Class 14: October 1, 2026 · ENTR 5500

Notes from October 1, 2026. These notes record the discussion and instructions given that day. For current requirements and due dates, use the assignment guidelines and semester schedule.

Class slides

Today’s focus

We worked through the theme journal and case-analysis assignments, practiced turning the Apple’s Core case into useful lessons, and began Evan Williams. The linked deck includes material we have not reached yet; today’s notes concentrate on the assignment guidance and discussion.

Turn a story into a lesson you can use

“Work hard,” “take risks,” and “build a good team” are too broad to offer much guidance. A useful theme names a person or situation and a choice: When someone in situation X faces Y, they should consider Z, because…

For example, complementary skills can make a founding team more capable, but skill fit does not establish trustworthiness. A technically strong founder may also need to learn how to assess a potential partner’s reliability. Those are related lessons with different implications.

The running themes log in your course workbook is a place to collect possibilities. Write down a candidate lesson and where it came from when you notice it. Later, choose the ideas worth developing and add evidence. You can revise, combine, or discard entries; the status column is not required.

A developed theme should include:

An actionable lesson with enough context to help someone make a decision.
Specific evidence from at least two sources—not just the names of cases, but the moments that support the lesson.
Limits, counterexamples, or situations where the lesson might not apply.
Reflection on how your thinking has developed.

Sources can include cases, entrepreneurial events, outside stories, and class discussion. One source is enough to start a candidate entry; keep collecting evidence as you go. These individual themes will also give your group useful ideas to bring into the entrepreneur interview and final project.

What to submit: five developed themes for Checkpoint 2, in your shared workbook, by November 3, end of day. The theme journal is worth 10 points; everyone receives the first five checkpoint points because of the revised rollout. Skip the starting-beliefs exercise. The in-class starter was practice, not a separate graded submission.

A case analysis makes a decision

Assume the reader knows the case. Your job is to identify the decision, compare viable paths, recommend one, and explain how to carry it out. Recounting the story uses space without doing that work.

Use the five headings in your workbook:

Executive summary: three to five concise sentences giving the critical context, central problem, and recommendation. Place it first, but write it after you have worked through the analysis.
Problem statement: distinguish the underlying issue from its symptoms. In Apple’s Core, being upset about the Atari payment is a symptom; damaged trust between co-founders is the deeper problem.
Alternatives: consider two or three genuinely viable options at the decision point. The character cannot go back in time and change an earlier choice. Give the alternatives fair consideration.
Conclusion: choose one path and explain why the evidence supports it over the others. There is room for different defensible recommendations.
Implementation: give concrete next steps, in order, with the resources and contingencies needed to act.

Implementation should pass the “cameras and microphones” test: could someone observe the actions you propose? “Have a conversation” is a start; deciding what to prepare, where to meet, what a successful outcome looks like, and how to respond if it goes badly makes the recommendation usable. This section may use bullets or numbered steps; write the others in prose.

A paragraph should contain one complete idea. Two to four sentences is a useful target here, not a separate grading formula. State the argument directly: “Wozniak should…” usually does more work than “I think Wozniak should…”.

Length, AI, submission, and feedback

The cap is now 400 words, replacing Tuesday’s 350. Under the latest clarification, headings do not count toward that cap; neither does the title. Count your analysis text.
This is your own thinking, writing, and revision. Do not use AI to plan the argument, draft it, rewrite it, change the phrasing, or shorten it to fit.
Spelling and grammar checking is allowed, including an LLM used strictly for that purpose. This is not permission for rewriting or rephrasing; ordinary document-editor checks are also available.
Complete the analysis in your shared course Google Doc. You do not need a separate eLC upload. Grades go in eLC.
Expect a numeric grade and brief comments. Detailed feedback is available on request, including when you earned a good grade and want to understand what worked.

The point of the short format is to practice making a complex idea clear. Choosing what to leave out is part of the thinking.

Beginning Evan Williams

Blogger helped lower the technical barrier to publishing on the web. To understand the opportunity, consider the earlier context: reaching a broad audience used to require access to distribution channels that most people did not have. Tools that made publishing easier changed who could participate.

For a little historical context, explore Cameron’s World, a collage of archived GeoCities pages, and Google’s 2004 description of Blogger. These are optional references, not extra homework.

Our opening discussion also raised persist, pivot, or stop as ways to respond when a venture stalls. Starting something exciting and sustaining it through a difficult period call for different choices. For the case analysis, look beyond the immediate stalled momentum to the founder’s underlying decision and the options available at that moment. We will continue the case Tuesday.

Dates and next steps

When	What to do
October 1, 11:59 p.m.	Final application reminder announced for this round of the Entrepreneurship Certificate.
Tuesday, October 6	Finish reading Evan Williams. Bringing a draft to class is recommended; the completed analysis is due end of day, after our discussion. We will also cover preparing and recording entrepreneur interviews.
Thursday, October 8	Independent group-project workday; no regular class meeting.
Tuesday, October 13	Smartix discussion. No formal case analysis was assigned for Smartix.
Thursday, October 22, before class	Savage Beast case analysis.
Tuesday, November 3, before class	Rent the Runway case analysis.
Tuesday, November 3, end of day	Five developed theme-journal entries.

The Slack participation check-in was piloted successfully. Use the posted check-in to record your participation score and relevant note. Keep course communication in Slack.

References: course workbook template · syllabus · case coursepack. Continue working in the personal workbook copy you have already shared.