EDUC 260: The Lean Launch Pad for Education
The team application deadline is September 24. Find out more at our weekly information sessions Friday 1 p.m. on September 6, 13, and 20 here.
This class will meet Thursdays from 4 to 6 p.m. with mandatory office hours starting at 3 p.m. The class will be 3-4 units.
Lean Launchpad for Education (LLPEd) is the best way to learn about entrepreneurship and build the skills necessary to start businesses in education. This class is based on the Lean Startup methodology for discovering market needs and developing your startup. Lean Launchpad, which originated at Stanford, is currently taught in over 100 schools in the U.S.
This course provides a real-world, hands-on learning experience on what it’s like to actually start a company. This class is not about how to write a business plan. It’s not an exercise on how smart you are in a classroom or how well you use the research library to size markets. And the end result is not a PowerPoint slide deck for a VC presentation or a Y Combinator Demo Day. And it is most definitely not an incubator where you come to build the “hot-idea” that you have in mind. Instead, we are a class like no other that will teach you how to rigorously evaluate a business idea, apply the Lean Startup Methodology and maximize your chances of establishing product-market fit.
Education is a very special place to build companies. K12 schools spend only 1-2% of their budgets on technology, parents spend only 2% of their disposable income on education, and the purchase behavior both for consumer and enterprise sales in education works differently than other sectors. It’s also one of the most emotionally rewarding areas to build because of the impact you will have on the lives of children. As part of this class, you will read pieces and learn from successful education entrepreneurs and potential buyers, that will help you understand and navigate education. 80% of the time and value of this class will be understanding and implementing the Lean Startup methodology, augmented with 20% specific to building successful education startups.
Ideas and Teammates
If you need help thinking about your idea or finding other students to join your team, please register in Slack, post your idea, and attend the Information Session every Friday until school starts. The second half of the information session will have time for breakout rooms to discuss specific ideas.
Meet the instructors
Jennifer Carolan is also an instructor of the main Lean Launchpad class at Stanford, as well as being founder and managing partner of Reach Capital, a top venture fund focusing on education. Jennifer taught middle school.
John Danner has built over a dozen education companies and is co-founder of NetGravity, Rocketship Public Schools and projectread.ai. John taught middle and elementary school.
Emma Brunskill is a Stanford Computer Science professor– she and her lab have won multiple awards for their research on AI and AI for education.
Admission
This class combines theory with a ton of hands-on practice. Our goal, within the constraints of a classroom and a limited amount of time, is to give you a framework to test the business model of a startup while creating all of the pressures and demands of the real world in an early-stage startup. The class is designed to give you the experience of how to work as a team and turn an idea into a company.
Working and studying will be done in teams. You will be admitted as a team. Teams must submit a proposal for entry by September 24, through our application form. Proposals can be software, physical product, or any service related to education. Projects are treated as real start-ups, so the workload will be intense. Teams have reported up to 20 hours of work each per week. Do not take this class if you can’t spend the time.
Besides the instructors and TA’s, each team will be assigned a mentor (an experienced entrepreneur or VC) to provide assistance and support.