Reid's DukeGEN Blog

If you’re leading a “growth stage enterprise startup,” Microsoft can help you meet customers via a new program called the Pegasus Program. Learn more here: https://startups.microsoft.com/blog/connecting-startups-to-customers-with-the-microsoft-for-startups-pegasus-program/

For all of us launching, working at, and advising startups, I encourage you to add to your “personal learning plan” the time to watch the videos below used by many programs on entrepreneurship including the National Science Foundation (NSF) program called I-Corp. https://new.nsf.gov/funding/initiatives/i-corps I recommend that you first watch the Steve Blank videos on Customer Discovery, the process of interviewing people in possible target markets to test your business hypotheses. I was doing these interviews incorrectly, hence my strong endorsement of these: https://www.midatlanticicorps.com/explore/startup-resources Then watch Steve Blank’s series, The Lean LaunchPad, How To Build A Startup, which consists of 220 lectures in 9 sections that follow the Business Model Canvas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZvgj6B2JZs&list=PLAwxTw4SYaPnxzSuovATBMrNowGaaEBmW

How to find a summer internship You are not alone as nearly every student struggles to find an internship that is meaningful to their major and career plans. So what can you do? Fight like crazy to find one! That’s how everyone does it. Start by creating a network map aka a list of possibilities - Peers - ask ‘em as you never know who they know OR who their parents or other contacts know - Parent(s) - your parent(s) will be eager but may also have trepidations - tell ‘em its easy - you know I am amazing, so just have them tell all their friends, “My amazing student is seeking an internship - who should they call?” And then you call all of those referrals and ask them for referrals - Relatives & Neighbors - same as parents - School Career Center - check with your school’s career center and pursue their suggestions - School Handshake or similar - find your school's networking software and use it - School Alumni Network - schools often have alumni groups on LinkedIn, Facebook,...