{"277371":{"#nid":"277371","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Startup Lab","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EOne Tuesday morning this past January, Chris Klaus stood in a room in his namesake building to talk with 30-plus students about what it takes to build a startup.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe 50-minute talk was unique in that it was given by a Tech alumnus and donor, but as for its format or content, Klaus is just one of several guest entrepreneurs to visit the class, a new offering this semester called Startup Lab.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe focus is on better equipping students to pursue startup creation,\u201d said Professor Raghupathy Sivakumar of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, who teaches the course. \u201cThey could do this coming out of the class, a few months down the road, or even after graduating.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe course begins with students hearing from a different guest each week about his or her experience in a startup or entrepreneurial environment. Students then team up to develop a business model for a startup idea of their own.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe class has a fantastic structure,\u201d said Megna Saha, a fourth-year biomedical engineering major who enrolled in the course to sharpen her business acumen. \u201cI feel like my communication has improved, but also my imagination and creativity are being cultivated.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EKlaus talked about his experience founding his first company, Internet Security Systems, from his dorm in Smith Hall. IBM eventually bought ISS for $1.3 billion. Klaus went on to start \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.kaneva.com\/\u0022\u003EKaneva\u003C\/a\u003E, a social gaming company based in Atlanta. In his Startup Lab visit, Klaus covered topics including gamification, metrics, and customer validation. Other subjects to be discussed throughout the semester include opportunity identification, ideation, customer discovery, market analysis, business models, intellectual property, and raising capital.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cEven students who want to go work for established companies can thrive in such environments if they are entrepreneurial,\u201d Sivakumar said.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe class requires no prerequisites and is cross-listed in electrical and computer engineering, biomedical engineering, and mechanical engineering, but Sivakumar hopes to open it to even more students when he offers it again next spring. He emphasizes cross-pollination of ideas and team members from different disciplines.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDuring his visit, Klaus echoed the need for collaboration, advising students to seek partners at neighboring universities such as the Savannah College of Art and Design. He dismissed the notion that students are too young to start companies or that age bias in the marketplace should stop them.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe reason to do a startup is to change the world and create value,\u201d Klaus said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStudents interested in doing either of those things can enroll in Startup Lab in Spring 2015, or visit \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/create.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ecreate.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E to explore more opportunities at Tech for exploring the startup world.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThis course is designed to better equip students to pursue startup creation.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"This course is designed to better equip students to pursue startup creation."}],"uid":"27469","created_gmt":"2014-02-19 11:44:05","changed_gmt":"2022-05-26 17:09:36","author":"Kristen Bailey","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-02-19T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2014-02-19T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"277351":{"id":"277351","type":"image","title":"Chris Klaus","body":null,"created":"1449244151","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:49:11","changed":"1475894968","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:28","alt":"Chris Klaus","file":{"fid":"198816","name":"11c1605-p1-116.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/11c1605-p1-116_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/11c1605-p1-116_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1864654,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/11c1605-p1-116_0.jpg?itok=YCtDlP0n"}}},"media_ids":["277351"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/create.gatech.edu\/","title":"Create at Tech"},{"url":"http:\/\/users.ece.gatech.edu\/~siva\/","title":"About Raghupathy Sivakumar"},{"url":"http:\/\/startuplab.gatech.edu\/syllabus.pdf","title":"Startup Lab Syllabus"}],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"86941","name":"create"},{"id":"166973","name":"startup"},{"id":"168101","name":"startup lab"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EInstitute Communications\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["kristen.bailey@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}