YH Ventures 1: Developing the Product that Matters
The Ventures Accelerator program is a 10 week accelerator program for student run businesses at Penn. Each week, the YouthHack Core Team hosts Sunday Sessions to catch up with the Ventures, host a speaker, and have a presentation/workshop on a pertinent topic. This series of publications is dedicated to telling the story of the Ventures and exploring key takeaways from the program.
The Week in Review: Progressive Development
Over the past week, our startups in the Ventures Program worked primarily on building their MVP’s and on outreach to mentors and potential partners. The first Hack Night of the semester lived up to its hype, as our Ventures made huge strides on both front and back end product development (all capped off by a fire alarm just after four.)
Sunday Session: Goal Setting, Focus, and the Brand
In the first portion of the weekly Sunday Session, our Core Team caught up with the Ventures and helped refine their goals into concrete deliverables for the coming weeks. Next, Jeff and I gave a lecture which focused on the importance of developing their MVP’s, websites, and search engine optimization: when they reach out to potential customers, investors, or partners, they have to have the brand to back their visions. The perfect equilibrium between having a developed enough product and reaching out for much needed help and feedback is a tough one to find, but there is no harm in better developing and marketing one’s product.
The Process: Advice from an Entrepreneurial Success Story
For the second half of the session, the Ventures and FreshStart groups listened to Joshua Davidson, CEO & Founder of Chop Dawg. Chop Dawg develops the tech side of companies, filling a market gap which Joshua saw when he started the company at age 16: there were many entrepreneurs without the tech background needed to launch their ideas. Josh provided inspiring insight into what it took to start his business and build it to the 22-manned global operation it is today. To get his first customer he went door to door for months pitching his company. When his idea started taking off, he dropped out of college to pursue it full time. This dedication in itself was a valuable takeaway for our Ventures.
Josh advised the Ventures to ensure their businesses better entertained customers than their competition or saved customers more money or more time than their competition; orienting a business around a subset of these criteria is intrinsic to any startup’s success. Josh ended his Q&A focusing beyond strictly entrepreneurship. He described how he always better himself through continual learning and reading.
In line with this, he urged our startups to “question everything” and to keep in mind that, above all, “motivation and purpose are key.” Our startups are passionate about their ideas, the next step, and a big one at that, is transferring this passion into a marketable product which makes a difference.
Stay tuned for the next part of this series, and drop by the upcoming YouthHack Open House this Friday. You can RSVP here.
YouthHack is an international organization dedicated to fomenting and building entrepreneurial culture. To get involved, and to learn more, visit our website or Facebook page.
I, Cameron, am a student in the M&T Program at Penn and am a member of the Core Team. I’m really into entrepreneurship, tech, design, and especially where all of these things intersect. To connect or learn more about me, visit my website.
