This week you will be establishing a baseline for your business, map out your next 10 weeks, and review your market segmentation, selection and market sizing and analysis. You will also start implementing a weekly accountability framework where you reflect on what you accomplished in the previous week and plan what you will focus on for the coming week.
Entrepreneurship Jargon Translator
We covered a lot of ground in our 3-day bootcamp and we fully realize this can be overwhelming for first time entrepreneurs. For your convenience we have created an Entrepreneurship Jargon Translator to help you decipher the many concepts and terms we will use throughout the summer. Enjoy!
Setting a baseline: Complete the Business Model Canvas
In Week 1, we reviewed entrepreneurship basics including the business model canvas (BMC). Please take a few moments and fill this out for your venture – the completed BMC will serve as a baseline for the state of your venture at the start of the accelerator.
Some of you may have already filled out a BMC for your venture and may feel that this is redundant. Think of it not as a worksheet but as a measurement device. What you can measure, you can improve. As you build your venture, new data and insights are coming in continuously. Your BMC from an earlier era may or may not stay current.
As we progress through the coming weeks, you will be revising your BMC once a week as new data comes in. At the end of the accelerator, you will have 11 BMC’s that document your journey of learning and hypothesis testing for your venture.
Building a project plan for the next 10 weeks
Once you have completed your first BMC revision for the accelerator, have a look at the entire canvas and ask: Is everything consistent? Then look at each section and ask: How confident do I feel about this section, or do I need additional data? This process will help you identify gaps in your knowledge that can help you prioritize what to do moving forward. It will also serve as a discussion guide as you work with peers, mentors and coaches to get feedback.
With this data, please think carefully about where you want your business to be at the end of this 11-week journey, think about what business goals and milestones are the most important, think about what knowledge gaps you need to bridge to achieve these goals and milestones, and work backwards to create a program plan that helps you meet your goals. If you are not already using a task management software platform, use this project planning template to get started.
Revise your market segmentation
This is also a good week to review your market segmentation framework. Some of you may have jumped into a specific target market without considering alternatives – if this sounds like you, consider using MIT Professor Bill Aulet’s Segmentation Worksheet to help you create your very first segmentation matrix. Others may have done comprehensive segmentation – if this sounds like you, simply take a few moments and review how you have segmented your market to date.
Did you use a demographic framework? (That’s a rookie move). Did you use a behavioral or psychographic framework instead? Or did you use a firmographic framework? (Read this article if these words make no sense to you.) How comfortable are you about the boundaries of these segments – have you spoken to 30-50 people to validate that these segments are coherent?
The segmentation matrix is the single most helpful artifact in entrepreneurial strategy because it helps shape how you see your target market and therefore shapes how you build your business. Do not economize – invest in this activity and you will save time and money in the long run.
Rethink your beachhead market selection
Once you are happy with how you segment your market, it’s time to review how you chose your beachhead market – i.e. the tightly defined target market segment you will be starting to build your business within. As with market segmentation, just take a few moments to review the selection criteria and see if you have any new data that may change how you choose your target market.
Estimate your market opportunity
Once you have the broad definition of your market segment and beachhead market, you need to estimate the size of your market opportunity. Hubspot has a great article that explains the TAM, SAM, SOM alphabet soup. As an entrepreneur what you need to know is whether the TAM is big enough to be worth your time, and whether you are able to imagine how to build a business that takes a sizeable chunk of the SOM. Browse the Market Sizing and Analysis section of our knowledgebase for pointers on how to do this quickly and without spending any money on buying analyst reports.
Start a weekly planning ritual
Last but not least, start getting into the habit of a weekly retrospective and planning ritual with your team. This is a ritual borrowed from the Agile Software Development process. Basically, every week is a “sprint” – a unit of time for getting work done. The retro and planning activity is an end-of-sprint ritual that helps you reflect on what you have accomplished and learned and apply those learnings to the following week.
Following are the questions to answer for this ritual.
- What did you accomplish last week?
- What have you learned thus far?
- What do you plan to accomplish this week?
- Do you need help?
The 2021 summer cohort should use this form to enter this information and upload your BMC by 9am every Monday.
Thank you all,
Tina, Elaine, Adolfo and the Tufts Entrepreneurship Center team
