Georgia Tech: Startup Semester

Georgia Tech: Startup Semester(startupsemester.gatech.edu)

52 points by hunterclarke 13 years ago | 18 comments

PStamatiou 13 years ago |

As someone who started a startup during undergrad at Georgia Tech, and received some funding from the university, it's nice to see these kinds of efforts.

But the shocker was when I saw "weekends". This initially sounded like a full-time thing, which would be amazing. And why not have some more hard deliverables and have it count as a 3-4 hour elective credit?

As for "You do have a chance but you would need to find a technical founder yourself."

Harsh. Georgia Tech has a ton of great minds on campus. Setup a site with the CoC allowing students to create a simple profile and express interest in potentially pairing with others for Startup Semester. Like the "I'm looking for a job" checkbox on github.

(For those reading this, Georgia Tech also has an incubator called Flashpoint http://flashpoint.gatech.edu/ )

jdchizzle 13 years ago | |

Hey PStamatiou, thanks for your comments! As I mentioned in a reply to a previous post, this entire program was literally hacked together in the past 3 months by two undergraduate students with no money and almost zero reputation with the school. From the very beginning we've always wanted the Startup Semester program itself to be recognized as a full-time internship (Akin to simply withdrawing for a semester to work on their startups, what many students are actually doing). Unfortunately, we haven't been able to sway Georgia Tech administration to our side. What we're left with is a "pilot program" to test our hypothesis.

You're right. It is a little harsh that non-technical founders will have to look for someone technical themselves. We really wish we can implement a feature like that in the future. For now, a minimum viable program is all we can do with our own full course loads.

At the end of the day, we gauge our success on changing attitudes, not having our startups appear on Forbes. If we can change the culture at Georgia Tech just one cohort of entrepreneurs at a time, more students at Georgia Tech will begin to think much like you.

dpeck 13 years ago |

It's great to see my school doing this, but looking at it doesn't seem very different from the senior design/capstone projects that many of the technical majors have already. I assume the big difference is not taking other classes along with this program and you don't have a customer lined up before starting?

For perspective my senior design project was a semester long "class" that met once every week or two for milestone updates from the groups, and occasional lectures/instruction from industry folks. My groups project was 4 of us designing and implementing a group management system for social orgs. Basic stuff like shared calendars, sub groups, email<->forum integration, permissions/views for officers and such. Obviously not the most ambitious project, but the kind of thing that a few college kids could feasibly do in a semester on top of a full course load.

jdchizzle 13 years ago | |

Hey dpeck, glad to hear your views on Startup Semester. Just to put our side in perspective as well - Startup Semester was the result of two undergrads at Georgia Tech who were frustrated at the silos of "schools" that never work together and a culture that seems to look forward to "getting out". We spent all of the last 3 months putting this program together for less than $50 with the goal that we ourselves would be able to learn from it and simultaneously benefit the community.

To answer your concern more directly, our long-term mission is to create a physical entrepreneurial hub on campus that all majors are welcome to participate in. The purpose is to connect the entrepreneurs of all the schools at Georgia Tech - Industrial Design, Computing, Engineering, Business etc.. - to really build great products and businesses backed by an effective cross-functional team. In our experience, we've never encountered a senior design team with business students, designers, and engineers working together. We may be wrong, but it definitely seems like students are agreeing. At the very least, we're hoping this program could help us, and perhaps a few other misfits like us. :)

dpeck 13 years ago | | |

Great to see happening, didn't want to seem like I was downing on it.

The cross major/school stuff would be great, especially getting the CoC kids out of their bubble. The senior/grad level Video Game Design (that still around? it was a ball buster, but a great class) was supposed to include CoC and kids from SCAD and arch/industrial design schools but I'm not sure how many actually had that happen. My team recruited a my comp engineer buddy who was serviable with photoshop.

Agreed on the "getting out" culture, needs to change, but I'm not sure Tech would be Tech without it. My favorite times were always early in semesters and after finals where over, plenty of time to work on some projects with friends without the feeling of "talking shop" that happens during the intense workloads of mid to end of classes.

netmau5 13 years ago |

I may have been slower than others, but my weekend time at GaTech was spent on laundry, groceries, and lots of CS homework.

