In the first half of May, the first interactions between the 34 teams, chosen to participate in Academic Working Capital 2019 program, took place. The Workshop I was held in an online environment during the two days of training and featured lectures by coordinators and coaches of the program, besides a lot of hard work by the teams.
Throughout eight lectures, the program coordinator Diogo Dutra, coach Artur Tavares, master in entrepreneurship, and the designer and coach, Rodrigo Franco, contextualized the program, talked about scientific entrepreneurship, schedule, tools, and interview techniques. The teams tested the tools and carried out the first activities of the solution test step, where they must leave their comfort zone and interview people, as a way of knowing the market that will guide their future business.
On the first day, Diogo Dutra talked about scientific entrepreneurship and taught about the importance of turning the teams’ initial hypotheses into facts, following a product development diagram. “The main message for now is: ‘get out’. Get out of the comfort of your classroom, get out of your room, and get out of school. We discover business with a hands-on approach, by talking to people,” explains Diogo.
Arthur commented about market segmentation and the need to discover new niches for a possible pivoting turn (change in business direction). Otherwise, Rodrigo explored the tools that will be used during the program, such as the Slack application. They also talked about matching problem and solution, that is, the modeling of “who” the teams want to impact, with “what” they want to show, as well as data collect techniques.
On the 11th, the talks were more focused on customers, market segmentation, and interview techniques. Important concepts such as “beach head market” and “user obsession” were introduced. The teams still had the opportunity to hear about the experience of NextCam and Rodiebot startups, set up during AWC 2018 and 2017, respectively.
Professor of the University of São Paulo and AWC academic consultant, Marcos Barretto, concluded: “Are you tired?? Guys, you have not seen nothing yet! We’re just getting started. Going out on the street, talking to people, and finding out what they want is just the first part of the show!” From now on, the teams focus on the 100 interviews they are expected to do over the next two months. The groups will meet again in early July, in Online Interaction I.
