pay for your solution? How will you grow revenues and profits over time? What are your principle expenses? How can they be managed? What size of investments are required to pursue the opportunity to profitability and how would you stage them?
o Risk. Of
financial, technical, people, and market risks; which one is of most
concern? Which would you choose to address first and why? How would you
manage or minimize each of the risks going forward?
Please note that the list above has no implied order. Some entrepreneurs start with a well defined concept and then try to identify a market for their idea; others start by studying a market and then stumble upon an idea. Also, please keep in mind that the specific data and information you provide will vary according to the type of opportunity you choose to analyze.
The Process of Opportunity Analysis
We recommend five basic steps in
the process of analyzing an opportunity:
1. Identify potential opportunities:
There are two options for you in identifying potential opportunities:
The first is to work from ideas that we set forth in class in the first several sessions -- Tom, Alex, and Chi-Hua will be presenting a few ideas that they have, and we also heard from Linda Chao at the Stanford OTL about what their office does, and you could select an invention from the recommended
list provided during that session. WE HEAVILY ENCOURAGE ONE OF THESE APPROACHES. Along the lines of the OTL, the Tech Search (http://stanfordtech.stanford.edu/technology)
contains short descriptions of over 900 inventions in various stages of
development. These technologies were invented by Stanford faculty and students
and are being marketed to potential commercial licensees. While the OTL
performs brief opportunity analyses on these inventions, it does not have
enough time to do in-depth analyses like the E145 OAP. Because of this, the OTL
is very excited to work with E145 students interested in using one of their
inventions on the recommended list for the OAP project. They ask in return that
you give them your final paper and invite them to the presentations. If you are
interested in pursuing this option, here are the steps:
1. Review the handout of recommended inventions
from Session 1 and look up its description at Tech Search.
Please email the licensing contact listed at the bottom of the
description. The licensing contact may provide you with additional
information and also put you in contact with the inventors.
2. Browse Tech Search. If
you find something that interests you, please email the licensing contact with
regard to the latest status of that invention and whether it would be suitable
for the OAP project.
For general questions about OTL, please contact Linda Chao, (650) 725-9408, linda.chao@stanford.edu.
Here are some of the suggested OTL opportunities:
•Gregg Kyle is the OTL lead for the bioremediation technologies (S06-391 & S05-276). Gregg's email is greggk@stanford.edu*** Bioremediation ***
S06-391 (GWK) Superior Bioremediation Enzymes (inventors: David F. Ackerley, Yoram Barak, and A.C. Matin)
(description at http://otlportal.stanford.edu/techfinder/technology/ID=25094)
S05-276 (GWK) Improved Enzymes for Reductive Prodrug Cancer Chemotherapy (inventors: David F. Ackerley, Yoram Barak, Christopher H. Contag, Susan V. Lynch, A.C. Matin, Jianghong Rao, and Stephen H Thorne)
(description at http://otlportal.stanford.edu/techfinder/technology/ID=24519)
Linda Chao is the OTL lead for the angular sensor technology (S05-147). Linda's email is Linda.chao@stanford.edu
*** Angular sensor ***
S05-147 (LC) Grating Angle Magnification Enhanced Angular Sensor and Scanner (inventors: Robert L Byer, and Ke-Xun Sun)
(description at http://otlportal.stanford.edu /techfinder/technology/ID=24382)
You may also wish to review the
patents and trademarks held at the United
States Patent and Trademark Office. The US Patent and Trademark
Office provides a search engine that allows you to search for patents and
trademarks under a variety of categories.
The second option is to brainstorm. Combine your own personal experiences and creativity with external forecasts and trend analysis. How is the world changing with respect to new technologies? What is the impact of globalization on current solutions? What new requirements will those changes produce? Recent media articles on trends are often a good place to start. If you come up with something you think is compelling and do-able, we are open to it, but will hold you to a higher standard in approving this type of topic so as to make sure you do not end up in over your head.
2.
Define your purpose and objectives. Identify your most promising opportunity, being careful to
discriminate between an interesting technological idea and a viable market
opportunity. Meet with your mentor to establish a relationship and to seek their help in this definition process (first meeting) and also to get their advice for steps 3 and 4, below (a second meeting). Prepare an outline of your anticipated finished paper which will
help you to determine what types of data and information you need to
demonstrate the attractiveness of your chosen opportunity.
3.
Gather data from primary
sources. It is crucial for you to
obtain data from primary sources for the OAP. Potential investors will place
more trust in well conducted primary research than in stacks of data from
secondary sources. There is simply no substitute for talking to potential
customers from the target market in order to validate the opportunity you have
identified. Consequently, we prefer that you spend time gathering data from
primary, not just secondary, sources. Please see Tips
for Interviewing Primary Sources for some helpful tips and advice. Also
check out SurveyMonkey (below).
4.
Gather data from secondary sources. Countless secondary sources exist on the Internet and in
Stanford's various library resources. The Jackson Library
GSB Database Resources and the GSB librarians are especially helpful. Appendix C of the Dorf and Byers textbook offers a good summary of secondary research sources. Try not to get too
bogged down in financial and accounting data.
5. Analyze and interpret the results. The written paper and the oral presentation will require you to persuasively summarize your results. Plan to schedule the third meeing with your mentor to present a rough draft of your paper and to give them a sense of your presentation, asking them for feedback.
Project Milestones
Team Formation, Mentor Preferences, Opportunity Suggestions . You must submit your team lists and mentor preferences by this date, and we will also discuss some of the opportunities that we have brainstormed.
