Project-based course offering the opportunity to experience startup life in a low stakes environment while contributing strategic value to early-stage ventures. Students secure a startup project of their choice or work with a startup pre-selected by the action learning team. Startups represent a range of industries and, while concentrated in the Boston area, may also come from other parts of the US. Students cannot drop course once project commences.

What is DE Lab? 
Disciplined Entrepreneurship Lab (DE Lab) offers students the opportunity to enhance and apply their understanding of the fundamentals of entrepreneurship by engaging in a full-time project with a startup over a period of 3-4 weeks during IAP in January. The course builds on the academic framework of Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup and its application in a real-world environment.

Potential projects include, but are not limited to:
- Identifying new markets
- Entering new markets
- Launching a product
- Developing a sales strategy

Students may also provide general support to the startup over the course of the Lab.

FORMS

Student interest form:
https://airtable.com/appou1sElBRmegqO9/shrIUMXtwngglnKLN

Student sign-up form:
https://airtable.com/appou1sElBRmegqO9/shr5OZhJvOI72A0JI

Company sign-up form:
https://airtable.com/appou1sElBRmegqO9/shrNmY8HT5kFoSJcp

SCHEDULE
- Kickoff: First week of IAP via Zoom (details to follow)
- Final Presentations: End of IAP (details to follow)
- Credits: 6

INFORMATION FOR STUDENTS 
The class provides students with a real-life application of the Disciplined Entrepreneurship framework by working with a startup of their choice for 3-4 weeks throughout January. Key dates for students include a kick-off call on the first week of IAP via Zoom (details to follow) and final presentations at the conclusion of DE Lab (details to follow).

How many credits is the class? 
The class is 6 credits.

Does the internship have to be in-person or can it be virtual? 
The set-up of the internship will depend on your final agreement with the host company.

Can I source my own company to work for? 
Yes! Students are encouraged to source their own host companies to maximize their learning from the class.   

Companies can sign up here, including student companies:
https://airtable.com/appou1sElBRmegqO9/shrNmY8HT5kFoSJcp

When will the list of host companies be published? 
We are planning to share the list of host companies by mid-November.

Is DE Lab open to non-MBA / non-Sloan students? 
Yes, DE Lab is open to students outside of the MBA / Sloan.

Do I have to be present in-person for the kick-off call? 
The kick-off call will be hosted on Zoom.

What is the expected workload? 
In general, DE Lab requires you to work with a startup for 40 hours per week over a period of three weeks.

What are the deliverables for the class? 
Students are required to attend the kick-off session, submit a midterm reflection memo (2-3 pages), and do a final presentation (5 minutes, 5 slides).

What is the structure of the final presentation? 
The final presentation will be a 5-minute, 5-slide presentation. Further instructions will be made available at a later stage.

What is the format of the final presentation? 
The final presentations are to be delivered in-person. However, in case of class schedule conflicts, students may submit pre-recorded videos.

Can I work for my own startup? 
Unfortunately no, DE Lab does not allow students to work on their own startup as part of the class.

What is the matching process? 
Students will be required to reach out to their startup of choice and agree on the structure of their DE Lab internship individually. This also applies to companies that are included on the host company list.

At what stages and from what industries are the companies? 
There is no limitation with regard to the industry and past startups have covered a wide array of different industries. In terms of stage, DE Lab is primarily focused on startups in pre-seed, seed, and series A stages.

Can I get paid for my internship? 
No, DE Lab requires the internship to be strictly academic and does not allow for any kind of compensation. You will receive 6 academic credits upon completion of the Lab.

Who can I contact with further questions? 
Please reach out to Kwang Jun Lee (klee21@mit.edu).

INFORMATION FOR HOST COMPANIES

DE Lab is hosted by Bill Aulet and Paul Cheek from The Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship and offers you the opportunity to work with a student intern from MIT on a real-life project and to build connections with entrepreneurial-minded MIT students.

