Class 13: September 29, 2026 · ENTR 5500
Notes from September 29, 2026. These notes record the discussion and instructions given that day. For current requirements and due dates, use the assignment guidelines and semester schedule. The case-analysis and participation guidance has since been updated; follow the current assignment guides.
Class slides · ENTR Announcements slides
A clearer home for your work
Today we set up the course workbook, clarified participation and external engagement, and developed the expectations for case-analysis writing. The updated instructions below take priority over older dates and submission directions still visible in the slides, syllabus, or workbook. Keep up with class announcements and the summaries shared in Slack.
Set up your workbook once
Make a copy of the ENTR 5500 Course Workbook. Put Last name, First name at the beginning of the filename and your name in normal order inside the document. Share your copy with [email protected], with permission to comment. Bookmark or star it so you can find it again.
Put assignments under their existing headings. Once your work is in your shared workbook, it is submitted: there is no second upload, form, or Slack message. Feedback will appear in the document; quizzes and recorded grades stay in eLC. The daily notes section is optional, and you do not need to fill every prewritten prompt merely because it appears in the template.
Already wrote an external engagement reflection? Paste it into the appropriate section and label it “completed before rubric.” You do not need to rewrite it to match today’s format. Earlier quizzes do not need to move, and earlier small class-writing activities are covered by the first participation-period credit.
External engagement: make the story useful to you
You need to complete two external engagement reflections for the rest of this semester. Everyone will receive full credit for the third. These contribute to the theme journal, rather than creating a separate grading category.
Find an entrepreneurial story beyond the assigned course material. Events are a good way to hear stories and meet people, but founder-focused books, podcasts, talks, films, and articles can work too. Choose something that helps you understand the experience of starting or helping start a venture. The goal is to cultivate interests you will keep learning about beyond this class.
Use three headings:
- Brief overview: Identify the event or source, relevant person/venture, date, and link. Give just enough context to orient the reader.
- Your assessment: Spend most of the entry on what mattered to you. What was convincing, surprising, useful, or questionable—and why? Three or four specific observations with thoughtful analysis are plenty. A summary alone misses the point.
- Course connections: Identify concepts or themes you recognized. A short list can work; make the connections specific enough to be meaningful.
Aim for roughly 250 words, with flexibility when you have something useful to say. Paragraphs or a list of complete sentences both work for the assessment. First person is appropriate here because the reflection is yours. A useful check: could another student submit the same reflection unchanged? If so, make the connection to your own thinking more specific.
AI may help capture notes, transcribe, or organize your thinking for these reflections. Write the submitted prose yourself. This permission concerns the reflection process; it does not give blanket permission to generate other assignments.
The suggested pace is one reflection before fall break, with both completed later in the semester. That was encouragement to spread out the work, not a new hard deadline announced today.
Two starting points mentioned were Founders, which explores founders through biographies, and The AI Daily Brief. Choose a relevant story or episode; a general news update is not automatically an entrepreneurial story. Share useful sources in Slack.
Participation: a short, honest daily check-in
Participation and attendance remain 20 points of the course grade, divided into two 10-point periods. Everyone will receive full credit for the first period. The proposed system will be piloted Thursday, October 1, then used next week if the pilot goes well.
For the second six-week period, the model uses daily self-assessment:
| Daily score | What it means |
|---|---|
| 3 | A distinctive contribution that helped the class or your group: an observation, initiative, or useful problem-solving. Add one short sentence explaining it. |
| 2 | A solid day: present, attentive, and contributing appropriately to group work. |
| 1 | Present but substantially disengaged. |
| 0 | Absent. |
25 daily points earn the full 10 course points for a period. For example, twelve solid days earn 24/25, or 9.6/10. You do not have to dominate discussion to contribute well. After two unexcused absences in a period, each additional unexcused absence also subtracts one daily point. Excused-absence handling is still being finalized.
The plan is a brief end-of-class form, with a Slack reminder. Complete it before leaving when possible; same-day submissions were allowed in the discussion. The exact cutoff and final tool will be confirmed with the rollout. Extra credit, a leaderboard, and an individual score dashboard were ideas discussed—not additional requirements or available features yet.
What the participation discussion teaches about ventures
Policies create incentives. Ask how a reasonable user would respond and how someone might exploit the rules. Stress-testing those possibilities can reveal problems before launch.
A policy can still be worthwhile when it permits a little abuse. The example was a satisfaction guarantee: occasional misuse can be an acceptable cost if the guarantee helps many more customers feel comfortable buying. Evaluate the whole tradeoff, including the cost of policing everyone.
There is also a capacity constraint: discussion time is limited. Rewarding the loudest contributors indefinitely could crowd out people the system is meant to encourage. Good incentives should support the behavior you actually want.
Case analyses: help someone make a decision
The slides and the Case Write-Ups section of the syllabus provide the full structure. We will complete three analyses: Evan Williams, Savage Beast, and Rent the Runway, worth 10 points each.
Write for a decision-maker who already knows the case. Lead with the answer, explain the reasoning, then show what should happen next. Use the five headings: Executive Summary, Problem Statement, Alternatives, Conclusion/recommendation, and Implementation. Today’s length guidance was up to 350 words. Use direct statements rather than first person; the reflection assignment has a different audience and purpose.
The recommendation should fit the resources and information available at the case’s decision point. Consider a real alternative fairly, support your choice with evidence, and make the next steps concrete. There is no single correct answer; the quality of the reasoning matters.
Reviewing a sample analysis showed why completing every heading is only a start. Stronger work has a clear central problem and a line of reasoning that connects the evidence, recommendation, and actions. Fixing grammar helps, but organizing the thinking matters more than surface polish.
A useful drafting process:
- Read the case and assignment guidelines. Capture useful facts, numbers, and quotations as evidence.
- Use headings as places to collect rough notes and develop the argument.
- Draft the executive summary once you know your conclusion. It appears first for the reader, but it does not have to be written first.
- Revise the whole piece so its sections support one another; remove repetition and details that do not help the decision.
Clear writing lets your ideas travel across time and distance. Since you may not be there to explain what you meant, give the reader a deliberate path through the argument.
What to do next
- Before Thursday, October 1: Read the Evan Williams case in the coursepack and the syllabus’s Case Write-Ups section. Bring questions or post them in Slack. We will work through the approach together.
- By the end of Tuesday, October 6: Complete Case Analysis #1 in your shared workbook. It is not due before Thursday’s class.
- When your founder confirms an interview date: @mention John in your team’s Slack thread/channel with the date. If you already did this, you are set.
- Thursday, October 8: Group work day; no formal class meeting. Further work guidance will follow.
- Quiz break: The next quiz was announced for the week of October 13. No new quiz is due this week; the exact next quiz deadline will be clarified.
Announcements
The Entrepreneurship Certificate application deadline announced in class is Wednesday, September 30, at 11:59 p.m. Interested students should apply promptly for Nordics study away, too: the first review round is approaching, even though applications are not yet closing.
The Tuesday announcements also included the Larry Richardson speaker event at Studio 225 on September 29 at 6 p.m. An upcoming idea accelerator was mentioned; ask John for the specific application details if interested.