Entrepreneurial Design 2017

Instructors: Christina Xu (Blog, Twitter), Gary Chou (Blog, Twitter), Students; Thursdays, 2pm - 4:50pm, Office
Hours: Thursdays, 5-6pm

Welcome / $1,000 Project / Schedule / Getting Started / 5 Assignments

01/12 — Week 1: Introduction

01/19 — Week 2: Ideation
01/26 — Week 3: Creating with the Public
02/02 — Week 4: Preparing for the Public Talk
02/09 — Week 5: Evening Public Presentation Event (no class during the day)
02/16 — Week 6: Designing a Crowdfunding Project
02/23 — Week 7: Preparing for Critique
02/25 — Week 7.5: Product Sessions (Held on Saturday)
03/02 — No Class
03/09 — Spring Break
03/16 — Week 10: Review Feedback / Launch Checklist
03/23 — Week 11: Launch Prep
03/30 — Week 12: Launch Deadline
04/06 — Week 13: Dealing With Launch
04/13 — Week 14: $1,000 Project Review (campaign deadline)
04/20 — Week 15: Semester Review
04/27 — Week 16: The Last Class / Lessons Learned

Welcome
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Entrepreneurial Design is a course in SVA’s MFA in Interaction Design Program which provides a real-world
setting for students to:

● launch a project
● iterate on the design and implementation of the project in public
● seek out advice and feedback from others
● learn to make their own creative decisions

The course takes a broad definition of entrepreneurship (from pie shops to movements to tech startups), and
focuses on the emerging opportunities that come from living and working in an increasingly networked world,
while challenging the students to think of themselves not as designers but as creators.

The course is co-taught by Christina Xu and Gary Chou.

Previous instructors include Leland Rechis (2014, 2015) and Christina Cacioppo (2012, co-creator).

Course Components

Question Party
Each week, 3-4 students will be assigned the task of polling their classmates for questions to raise in class the
following week and presenting the questions to discuss as a group. Each student will be responsible for
Question Party twice over the semester.

Blogging
Each week, we would like you to write and publish at least one “flow” post (occasionally, these are substituted
for “stock” posts. When unspecified, the topic of your “flow” post can be about your work process, challenges
you faced, lessons you learned, one of the questions that were posed to the class via Question Party, or
anything broadly related to the class.

The goal of the “flow” posts is to learn to share your process in public and to connect with others who may help
you move your project along. Sometimes a screenshot, animated GIF, or video clip can make a larger impact
than a wall of text.

See:
Stock and Flow by Robin Sloan
A Talk I Gave on Blogging by Fred Wilson
Syndicating to Medium by Jeremy Keith (also Anywhere *and* Medium)

$1,000 Project
Using crowdfunding tools, create and deliver a product or service that generates $1,000 by April 13th, the 14th
week of class. More details below.

Resources
Items listed in the Resources section are suggested (or required, if bolded) readings for the week following.
While these are optional, you will find them very helpful for completing your assignments. We may add to each
week’s list during class, as pieces of writing or projects are referenced during discussion.
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Grading
Grading is pass/fail and will be based on the effort you put toward this class.

Writing Practice
We suggest using 750words as daily writing practice, but this is optional. 750words is a default-private site that
provides just a text box and a word count. Read How to Write by Josh Seiden as a guide.

$1,000 Project

By April 13th (week 14), design, launch, and complete a crowdfunding campaign for a creative project or
service that makes at least $1,000 (substantive interest) from at least 50 backers. The campaign should be
concluded, either successfully or not, before class on April 13th. The goal of this project is to walk you through
the experience of creating and launching a real-world project. Along the way, you’ll learn how to cultivate a
network of supporters and collaborators and figure out how to work steadily towards a self-determined end.

Teaming Up
You can work on this project with another classmate, but if so, keep in mind that you will need to net $1000 per
person.

Guidelines
● Your project should be legal.
● Your project should be at least financially break-even. We aren’t expecting $1000 in net profit, but you
shouldn’t be breaking the bank for this, either.
● You may not rent out your room or perform time-based labor.
● You can invest any amount of startup time required.
● You can collaborate with people outside of the SVA program on aspects of your project, but you should
own the project entirely.

Here are some projects to inspire you. Not all of them made $1000 and some made much more, but they all
share a similar sense of leveraging community to accomplish something simple.