The project will take place during January and students typically work 40 hours per week for 3-4 weeks with their startup of choice. Students will receive a list of host companies and reach out to their preferred companies. Please note that, as students will select their startups independently, signing up to be a host company does not guarantee a match with a student. 

Companies can sign up for the Lab using this link:
https://airtable.com/appou1sElBRmegqO9/shrNmY8HT5kFoSJcp

When does the internship take place? 
The internship will be conducted during the Sloan IAP period which typically runs from January until early-February. The exact length and timing of the internship can be decided individually between host companies and students.

What is the format of the internship? 
Students typically work with their host companies 40 hours per week for a period of 3-4 weeks. The details are to be agreed upon between the host company and the student on an individual basis. The internship can take place either virtually or in-person, which is also up to the discretion of the parties involved.

How does the matching process work? 
Students will be provided with a list of interested companies by mid-November. Afterwards, they will reach out to their preferred companies to begin the interview process for the internship. Please note that signing up for the Lab does not guarantee that your company will have a match.

Do I have to pay my intern? 
No, DE Lab requires the internship to be purely academic and does not allow for any kind of compensation of the student.

Do I have to have a specific project to participate in DE Lab? 
No, companies do not have to have a specific project in mind to participate in DE Lab. However, to facilitate the matching process with students, our sign-up form includes a short paragraph about the work the student intern will be doing over the course of the Lab.

What kind of companies is DE Lab looking for? 
DE Lab is open to companies from all kinds of industries. Given our focus on entrepreneurship, we generally focus on companies in pre-seed, seed, or series A stages. However, you are still encouraged to sign up for the Lab even if your company is slightly more mature.

Do I have to be MIT-affiliated to participate in DE Lab? 
No, we encourage all startups to sign up for DE Lab, regardless of MIT affiliation.

What happens if I no longer have capacity for a student intern? 
Please contact Kwang Jun Lee (klee21@mit.edu) to take your company off the host company list.

Who can I contact if I have further questions? 
Please reach out to Megan Hung - mhung25@mit.edu

B. Aulet

Professor of the Practice

Disciplined Entrepreneurship Lab

Experiential study of the innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Middle East and North Africa leveraging on the historic Abraham Accords. Explores the role of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, MNCs, universities, and governments. Teaches the McKinsey process for successful consulting engagements and what makes for high performing teams. Students travel to the Middle East during IAP to work with and consult for host companies on strategic managerial issues in tech industries. Includes an opportunity to work with executives at startup ventures looking to scale their businesses and to engage with their venture capitalist backers.

J. Cohen

Israel Lab: Startup Nation's Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystem

Healthcare Ventures explores the process of early-stage healthcare venture creation and models the process of entrepreneurship, amid navigating healthcare’s complexities. The course is an opportunity for those who seek careers at the intersection of healthcare innovation, medical technology startups, global health and healthcare venture capital. This course lends a taste of the process needed to discover, evaluate, and test new technologies and business models with broad potential to impact human health. 

Course content and process have taken principles from MIT Hacking Medicine, Product-Market Fit, Human-Centered Design Thinking, Agile Sprints, Business Model Canvas and tailored them to the complexities and tectonic shifts of healthcare, both in the US and globally. An emphasis will be placed on understanding the Business Models and Economic Buyers for your healthcare innovation while developing a plan to design and launch a product or service.

Outside Speakers
Over half of the classes will include outside speakers from startups, venture capital, healthcare systems, government, pharma and med tech. Past years speakers included Google Ventures, PillPack/Amazon, Sequoia Capital, MIT Engine Fund, Blue Cross, Bain Capital, IDEO, Aetna, Fidelity, True Ventures, Verily/GoogleX, GE Ventures, Langer Lab, HHS, Atrius Health ACO.

