Design Inspirations
This studio stands on the shoulders of some great courses and teachers. Here’s where the big ideas came from—each is worth your time if you want to go deeper.
- The studio format — briefings, working sessions, desk crits, and pin-ups come from the studio-course tradition, most directly MIT’s AI + Web3 Venture Studio (MAS.665): https://orbit.mit.edu/classes/ai-and-web3-venture-studio-MAS.665
- Sprint cycles + the four-question report — build-measure-learn loops and the “What did we think / do / learn / do next?” report come from Steve Blank’s Lean LaunchPad: https://leanlaunchpad.stanford.edu/faq
- Hypothesis-driven venture experimentation — putting the smallest testable thing in front of real customers comes from Stanford GSB’s Startup Garage: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/experience/learning/entrepreneurship/courses/startup-garage
- Required AI use, disclosed in your journal — the inverted AI policy and disclosure-through-documentation come from Ethan Mollick’s required-AI classes at Wharton: https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/my-class-required-ai-heres-what-ive
- AI as the founder’s experimentation machine — how AI collapses the cost of venture experiments, from Jeff Bussgang’s Launching Tech Ventures at HBS: https://bussgang.medium.com/teaching-at-harvard-with-an-ai-faculty-co-pilot-c412d86de2e7
- AI moats + durable advantage — evaluating where AI startups can actually win, from Berkeley SCET’s Superintelligent Ventures: https://scet.berkeley.edu/students/courses/superintelligent-ventures-building-sustainable-startups-that-can-thrive-in-the-age-of-ai/
- Day-one shipping + buildathon energy — everyone builds something real in the first hour, inspired by Babson’s Generator AI Buildathons: https://entrepreneurship.babson.edu/generator-ai-buildathon/
- Founder-track generative AI curriculum — structuring a semester around building a venture with AI, from Yale SOM’s MGT 899 Generative AI and Entrepreneurship: https://som.yale.edu/story/2025/curriculum-focus-generative-ai-entrepreneurship
- “I like / I wish / What if” crits — our constructive-critique protocol comes from the Stanford d.school: https://dschool.stanford.edu/resources
- Process-over-product grading — grading the quality of your process rather than the polish of your demo comes from CMU’s software studio tradition: https://mse.s3d.cmu.edu/0_documents/syllabi/sp2022/17671-studio-project-i.pdf
None of these courses had a settled playbook either—that’s the point. We’re in good company.
Source: Fall 2026 course syllabus — Design Inspirations, copied October 6, 2026.