Positioning Template. The Entrepreneurial Marketing class session on 10/3 will help you and your team get started in writing your positioning statement. You should aim to have your first mentor meeting scheduled by no later than October 10.
Present Your Positioning Statement. Your team will present the positioning statement for your opportunity in front of the class. Create an 'OAP webpage' which contains a link to your slide files and submit. (Keep the webpage around as you'll be posting more OAP information to the same location throughout the quarter). The webpage needs to include a picture of the team.
Deliverable: By 9AM on Monday October 15th, post your market positioning
statement, as described below, to your Website and email the URL to e145-homework@lists.stanford.edu.
Marketing Positioning Statement:
Fill in Geoff Moore's two-sentence positioning template for your OAP product or
service concept and send via email with your team name clearly identified. The
template is:
Sentence #1
For (target customer)
who (statement of the need or opportunity),
the (product/service name) is a (product/service category)
that (statement of benefit).
Sentence #2
Unlike (primary competitive alternative),
our product (statement of primary differentiation).
Create and post two PowerPoint slides. One slide should simply list the name of
your project team with all the team members and their majors. The second slide
should have a succinct draft of your positioning statement above. It should
also answer the question: is your product/service a discontinuous innovation?
Please choose one member of your team to present your slides in class. All the slides will be loaded onto a laptop so there is no need to make transparencies. Any teams that do not present on the 15th will present on the 17th.
Topic Summary. The topic summary is a one page (max.) summary of your opportunity. The summary should outline the opportunity and include any questions and concerns your team has about your project.
Deliverable: Update your OAP website with your team topic summary and notify e145-homework@lists.stanford.edu of the change by 9AM on Oct. 22nd.
Expanded Office Hours This week the TAs will be having expanded office hours to meet with OAP teams about their progress (see below). The goal of these hours is to give teams a chance to discuss their review process with the team. Note that the TAs will not give feedback on the opportunity itself - after all, analyzing the opportunity is the whole point of the OAP.
The time of the expanded office hours will be announced later.
We can also arrange other times by request (made to e145-staff@lists.stanford.edu). Additionally, we also encourage teams to email the teaching teams with any questions they have about the OAP.
Team Effectiveness (this session is scheduled for #12 right now, but could end up being #11). Come prepared to work with your team to grapple with issues of team effectiveness and leadership. This is a chance to directly confront issues that you may have run across in the process of the opportunity analysis or otherwise working with your group. You should schedule your second meeting with your mentor somewhere between October 22 and October 31 to check in and seek advice about your primary and secondary source data gathering.
Making Effective Presentations. In this workshop we will discuss ways to effectively communicate your opportunity in a limited period of time.
Sign-ups. Each team must sign up for a presentation time slot by the end of day, November 14th, and must choose another team with which to rehearse their presentation. Sign up process will be clarified as we get closer. You should schedule your third and final mentor meeting to review your rehearsed presentation and rough draft of written deliverables. This meeting should be completed before the Thanksgiving holiday.
Online Reading Materials. Each team should post or link to their Website one or two online reading assignments (keep the total under 6 pages) and two video clips from the STVP Educator's Corner archive (http://edcorner.stanford.edu/design_a_course/videos.shtml) The reading and videos should provide relevant background information for your topic that the class can review in advance of your presentation the following week. When you have done so send mail to the teaching team reminding them of the OAP webpage URL and notifying them that the links are available. The rest of the class will review these web sites as background in preparation for your presentation so choose wisely.
Deliverable: Update the website and email the site’s URL to e145-homework@lists.stanford.edu by 9AM on November 14.
Presentation Rehearsals. Each team will rehearse their presentation with one other team. This is a long period of time, but there is the Thanksgiving Holiday, so plan ahead!
Deliverable: Complete rehearsal and send email to e145-homework@lists.stanford.edu indicating that you have completed your dress rehearsal before another team. Emails must be received by 9AM on November 26.
Team Presentations. Half of the teams will present in Session 17 and half in Session 18. Presentations are limited to 15 minutes per team. Slides should be standard in PowerPoint format, with a recommended maximum of 8 slides per team. The best presentations are often the shortest and most succinct.
Deliverables: All teams must post their PowerPoint deck to their Website by 9AM on November 26th. This will give the teaching team time to assemble all the files onto a single laptop to facilitate presentations.
Deliverable: Opportunity Analysis Term Papers Due at noon. Papers should be a maximum of 1500 words, professionally formatted, with one optional exhibit page. The exhibit may be embedded within the document or attached to the end. Two complete copies of the paper must be submitted to the TAs by noon. You should also post these Term Papers to your Website at the same time. There will be a box outside of Terman 402 for submissions.
Team Founding Shares: Please send an individual email to e145-homework email with your personal assessment of how to distribute founding shares amongst your team members (including yourself). Assume a total of 100 are available for distribution. Please complete this at the latest by the time of the final. More details on this later.
Suggested Resources
Video Links:
o Jeff Hawkins on Designing Successful Products
o Jeff Hawkins on the role of market research
o Vinod Khosla - "No problem, no solution, no company"
o Vinod Khosla - "Think big, act small"
o Heidi Roizen - "Bridge the opportunity"
Course Textbooks and Readings:
Hot technologies and trends:
SurveyMonkey:
Past teams have found SurveyMonkey
to be helpful in gathering primary data. The basic service is free and provides
most of the features you’ll need, though it is limited to 10 questions and 100
responses per a survey. Visit SurveyMonkey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/