Do you have an idea for a product, service, company, nonprofit, or other new initiative? Would you like to enroll in a 12-week course where you’ll turn your idea into a reality?

A “Startup Incubator” course — the first of its kind at Wesleyan — will be offered in Fall 2018 through Wesleyan’s Center for the Study of Public Life (CSPL239). The class is hosted at Wesleyan but open to students from other colleges and universities, with priority consideration for students from Middlesex Community College. It will be taught by leaders at reSET, a Hartford-based nonprofit whose mission is to advance the social enterprise sector. Financial support is provided by CTNext. Advising and coaching will be available through Wesleyan’s Patricelli Center.

Read more about the class below

Apply here (rolling admission until the course is full)

Questions? Contact mjkingsley@wesleyan.edu

Startup Incubator: The Art and Science of Launching Your Idea
Fall 2018
Mondays 1:20-4:10
Location: The Fishbowl, Exley Science Center (SCIE189)

The Startup Incubator is a one-semester, experiential learning program designed to teach and enable student entrepreneurs to develop sustainable business models from their ideas.

Students are an ambitious, committed, and diverse group of individuals from all classes and majors who are passionate about developing successful solutions to challenges; identify as entrepreneurs, disruptors and thought leaders; and have the tenacity, work ethic and ability to succeed. All participating students will have a promising business idea and will take the course with the intention of launching or running their own venture.

Student Incubator students actively participate in one cohort meeting a week: most are “classes” that take the form of lectures or workshops, and some are “practice days” that provide time to practice theories and methods necessary for success.  Students also dedicate 10+ additional hours per week to assignments, self-directed work, customer discovery, networking and mentoring sessions.

This course will feel like a combination of a college class and a rigorous startup incubator program. Success is a student using theories learned in class to validate their ideas by developing and accurately testing business assumptions, identifying and researching their target market, and pivoting to develop a sustainable business model.

By enrolling, students make a commitment to themselves, the instructor, and the other members of the class.

Major readings:

Lean Startup Methodology by Eric Ries

Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares