Three Classrooms Incubator

Development, product, execution.

Good startup trainings and incubators are rare.

We would like to take a stab.

Brief

Engineers and Product Managers think differently.

I confirm it from my experience from Google, Microsoft and entrepreneurship world.

Yet, both skill sets are essential. And it would be great to have a startup incubator that is leveraging deep understanding of this idea.

Proposal

Three classrooms.

• One room to teach engineering and technology.
• One room to teach product and vision.
• One room for couples looking for intimacy to conceive and execute on an idea.

In the first classroom people are taught engineering and technology.

Over a course of several weeks we teach how to build things. What challenges are there and how to overcome them.

From the ground level up all the way to “How to build your own SnapChat / WhatsApp / etc.”.

Product conversations do not belong to this, technology, room. Those are encouraged to be continued in another room on another track. The first room is designed for people who have the natural curiosity strong enough to focus on engineering problems of increasing complexity.

When we identify people who would rather be genuinely interested in having product-level conversations, we advise them to consider changing to the second, Product, room.

Room One is for the people who agree that their learning curve is the steepest when then think of technology first, before considering the value that their solution would provide to the end user.

Room One gathers people who don’t try to think of a user products until they have established a strong engineering foundation that ensures them they can build it.

Those, who prefer to draw others into thinking in product terms as opposed to thinking technology, are committing a crime in Room One. Effectively, they are drug dealers trying to get teenagers hooked. We believe that, like teenagers are denied their future by being drawn into drugs, tech-savvy people are risking their careers by thinking of a product before their technical skills have blossomed to their fullest. They may grow up to change the world if uninterrupted.

Our “room one” is a detox from this drug.

In fact, people who study in room one should be completely detached from the product world. No connection with product people. Zen-monk style. Zealous practice in technology and nothing beyond that.

So that those who want to become the next Steve Wozniak or John Carmack or Jeff Dean don’t get pulled into some third-grade Snapchat-like products.

The second classroom graduates product managers and user engagement experts.

There we teach:

• How to understand people’s needs.
• How to conduct market research.
• What are the proven facts to be aware of.
• How to perform user base and revenue projections.
• What online presence and marketing techniques work best under what circumstances.
• What exactly should a good idea be complemented with in order to raise money.

Every person from Room One is allowed to change to Room Two any time upon demonstrating basic technology knowledge.

The intuitive background is that, if done right, clusters of people who prefer Room One and Room Two would appear organically. Our learning process would then naturally happen in a way more efficient way, since product and technology subject would be separated.

We can not afford spoiling a future Jeff Dean by telling them how awesome would it be if they quit their studies today and join a small team building yet another WhatsApp. Our job is to grow Jeff Dean-s in those who have the right capacities and mindset.

Because of the way we have arranged the rooms, every person from Room Two would already have some exposure in Room One. They know how hard is it to build things. And they know how exciting it may be for the others.

They would appreciate the work of engineers and understand the importance of providing them with enough freedom and challenging enough problems to solve.

Room Two is to detect and grow people of Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg material. There is no room for Wozniaks and Carmacks there.

Until they have a decent idea what they want to build together. And this happens in Room Three.

The third room is where intimate product development happens.

Room Three comes in handy when two people, one from Room One and one Room Two, make a conscious call to declare themselves done with Room One and Room Two respectively and feel ready to jump into a new journey.

After some time in training, it becomes evident that:

• those, who stay for a while in Room One are on their way to become Jeff Deans, and
• whose, who have spent some time in Room Two, are on their way to become Steve Jobs.
• top people from Room One and top people from Room Two are ready to execute.

Once two people with sufficient education from Room One and Room Two respectively choose to quit the “school” in their rooms and get into the “real life”, they are welcome to Room Three.

The later they drop out from Rooms One and Two to get into Room Three, the further would they get.

In reality, we have both Room One and Room Two getting exponentially harder with time. Virtually everyone, except maybe Jeff Dean and Mark Zuckerberg themselves, would eventually feel the urge to drop out.

Feels like separating tech and product people into two rooms a new idea that has not been tried before. Any takers?