Have an innovative idea? Not sure how to commercialize it? Attend the two-day, 2-hour, back-to-back workshop. Each workshop builds on the other, though you are welcome to only attend one.
Monday Sessions:
1) Evaluate risks of the idea - Innovations are really an accumulation of risks and entrepreneurs are in the business of identifying, moderating and eliminating risk. This session will highlight the strategies the IDEA Center at the University of Notre Dame is taking in risk analysis of early stage innovations/business ideas.
2) Validate problem - One of the biggest reasons companies fail in America today is developing a product or service for which too few customers care or care enough to pay for a product. This session will discuss the importance of and methods to validate the problem your customers have that your company’s product is intended to solve. This is not selling your solution but validating and quantifying customer pain leading to building a product customers will purchase.
Tuesday Sessions: Building on Monday’s sessions, this workshop addresses:
3) Market testing - A primary risk to any early stage innovation is not understanding market trends and customer interest in your product. Investors are looking for companies in which market traction has been established. The best type of market traction is orders/sales however the second best is market signals that your product meets a customer pain and that customer is willing to pay to purchase the product. This session will review practices of marketing testing.
4) Tech Development (concept to product) - One of the biggest risks facing an early stage company is the innovation/technology itself. Does the technology work and can the company make the product at a cost the customer is willing to pay while still leaving enough room for the entrepreneur to make money? This session will review current practices in technology development - bridging the gap between proof of concept to a functional prototype.
