Session 5: January 20, 2009

From Idea to Opportunity II

 

Quote of the Day

"Customers Don’t Read Your Business Plan." ~ Steve Blank

 

Summary

This is the second of two sessions where we discuss the choices and challenges of a startup taking their idea and turning it a business opportunity. In this session, we look at IMVU’s challenges as they build a new venture in selling virtual goods.  We will discuss their initial idea, their choices of business model and how they designed a lean startup for rapid execution and iteration.

 

Required Readings (Policy on Required Readings.)

• Case:  IMVU [in the course reader]
• "Four Steps to the Epiphany” Chapter 3 (You’ve read chapters 1-2 last week.)
• Readings from the Textbooks:
  • Technology Ventures (Dorf and Byers): Ch 6 Risk and Return; Ch 7 Venture Creation and the Business Plan (Highlights: 6.3, 6.5, 7.1, 7.2)
• Additional articles to read:
  • Case Analysis Guidelines

Study Questions (Policy on Study Questions.)

1. What was IMVU business model?
2. What do you think was there positioning statement?
3. What were the other business models a web-based company could have chosen?
4. What were the three operating principles of the IMVU Owners Manual?
5.  How long do you think the development cycle for each release of the IMVU software was?  Why?

 

Team Case Analysis (Policy on Case Analyses.)

 

Should IMVU (1) work with ROC, (2) Pacific Capital or (3) take the Janga acquisition?  Why?

Cases must be submitted by 7PM on the day prior to class to e145-homework@lists.stanford.edu.

 

Submission Format

1.      PUT IN EMAIL HEADER: E145: Case Number, Case Name, Team Name
          i.e. E145: Case 1, IMVU

          You must submit all cases with this format for the subject line. Your assignment may not be graded if you fail to do so.

2.            PUT IN CASE STUDY:

• Names of the students in the team
• First sentence should be whether or not you agree with the prompt

 

OAP Reminder – Positioning Statement

Due January 21^nd

Fill in Geoff Moore's two-sentence positioning template for your OAP product or service concept and send via email with your team name clearly identified. The template is:

• Sentence #1: For (target customer) who (statement of the need or opportunity), the (product/service name) is a (product/service category) that (statement of benefit).
• Sentence #2: Unlike (primary competitive alternative), our product (statement of primary differentiation)

Create and post two PowerPoint slides to your website by 7 PM on Wednesday night. One slide should list the name of your project team with all the team members and their majors. The second slide should have a succinct draft of your positioning statement above.