CSCI 4358/5350: 
Entrepreneurial Projects II Capstone

Spring 2018

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/College Expo, startup2students-like job fair, and/or the final Demo Day presentation.

Class projects and awards can be found at http://custartupcapstone.com/.


General Information

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

Schedule & Location: Tues, Thurs 11-12:15 pm, ECES 114.  Also Wednesday recitation 5-5:50pm Fleming 102.

Course number: CSCI 4358/5350.  See also the registrar's Web site.  Note CSCI 4358 is part of a two-course Entrepreneurial Projects Senior Capstone for B.S. Computer Science majors.
Prerequisites: Basic Computer Science programming and/or consent of the instructor.
Instructors: Professor Rick Han, http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~rhan, and Zach Nies, TechStars.
Office (Prof. Han): Fleming 405 in CS Systems Lab
Office Hours (Prof. Han): Tuesdays 1-3 pm.  Additional appointments as needed.
Email: rhan@cs.colorado.edu, zach@techstars.com
Phone: 303-492-0914 (Prof. Han)
Textbook: none required.

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

60% Major assignments (either demos in class or videos uploaded)
25% Final presentation on team venture's status and progress
10% Class participation
5% Other assignments

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