Your Project/Venture/Problem Idea
If you have already conceptualized or done preliminary work around a potential solution for a pain point in healthcare, the Healthcare Ventures faculty invites you to share it with us for consideration as one of the class projects. We need ideas that are still in a sufficiently early, formative stage so they can be developed during the class and thus provide a foundation on which the key concepts of new medical venture development can be taught. These concepts include, but are not limited to, de>ining your market, understanding your customers, identifying and evaluating various stakeholders, analyzing the competition, and defining a value proposition and product/market fit. The objective of the class is to help you to understand and engage in the process of evaluating and developing a business opportunity. The class is not intended to create a viable business opportunity at the end of the semester. So, an idea would not be acceptable if it is too far along to benefit from the disciplined approach to entrepreneurship that we teach in class. If you don’t have an idea, that’s OK too; you will be able to choose a team/project that interests you. In past years, members of the class have advanced many interesting, impactful problems, and some have actually served as the foundation for building successful businesses. Please contact our TA to arrange an appointment with one of the faculty members so that we understand your idea in sufficient detail to ensure it meets the criteria outlined above, and to make sure you get the most out of taking the class. We look forward to speaking with you!

Themes for Healthcare Ventures
Some teams will form around ideas proposed by your classmates. Other teams will want to consider areas that are emerging trends ripe for disruption in healthcare. Theme that represent areas of significant opportunity include:

Administrative automation and digitization (e.g., Cedar, Olive)
Disease management and therapeutics (e.g., Omada, Hinge Health)
Screening and diagnostics (e.g., Arterys, Modern Fertility)
Drug discovery (e.g., Atomwise, insitro)
Clinical trials (e.g., DNAnexus, Science 37)
Clinical intelligence and enablement (Unite Us, BrightInsight)
Primary and urgent care (e.g., Carbon Health, Cityblock)
Specialty care (e.g., Somatus, Cricket Health)
Pharma supply chain (e.g., Capsule, Truepill)
Health plans and benefit management (e.g., Carrot, Lyra)
Real world evidence (e.g., Tempus, Medbanks)
Virtual care delivery (e.g., hims & hers, Doctor on Demand)
Women’s health (e.g., Maven, Elvie, Tia)
Health & fitness (e.g., Fitbit, Withings)
Genomics (e.g., 23andMe)
Healthcare/DAO/Fintech
Remote monitoring (e.g., vitalconnect, eCaring)
Web3/Crypto
(It’s ok if you don’t know yet or don’t have a strong preference!)

Action Learning Lab for Healthcare Ventures
Most of the longer Thursday classes will have 4 parts: faculty lectures, outside guest speakers, and small team breakout sessions.

After teams are formed in the early classes, you will begin by exploring, defining, and deepening your understanding of the unmet need and of the value of transforming the outcome. In the second block, you will consider and test potential value propositions, and finally, in the third block, you will craft a business model and pitch. Teams will witness the development, challenges, and progress of the other teams attacking different areas of healthcare in the course at regular intervals. By the end of the course, students will have experienced best practices in identifying and validating health venture opportunities, amid the challenges of navigating the healthcare/disease mapping, team dynamics, and venture capital pitching process.

Z. Chu

M. Gray

A. Hiller

Senior Lecturer

Professor

Lecturer

Healthcare Ventures

Experiential study of the climate for innovation and determinants of entrepreneurial success. Students work in teams of four with the top management of a company to address real-world business challenges. Students gain insight as to how companies build, run, and scale a new enterprise. Focuses primarily on scale-ups operating in emerging markets. Restricted to MBA students; all other graduate students by permission of instructor only.

M. Jester

Senior Lecturer and G-Lab Course Manager

Global Entrepreneurship Lab

Establishes a foundation for formulating, analyzing, and executing strategies to develop and commercialize new products and services in technology-intensive industries. Develops and applies rigorous frameworks to examine the interaction between patterns of technological change, market dynamics, and the development of internal firm capabilities. Topics include profiting from innovation, the role of intellectual property, platform strategy, government regulation, and innovation policy. Applies concepts in various industry and case settings with an emphasis on addressing issues most relevant for today's changing economic landscape and fostering innovation for social progress, such as clean energy, environmental management, healthcare, and digitalization.

Innovation Strategy

15.910

About the Class

Faculty