Just give them some money and the summer term to focus. Being clever just makes this harder.

prpatel 13 years ago |

I'm not sure how I feel about this. From one point of view, I think this is an awesome idea, get energetic, smart students down the entrepreneurship path early. Then my experience of running an actual startup, the ups-and-downs, the intricacies of building a viable _business_, etc come to mind and I think this is a bad idea. It doesn't matter how much mentoring one has - unless you've been in the trenches of a real world business, you have no foundation upon which to base your own. Not everyone can be Zuckerberg (hell, even Facebook isn't profitable yet). I would much prefer an apprenticeship type of setup - or even better offer this course to alums, or be part of the executive MBA program - those in an executive MBA program have industry experience, come with ideas on how they can improve the vertical(s) they worked in, and understand the real world better than a student who has zero experience. Don't get me wrong - if I were a GATECH student right now, I would love to be part of this program!

harigov 13 years ago |

University of Michigan already has a course that does something similar. Also, they introduced a 'Master in Entrepreneurship' focusing on all the aspects of Entrepreneurship. They are getting into it in a big way. I bet all the big universities already have courses, clubs or incubators serving similar purpose.

ohashi 13 years ago | |

I received a Master's in Entrepreneurship at Lund University in Sweden. I am not sure how I feel about it honestly. The big advantage was being in a room full of people who wanted to do stuff. The negative side was the course was trying so hard to balance the study of entrepreneurship versus actually doing something. It leaned very heavily towards the study in my opinion and the doing was exceptionally undervalued. What exactly one would expect from a master's in entrepreneurship, I am not sure, but I honestly expected to get my hands a lot dirtier.

I don't know what other programs are like across the world, but I think a focus on actually doing stuff rather than simply studying it would be nice. Our thesis equivalent was a business plan, which is a grand set of ideas graded by how good it sounds and well reasoned it is. There was little value in actually going out and creating and testing.

harigov 13 years ago | | |

Agreed. The key here is to make science out of art, just the way everything 'education' aspires to do. I do agree with you that getting hands dirty is probably the best way of learning but it is up to people to figure out how much effort they want to put into it. The course is just to mold their thinking to be a successful entrepreneur.

paul9290 13 years ago |

An innovative college needs to make this a four year concentration!

It will offer the students skills in design, development, online and regular marketing, PR, public speaking, team building, as well as internships at VC firms, other startups and more.

I graduated with a degree in the Recording Industry from a school in and around Nashville, which offered internships at labels and other industry focused businesses.

I'm surprised there isn't a web start-up concentration offered at any colleges similar to the Recording Industry concentration I studied. There should be!

aswanson 13 years ago |

I'm glad to see this spreading. A lot of people here are too young to know. Just a few years back, the zeitgeist in the CS/Engineering community was not about startups, which was a real shame. I bitched/ranted about schools not doing more to promote technical people to start companies. pg stated that over time it would invade from the ground up, which seems to be happening: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37850

[EDIT: Grammar, wording]

ynniv 13 years ago |

A little context: this appears to be an attempt to emulate UT Austin's 1SemesterStartup at Georgia Tech.

[ http://techdrawl.com/content/put-me-home ]

pradn 13 years ago |

The University of Texas at Austin has had a similar class for a few semesters now. Glad to see the idea spreading.

http://www.1semesterstartup.com/

s_baby 13 years ago |

This is a good idea but why the limit of 30 or strict requirements? It's not like this program using up limited school resources like Flashpoint.

rkischuk 13 years ago | |

As a Flashpoint alum, I can certainly say that the resources that area limited are not those of the school. The most limited resources are those of appropriate mentors and advisors, and the time of the members of each team during group gatherings.

Much the same case here. The availability of suitable mentors and coaches is limited, and you don't want spend too much time in very large group gatherings.

dreamdu5t 13 years ago |

"make entrepreneurship much more accessible to undergraduates" = We'll focus on web startups because everyone can make websites (right?)

"We're dedicating an entire workspace just for teams to work, collaborate, and bounce ideas off each other." = We have a room with chairs and computers.

"Workshops on lean principles, peer teaching, individualized team deliverables" = We'll teach you what a to-do list and a convertible note is. It's not easy.

"Mentorship: Veterans entrepreneurs, business developers, specialists." = Unnamed people who don't know what they're doing tell you they know what they're doing.

heyaswin 13 years ago | |

Hey dreamdu5t,

Just curious but have you actually seen the mentor list?

http://www.facebook.com/notes/startup-semester/startup-semes...

You're welcome to your opinion of course - just thought you might be curious.