● Archive 2013 by Diana Kimball (Kickstarter / Product)

● Bacon Dinner by Katherine Pan and Nicole He (Kickstarter / Event)
● Hackers Anniversary Party by Fred Benenson (Kickstarter / Event)
● Especially Mysterious Letters (Kickstarter / Performance)

Getting Started
Complete these by the start of Week 2. For each account use a consistent profile photo/avatar and add links
to the Dashboard

1. Create a 750words account (optional—free for 30 days)

a. Create a daily recurring time in your calendar to write for 20 minutes. Mornings are ideal but
pick something that works for you.
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 b. Put away your phone, close all of your tabs.
c. If you have trouble focusing, try installing Self Control
2. Create a Twitter account:
a. Make it public
b. Use a consistent profile photo/avatar
c. Edit your profile and add a link to your website
d. Post a link to your Twitter profile to the Dashboard under “Twitter URL”
3. Create a Tumblr (Flow)
a. Make it public
b. Use your real name or a pseudonym
c. Sign up for Disqus and install Disqus on your Tumblr blog.
d. Sign up for Google Analytics and install it on your Tumblr blog.
e. Post a link to your public-facing blog (not your Tumblr dashboard) to the Dashboard under
“Tumblr URL”
f. Follow everyone in the class
4. Create an account on Medium (Stock)
a. Make it public and connect it to your Twitter account
b. (If you’d like to use Medium for Flow, create a separate publication for it)
c. Post a link to your Medium profile to the Dashboard under “Medium URL”
d. Follow everyone in the class
e. Read a few posts. Use the highlight and recommend tools at least once.

Schedule
January 12 — Week 1: Introduction

Assignment for next week:

● Weekly “flow” post: tell us something about yourself—a past experience, a unique hobby, or
something you’re interested in now
● Set up all your accounts

Resources
● Learning Entrepreneurial Hustle by Jon Kolko
● Studying Entrepreneurship Without Doing It by Seth Godin
● How to Write by Josh Seiden
● Stock and Flow by Robin Sloan
● Words as Material by Nicole Fenton
● Class retrospectives from past students:
■ Embrace the Awkward by Melody Quintana
■ It’s OK to Fail by Leroy Tellez
■ Can you teach someone to be an entrepreneur by Barbara de Wilde
■ Fail in Public by Tony Chu
■ A class on life by Nikki Sylianteng
■ What I learned from earning $1k in a semester by Pam Jue
■ Coastermatic's Tash Wong and Tom Harman on The Big Web Show

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January 19 — Week 2: Ideation

Question Party: Alex, Amsha, Amy

Assignment for next week:

● Weekly “flow” post
● Small/Medium/Large iterations for two project ideas

Resources
● The Reductive Seduction of Other People’s Problems by Courtney Martin
● Simplicity on the other side of complexity by Jon Kolko
● The Thesis After Your Thesis by Gary Chou
● Make 100 by Kickstarter

January 26 — Week 3: Creating with the Public

Question Party: Ashley, Azucena, Christine

Assignment for next week:

● Weekly “flow” post: five things you were surprised by during research
● Send a cold email to introduce yourself to someone who did a Kickstarter project you admire in
your general area of interest, and set up an in-person, phone, or video meeting with this person.

Resources
● Letters for Black Lives Project by Jenn Fang
● Cold Emails by Andrew Parker
● Cold Emails to Hot People by Yaniv Solnik
● 10 Tips for an Awesome Coffee Meeting by Sean Blanda
● Meeting with busy people by Joseph Walla
● The Perfect Email by Adrienne Lafrance
● Some Things I Have Learned About Email by Albert Wenger

February 2 — Week 4: Preparing for the Public Talk

Question Party: Janel, Jenil, Katarina

Assignment for next week:

● Weekly “flow” post
● Create and practice your talk: 2 minutes, as many slides as you need.

Resources
● The Three Things I’ve Learned From Eighteen Years of Public Speaking by Jer Thorpe
● Advice on Public Talks by Zach Lieberman
● Don’t Be Scared to Ask For Help by Song Lee

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February 9 — Week 5: Evening Public Presentation Event (6-9 PM)

Note: we won’t have class during the afternoon, but please be in the studio 6 PM sharp for a run-
through; the event will start at 7 PM.

Assignment for next week:

● Turn your talk into a Medium post. Put the URL of the post into the relevant row on the
Dashboard.

