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Commercialization/Entrepreneurship Training

What's the REAL Business Problem?
Learn the Language of Business and the Core Value of Your Invention

DATE: September 10, 2008
TIME: 1:00 - 2:30PM ET

WHO SHOULD ATTEND
Entrepreneurs, inventors, startup teams, commercialization-minded researchers. Incubation managers, licensing associates, student entrepreneurs, and others with an interest in entrepreneurship and commercialization.

Don't miss this unique opportunity to get in-person training, coaching and support from Wendy

OVERVIEW
At the root of all successful inventions is the ability to solve real customer problems, and most successful inventions can be traced back to this one factor. Seasoned inventors know this and invest time understanding the business problem that an idea or invention solves. Being able to articulate both the real problem and how your invention solves it in a clear and concise manner is a simple, yet powerful concept can pay big dividends as you seek funding or support for your invention.

In this session, Wendy will break down the key elements of defining and developing an effective problem statement. She will take you step-by-step through the process of discovering and translating scientific and technical ideas into compelling problem statements.

You will come away with practical, hands-on tools and approaches, plus real-world examples to use as templates to develop your own problem statements.

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IN THIS SESSION YOU WILL LEARN:

  • The definition of a real customer problem
  • Why customers, licensees, and investors love real problems
  • The importance of real problems when developing the commercial path for an invention
  • How to translate technical features into the language of business problems
  • The steps to quantify the business problem that your invention addresses
  • A four-point diagnostic tool to accurately pinpoint real customer pain
  • How to develop compelling "shock value" to capture the attention of business backers
  • How to write a compelling problem statement
  • A template to articulate the business problem to business people

YOU WILL TAKE AWAY:

  1. Copies of the slide presentation material provided in advance so you can follow along and take notes
  2. Toolkit of worksheets in PDF format for you to apply the tools presented in the session
  3. Key concepts and frameworks for articulating compelling problem statements
  4. Relevant, real-world examples and case studies
  5. Practical, step by step guidance from Wendy
  6. Tips and lessons learned for making these tools and approaches work for you
  7. Plus, you'll receive access to Wendy's online commercialization library, The ToolShed, equipped with handouts of additional knowledge and tools related to this topic. You will be assigned a personalized code granting you access to the library of resources about the class topic.

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Wendy Kennedy is a seasoned technology executive, award-winning professor and author. Best described as an "entrepreneurial professor," Wendy has spent more than 20 years working with private and public research labs, innovation centers, university commercialization offices, entrepreneurship and incubation centers, and others on the commercialization of ideas. Driven by her passion for igniting technology ideas into commercial successes and through her hands-on experience, she has developed unique tools and approaches to help commercialization professionals bridge the gap between brilliant discoveries and the commercial value those ideas represent. So what? who cares? why you?®: The Inventor's Commercialization Toolkit is the result of her combined experiences and is a proven methodology for extracting the commercial value from scientific and technical innovations.