If you’re a regular subscriber to the StartupLansing Digest, you’ve likely seen us promote this free class for people interested in launching startups in the region. Here’s why you should go.
(If you’re not a subscriber, you can click here to subscribe lickety-split!)
1. You can’t learn from better people
The Startup Class is a class that meets weekly to watch and discuss lectures and content available via YouTube from Stanford University. The Stanford class features some of the most prominent entrepreneurs and investors in the country with goal of helping more people avoid the common pitfalls associated with launching a startup. The list of presenters includes people like Sam Altman (President, Y-Combinator), Dustin Moskovitz (Co-Founder, Facebook), Marc Andreessen (Founder, Andreessen Horowitz), and many more. These guys represent the ‘who’s-who’ of American startups.
If you don’t know who these people are, google them, read their bios, then come back. You’ll be glad you did.
As a small market, it’s hard to find people with this level of experience and expertise locally. But, for fledgling startups, this kind of experience is necessary to learn about things like:
- How to build products users love
- How to raise money
- Building a winning culture
- & more!
2. Meet other like-minded people
The class is online, so it’s easy to assume that you could watch the lectures and be set. In my experience, nothing could be further from the truth. Startups cannot be built in a vacuum. Working with – and around – smart, passionate, talented people is essential if you want to launch something that has a snowball’s chance in hell of winning in the marketplace.
Attending the class will give you an opportunity to interact with these kind of people, which may lead to your meeting your next co-founder, which may lead to coming up with the next great idea, which may lead to a successful launch…you get the idea. The best people win. And this class is an opportunity to learn from the best people in the country, with the best people in the community.
3. It will help our community move forward, faster
One of the reasons our startup community gets a C- is because we lack consistency in one of the five things every startup needs: event participation.
Outside of the Hatching, we don’t have many consistent events. This is one of them. Attending helps to build and reinforce our fledgling startup community.
Moreover, this is one that can give us all a common vocabulary, a common reference point, and increase our communal vision for what we could potentially build.
Plus, it’s free
Yes, free. MSU’s Entreprenship Association is putting this on. And it’s not just for students. They’re putting it on for the community because they want to see this community’s entrepreneurial ecosystem thrive. As I’m pretty sure we all do.
So, Here are the Details
When: Tuesdays, 7:30PM
Where: The Hatch (Inside the East Lansing Technology Innovation Center
Who: MSU’s Entreprenship Association [button open_new_tab=”true” color=”accent-color” size=”medium” url=”http://www.meetup.com/How-to-Start-a-Startup-Lansing-Edition/” text=”Take the Class!” color_override=””]
