What’s your big idea? The University of Louisville’s eight-week LaunchIt innovation bootcamp could help make it a reality.
The program helps aspiring entrepreneurs and corporate innovators test their ideas or products in the real world to see if they have what it takes. Students learn about customer discovery, validation, marketing and other considerations when preparing to launch their new product, initiative or service.
The program is led by Tendai Charasika and Alice Shade, seasoned Louisville founders who also serve as entrepreneurs in residence (EIRs) through the UofL Office of Research and Innovation. The EIRs, supported by Amplify Louisville, use their experience to further technologies and startups, including as coaches in the LaunchIt program.
Charasika and Shade answered a few questions about the LaunchIt program and how it can help innovators validate and, well, launch their great ideas. You can learn more about LaunchIt and register for the spring or fall sessions here.
Q: What do participants learn in LaunchIt?
Shade: Participants learn a proven approach to validating an idea, product or concept that provides the foundation, if validated, to building a business case for launch. This approach can benefit to both intrapreneurs — innovative folks working for a company — and aspiring entrepreneurs looking to go out on their own. The approach is delivered with tough discipline, and the coaches in the program are seasoned entrepreneurs who bring relevant experience and case studies that supplement the program. And, of course, we draw on UofL’s resources and experience in taking innovative ideas and moving them to market.
Q: Why is customer discovery so important?
Shade: It’s critical to know if customers feel a pain significant enough to want to have it solved. If the idea, product or concept is solving a problem that isn’t of significant pain, it will struggle with customer adoption and viability.
Charasika: Exactly. Customer discovery is a proven process for finding and validating that you have something people are willing to pay for on a repeated basis. It saves you time and resources from trying to build a company when, ultimately, people don’t want the product or service you are selling or it can’t become a sustainable business.
Q: What are some of the coolest ideas you’ve seen go through LaunchIt?
Charasika: There have been a lot, so it’s hard to pick. One that stands out is a cool virtual reality technology that lets people test out hearing aids in simulated environments, so they can pick the right fit and settings before even leaving the audiologist’s office. But we’ve had cool ideas in sports medicine, event planning, agriculture and more.
Q: You’re both seasoned founders. Do you have any advice for prospective LaunchIt participants and others just starting on their entrepreneurial journey?
Charasika: Be willing to listen to wisdom from other entrepreneurs and be adaptable if the market sends you in a different direction than what you originally intended for your startup. It is my belief that we can all usually identify problems, but it is the entrepreneurs who can uniquely solve the problems customers have even when customers can’t articulate them by staying close to customers and incorporating their feedback on what’s value creating for them.
Shade: Stay determined, stay curious, surround yourself with smarter people, and keep the “why” front and center as a reminder when the days get dark and long.
Founded in 1798 as one of the nation’s first city-owned, public universities, the University of Louisville (UofL) is a vital ecosystem that creates thriving futures for students, our community and society. UofL is one of only 79 universities in the U.S. to earn recognition by the Carnegie Foundation as both a Research 1 and a Community Engaged university.
