CSCI 4358/5350: 
Entrepeneurial Projects II Capstone

Spring 2017

Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado at Boulder

 

Course Summary

The goal of this course is to build upon the concepts learned in the Entrepreneurial Projects I Capstone and give Computer Science students more advanced tools to be successful technical co-founders of their own startups.  We will explore later stages of the Lean Startup/Customer Development iterative methodology.  Student teams will build upon their low-fidelity MVPs that exhibited traction to develop high-fidelity MVP products.  Students will learn business concepts like marketing, sales, and finance that are relevant to IT startup formation, hopefully in partnership with business school teams.  Students will also learn legal concepts relevant to startup formation.  Invited guest lecturers from the entrepreneurial community will provide their domain expertise, which may include topics such as product development, Agile software engineering, mobile strategy, and big data/cloud computing, as well as mentoring.  Student teams will present/pitch their startup company/concepts in various public forums, which may include the CU New Venture Challenge, local Tech meetup, CS Expo, startup2students-like job fair, and/or the final presentation.


General Information

See the Moodle class Web page at http://moodle.cs.colorado.edu

Schedule & Location: Tues, Thurs 2-3:15 pm, ITLL 1B50.  Also Wednesday recitation 5-5:50pm ECCR 135.

Course number: CSCI 4358/5350.  See also the registrar's Web site.  Note CSCI 4358 is part of a two-course Entrepeneurial Projects Senior Capstone for B.S. Computer Science majors.
Prerequisites: Entrepreneurial Projects I (CSCI 4348/5340)
Instructors: Professor Rick Han, http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~rhan, and Zach Nies, TechStars.
Office (Prof. Han): ECCR 1B05F in CS Systems Lab
Office Hours (Prof. Han): Wednesdays 1-3 pm (knock on door or call office phone to be let in).  Additional appointments as needed.
Email: rhan@cs.colorado.edu, zach@techstars.com
Phone: 303-492-0914 (Prof. Han)
Textbook:

Highly recommended:

class Web site:
See the Moodle class Web page at http://moodle.cs.colorado.edu.  Assignments, lecture slides, and announcements can be found there.  The moodle has a variety of useful features, including a forum for posting questions.  Each student should establish an account on the moodle and then subscribe to our class on the moodle using the special enrollment key given out in class.

Approximate Timeline




Grading

40% Demos in class
30% Demos at our final Demo Day, CU NVC, CS Expo, other public events
15% Interaction with Business School students
15% Class participation

You will form teams based around your team's startup idea/vision and iterate through the various stages of customer development involved in startup formation, demo'ing along the way, and culminating in a final presentation to the class describing the progress made in forming your startup.

Plagiarism policy.



Additional Policies:

Disability Policy

Religious Observances Policy

Discrimination and Sexual Harassment Policy

Classroom Behavior Policy