Berkeley Haas Entrepreneurship

Proudly announcing our Boston Global Summit winner! Congratulations to: Plastus Biotech, from University of California, Berkeley in the United States. 🇺🇸 Plastus converts organic waste into biodegradable bioplastics through precision fermentation. They are now one of the winning startups joining us at the Global Accelerator at historic Ashridge! 🇬🇧Join us in celebrating this accomplishment as they continue preparing for the next step.

So everyone says talking to customers and doing discovery is important when building a startup. But how do you actually find and convince these customers to talk to you? And what do you do in a call? WHY SHOULD YOU TALK TO CUSTOMERS? - If you want to build a startup, you need to build a product that’s used by customers. - To get people to use your product, you need to know what they need. Ask them what they need. Show them what you’ve built. Ask them for advice. See what they think. HOW TO REACH OUT TO PEOPLE - LinkedIn: reach out to your ideal customer profile (ICP) and send a quick message asking for a 15m meeting to ask for advice/feedback on what you’re building (in image). - Network: see if you know anyone who falls into your ICP. Ask people you know for introductions. Meeting people at events is also sometimes effective depending on your ICP. - Cold Email: sending emails is always worth it. Use email softwares to reach out to lots of people to ask for advice.  Send messages and setup time for a 15-30 minute meeting. WHAT TO DO IN A MEETING - Understand the problem your ideal customer faces very deeply. Dive deep into their problem and ask questions to understand the problem from different angles. - Think about whether what you’re building solves their problem or not. Ask them what they think about what you’re working on. Maybe show a demo to get their feedback. It’s essential to be precise when talking to customers. Don’t waste your time by not talking to them. Don’t waste theirs by not coming prepared. Discovery is an art - learning how to do this well will pay off.

We're smack dab in the middle of National Science Foundation (NSF) Summer 24 #ICorps, grinding away toward the goal of 100 interviews...always a great time to get good news from past teams. Congrats to joint University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley Lab (& Summer 22 National #ICorps) team Aepnus Technology! $8M raise for converting battery waste into 2 key chemicals for further production + mitigating a projected 3 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.💪 Best part? Two of the nicest guys on the 🌎 Way to go Bilen Akuzum, Ph.D. & Lukas Hackl , you are rock stars!! 🤩 🤩 What can I-Corps do for your STEM startup? Apply by 6/28 for the free, 3-evening, virtual class starting 7/15. Learn more here: https://bit.ly/3xcA2mD https://bit.ly/3RwxxCv Rich Lyons Shankar Sastry Darren Cooke Dave Weiner Marquita M. Qualls, PhD Weston Waldo, MBA Annam Quraishi Seo Yeon Yoon Chris Bush Follow me + UC Berkeley Innovation & Entrepreneurship for more posts like this.

No shiny disco balls @ University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business last Friday, but lots of energetic discussion around all things quantum, microelectronics and materials science. Participants received expert advice on quantum vs. AI, how startups can collaborate better with deep tech researchers & why fault tolerant quantum is the most exciting recent development. Thanks to panelists Charles Ling (Foothill Ventures), Xiaoming Yin, Ph.D (Lockheed Ventures) & Nicolas Sawaya, PhD (Azulene Labs) & to Lucian Sweitzer for his expert moderation. Thanks also to Jeremy Greeter, PhD & Kelly Yan from Berkeley Lab for moderating. Awesome to get an National Science Foundation (NSF) #ICorps shoutout during the panel--learn more about how I-Corps can bring your deep tech startup idea to life. Apply by 6/28 for the free, 3-evening, virtual class starting 7/15. Learn more here: https://bit.ly/3xcA2mD

Late post, but the 1st TECHvocacy: Emerging Tech Advocacy Summit was a hit! Great day of learning with lightning talks, panels and hands-on media training in the afternoon—including a participant (University of San Francisco professor) scheduled to appear on Bloomberg News the next day. One of the most intriguing ideas came from Brandon Borrman's lightning round talk: the need for a marketplace to choose algorithms based on outcomes. This, in parallel with a need to understand the fundamental components, not just the outcomes. Other speakers reiterated the need for standards and transparency, as well as the inherent tension between policymakers who are generally incentivized to be cautious, not innovative. Storytelling emerged as the key theme of the day and was perfectly captured by incoming University of California, Berkeley Chancellor, Rich Lyons, during his keynote over lunch. Using examples from his current role as Chief Innovation and Entrepreneurship Officer, he provided the audience with food for thought on both the value and necessity of storytelling as an essential advocacy tool. Thanks again to Rich, all of the speakers + the dream team that pulled it off and the awesome Parsa Mujadedy who captured so many special moments throughout the day. Karin H. Bauer Hermine Wong Angeli Patel Adeeba Fazil Lenique Frazier See you next year!

Applications for the next session of I-Corps @ LSEC are now open! 💡 If you have a life sciences startup idea this free one-week workshop will change your mindset about how you understand the stakeholders who determine whether your solution is adopted. I-Corps also vastly increases your odds of getting an SBIR grant. This next session will be held June 10, 12, 17, 5-8pm online. More information about this once-in-a-quarter opportunity here: https://lnkd.in/efzRcmM7 ✅ Easily apply by this Friday, May 24: https://lnkd.in/ejjU-yww Last March a stellar batch of eight teams collectively did 130 #customer_discovery interviews in five business days: ✨ Eye-tracking diagnostics (UCSF, Harvard, Duke) ✨ Next-gen otoscope (Stanford MDs) ✨ Next-gen biopsy tool (UCSF MDs) ✨ Allergy diagnostic and monitoring (Stanford faculty team) ✨ Single-cell research tool (UCSF postdocs) ✨ Proteomic drug-discovery tools (Berkeley faculty team) ✨ Echocardiogram innovations (UCSF faculty team) ✨ Transfection technology (UCLA postdoc and MBAs) #YouSeeBerkeley #entrepreneurship Follow me and UC Berkeley Innovation & Entrepreneurship for more posts like this. Dave Weiner, Rhonda Shrader, Adeeba Fazil, Annam Quraishi FAQs re I-Corps @ LSEC What is this all about? In one week you'll learn the Lean Startup methodology, and do at least fifteen customer discovery interviews. Participants have consistently described the experience as "mindset changing" and "pivotal" to their entrepreneurial journey. Do I need to have a startup? No, just a potentially commercializable idea – this course will help you decide whether or how best to pursue that startup idea. If you do have a company already, that’s ok – I-Corps has helped teams with paying customers refine their customer segments and value propositions, to help find more paying customers! Do I need a team? No and yes. This weeklong course is enough work that we don't take solo teams. You do need at least one person to participate with you. However, that person can be a friend, classmate, or colleague interested in getting an intensive customer discovery experience. In fact, it often works better to have a temporary teammate who is not as close to your technology. Do I need to be a Berkeley student? No. The mission of Berkeley LSEC is to promote innovation from UC Berkeley so we love teams with tech from Berkeley, but anyone with a university or national lab connection are welcome to apply. Who is the instructor? It's me! Director of the Life Sciences Entrepreneurship Center at UC Berkeley. I've taught the regional I-Corps program at Berkeley since 2017, and similar programs for the NSF, NIH, UC LAUNCH, and the Haas MBA course Lean Transfer. I'm also the chair of the Bio Track at Berkeley SkyDeck and former chair of Med Device and Digital Health at Life Science Angels. I still have questions. Where do I get more info? Sign up for an Advisory Session at lsec.berkeley.edu.