Homing in on product-market fit:
- Value Proposition Design – What are customers trying to achieve? How can you help them?
- Customer Discovery & Market Assessment – How do you "get out of the building" to learn from potential customers? How do you determine if you have a viable market?
- Pathway to Commercialization – If you've achieved product-market fit, what are the steps needed to get out into the marketplace?
Once you have a high-level commercialization game plan, you need to specify and attract the needed resources:
- Planning – What does the comprehensive business model look like? How will you document your business plan?
- Pitching – How can you get decision makers intrigued in your idea? How will you get them to take the conversation to the next step?
- Funding – What’s your funding strategy? What are some funding sources?
Intellectual property protection and licensing entails multiple considerations and processes:
- Patentability & Public Disclosure – What IP protections are relevant to different types of innovations? What does this mean for academic discourse?
- Office for Technology Commercialization – What can you expect from a tech transfer office? What does the process look like?
This tool box is just to get you started. We also have included a portal to the following:
- University of Minnesota – What are the U’s entrepreneurship, commercialization and translational research programs and centers? Who do you contact?
- Lean LaunchPad – How do you get an overview of the Lean Startup Process? What’s the latest?
- Other Resources – Videos and other material from Kauffman Founders School and other respected sources.
With funding from the National Science Foundation, MIN-Corps is a joint initiative of three areas of the University of Minnesota: the College of Science and Engineering, the Office for Technology Commercialization, and the Holmes Center for Entrepreneurship at the Carlson School of Management. Our mission is to increase research-based technology commercialization capabilities and activities across the University of Minnesota.