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Part 1 · 80-minute class

Instructor notes

Idea to Concept: facilitation, discussion questions and checkpoints. Students are welcome to read along.

Before class & facilitation

  1. 00:00–00:05

    1. Welcome & The Idea Framework

    • Ask each student to choose one idea and describe it in a sentence. Then separate the proposed feature from the customer, painful problem and desired outcome.
    • Demonstrate with GuardianLine, the fictional senior anti-fraud example: ‘blocks scam calls’ is a feature; helping families protect a senior’s savings is the problem worth investigating.
    • Ask: Who experiences the problem, when does it happen, and what do they do today? Finish with a provisional problem statement, not a claim that the business is validated.

  2. 00:05–00:20

    2. Market Research & Stress Testing

    • Use ChatGPT for idea development. Keep steps 1–7 in one ongoing conversation; ask for sources, dates and explicit uncertainty. AI output is a research starting point, not proof of demand.
    • Allow 3 minutes to run the prompt, 7 to inspect pain points and competitors, and 5 to discuss the biggest adoption barrier. Include indirect alternatives and doing nothing.
    • For GuardianLine, compare carrier call-blocking, bank alerts and family help. Ask whether seniors use these tools and whether an adult child, senior or bank would pay.
    • Have students mark each claim as supported, assumed or unknown. Leave with one critical assumption and a customer interview question that asks about past behavior rather than ‘Would you buy this?’.

  3. 00:20–00:35

    3. Variation & Edge Exploration

    • Give students 4 minutes to generate three variations, 6 to compare them and 5 to share a choice. Compare buyer, delivery method, adoption friction and defensibility—not just extra features.
    • Use GuardianLine’s senior app, adult-child family plan and bank-licensed service. Ask: Which is easiest to test first? Which could become hard to copy, and why?
    • Challenge vague moats such as ‘we use AI.’ Partnerships, distribution or proprietary data may be advantages, but only if realistically obtainable and defensible.
    • Leave with one selected variation, a reason for choosing it and the evidence that would make the student change direction.

  4. 00:35–00:45

    4. Monetization Mechanics

    • Spend 3 minutes comparing revenue models, 4 tracing costs and 3 reviewing a simple unit-economics example. Identify the user and payer separately.
    • For GuardianLine, contrast a family subscription with bank licensing. Discuss support, screening costs, customer acquisition and the longer bank sales cycle; do not invent validated prices.
    • Ask: What remains from one customer’s revenue after variable delivery costs? How much can we afford to acquire that customer? Label price, churn and acquisition estimates as assumptions to test.
    • Leave with a preferred revenue model and a short list of costs and pricing questions for real customer conversations.

  5. 00:45–00:55

    5. The AI Gauntlet

    • Give 3 minutes for the persona prompt, 4 for paired discussion and 3 for revision. Make clear that simulated customers and investors are not real validation.
    • Ask students to identify the strongest objection, not the most flattering feedback. For GuardianLine, ‘my phone already blocks spam’ challenges differentiation; expensive acquisition challenges the family plan.
    • Ask: What evidence would answer this objection? A bank partnership is a hypothesis to investigate, not an automatic fix for acquisition costs.
    • Leave with one revision and one experiment addressing the highest-risk objection. Keep critique constructive and focused on assumptions rather than the founder.

  6. 00:55–01:00

    6. Wrap-Up & Next Steps — MVP Brief

    • Treat this as a synthesis checkpoint, not the end of class: go-to-market and the pitch deck follow. Use 3 minutes to generate the brief and 2 to trim it.
    • Check that the brief names a customer, problem, value proposition, revenue model, major risks and three validation steps. Strip out features unrelated to testing the central promise.
    • For GuardianLine, focus on a family alert workflow rather than promising a complete fraud-prevention system. Discuss consent, privacy and the limits of any protection claim.
    • Leave with a one-page brief to carry into Part 2 and one feasible customer conversation or experiment to run next.

  7. 01:00–01:10

    7. Go-to-Market Strategy

    • Spend 3 minutes generating the plan, 4 challenging its channels and 3 choosing the first action. Distinguish founder-led acquisition of the first 10–100 customers from repeatable follow-on growth.
    • For GuardianLine, consider caregiver communities or senior centers first, then referrals or a credit-union pilot. Check permissions and access; naming an organization does not establish a partnership.
    • Ask: Where exactly can you reach this buyer this week, what will you say, and what response counts as progress? Choose one initial channel rather than spreading effort across every channel.
    • Leave with an outreach action, an owner and a date. Treat CAC and conversion rates as testable targets; measure outreach, qualified responses, activation and retention before scaling spend.

  8. 01:10–01:20

    8. Investor Pitch Deck

    • Use Claude for the downloadable PowerPoint. Transfer the refined concept, MVP brief, go-to-market plan and supporting evidence from ChatGPT; a new tool does not know the earlier conversation.
    • Allow 4 minutes to generate a first draft, 4 to inspect market and financial slides, and 2 for a short pitch. If generation runs long, review the outline and complete the file after class.
    • Check that TAM, SAM and SOM use consistent units, sources and a reachable market. Do not accept a tiny percentage of a huge market as evidence of achievable sales.
    • Check five year-columns and rows for revenue, COGS, operating expenses, total costs, gross profit, net profit/loss and cumulative cash flow. Distinguish operating break-even from cumulative cash-flow break-even; either may fall outside the five-year period.
    • IRR requires investor cash outflows and inflows, their timing, dilution and an exit or distribution assumption. Ask Claude to disclose those inputs; do not treat a company profit forecast as investor returns or force a positive IRR.
    • Leave with a draft deck, clearly labeled assumptions and a list of missing evidence. Never fabricate traction, team credentials, sources or customer quotes.