Resources:
● Reflections on the Ten Post Experiment by Christina Xu
● Where are the Numbers? by Tracy Chou
● How do you document your life? by Min Lee
● The Change You Want to See in the World by Star Simpson (see also: Project Alloy)
● Everything I know about starting collaborative, feminist publications by Amelia Greenhall
● O Perfect Knife, Where Art Thou? by Tina Ye
● I asked my friends how much they give by Nikki Lee
● Reviewing this year’s “Year in Review” by Anil Dash

February 16 — Week 6: Designing a Crowdfunding Project

Question Party: Kinjal, Mischa, Ning

Assignment for next week:

● Weekly “flow” post
● “Working Backwards” letter for your idea(s)
● Initial Kickstarter draft for your idea(s)—outline of Kickstarter description + at least 5 reward
ideas

Resources
● Working Backwards by Ian McCall
● On Constraints, Exploration and Chance by Gary Chou

February 23 — Week 7: Preparing for Critique

Question Party: Nour, Scott, Sejal

Assignment for next 3 weeks:

● At least one weekly “flow” post
● Refined Kickstarter draft and other relevant artifacts for Product Sessions
● Fleshed out project budget

Resources
● How to Plan Your Kickstarter Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 by Kevin Clark
● The Benefit of Mentor Whiplash by Brad Feld
● Do You Want Critique, or a Hug? How to Gain Valuable Criticism on Your Design, by Jon Kolko

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February 25 — Week 7.5: Product Sessions (Saturday)

2pm - 6pm at Orbital: 155 Rivington St., Floor 2 (near the Delancey Essex F/J/M/Z stop)

March 2 — Week 8: NO CLASS

March 9 — Week 9: SPRING BREAK!

March 16 — Week 10: Making a Launch Plan

Question Party: Tyler, Wei Ting/Wilson, Young

Assignment for next week:

● Weekly “flow” post
● Detailed launch plan—what needs to happen between now and launch?
● Get Kickstarter draft to a place where you can submit it for approval

March 23 — Week 11: Preparing for Launch

Question Party: Yue/Lilian, Alex, Amsha, Amy

Assignment for next week:

● Get project approved

March 30 — Week 12: Launch!

Question Party: Ashley / Soohyun, Azucena, Christine, Janel

Assignment for next week:

● Write Medium post announcing your project.

Resources
● If There Aren't Any Typos In This Essay, We Launched Too Late! by Reid Hoffman
● One and Done by Jon Kolko
● Introductions and the “forward intro email” by Roy Bahat
● How To Ask People for Things Via Email: An 8-Step Program by Jocelyn K. Glei
● Network Access: The best way to get a referral by Brett Martin
● Non-Creepy Networking: Party Etiquette by Jessica Hische

April 6 — Week 13: Dealing with Launch

Question Party: Jenil, Katarina, Kinjal, Mischa

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 Assignment for next week:
● Weekly “flow” post

Resources
● Root Cause Analysis via Wikipedia
● Each Necessary But Only Jointly Sufficient by John Allspaw
● What I Learned from John Allspaw and Eric Ries About Root Cause Analysis by Oliver Schmitz-
Hennemann

April 13 — Week 14: Review: $1,000 Project

Question Party: Ning, Nour, Scott, Sejal

Assignment for next week:

● Weekly “flow” post

April 20 — Week 15: Review: The Semester

Question Party: Tyler, Wei Ting / Wilson, Young, Yue / Lilian

Assignment for next week:

● Weekly “flow” post

April 27 — Week 16: Review: The Last Class

Resources
● Interview with Emmet Gowin by John Caponigro

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5 Assignments
1. Write 750 words every day for one month.

Resources:
● http://750words.com
● SVA IxD Working in Public Success Stories

2. Identify someone you’d like to meet and get an introduction to them via a forward intro.

Resources:
● Introductions and the “forward intro email” by Roy Bahat
● How To Ask People for Things Via Email: An 8-Step Program by Jocelyn K. Glei
● Non-Creepy Networking: Party Etiquette by Jessica Hische

3. Start a conversation with people on Twitter and get 5 people to follow you back.

Resources:
● How To Kick Off More Conversations On Twitter by Leo Widrich
● 5 Tips for Interacting with People You Admire on Twitter by Lily Herman

4. Get invited to give a publicly advertised talk on a subject you are interested in. Write a short blog post about
the experience.

Resources:
● The Best Advice on Public Speaking via Ladies in Tech
● speaking.io by Zach Holman
● Suggestions for Speakers by Frank Chimero

5. Peer-produce a public information resource (github, wiki, hackpad, google doc, etc) with contributions from 8
different contributors outside of the SVA IxD program.

Resources:
● Who Needs Wikis When You Have Github? by Robinson Meyer
● Tacofancy by Dan Sinker

License

Entrepreneurial Design by Gary Chou and Christina Xu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License. You should totally fork it and make course babies.

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