BIG IDEA COMPETITION

Your previous class activities have helped you reach new venture startup milestones related to self-awareness, understanding problems, gaining empathy for your (potential) customers’ frustrations, designing solutions, and testing your assumptions. Now it’s time to pull together what you’ve learned, imagined, created, and evaluated to develop a value proposition pitch capable of earning other peoples’ interest, engagement, and support. This is the end of the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey:

This assignment requires you to create a value proposition “pitch deck” that presents a comprehensive depiction of your value proposition story. This presentation will be the basis of the value proposition pitch video you will submit to our BIG IDEA COMPETITION that serves as the capstone experience in this class.

YOU MUST USE POWERPOINT TO CREATE YOUR SLIDES SO YOU CAN ADD NOTES. YOU WILL PRESENT THESE DURING OUR LIVE ZOOM CLASS ON FRIDAY 4/9 AND YOU WILL RECIEVE WRITTEN FEEDBACK FROM FOUR OF YOUR PEERS – REPRESENT WELL!

Your slides will emphasize descriptions of the story elements listed below (mostly ideas), and your notes will provide additional description and/or specific evidence that supports the credibility of your story. You must include one slide that addresses each of the story elements below (one exception – you can use two to describe your solution if you prefer). These “stories” have been the addressed by our prior assignments (see below), so you should be able to capitalize on the work you’ve done previously and align it into a coherent and compelling narrative that gets others interested in helping you. YOU MUST PROVIDE SUPPORTING EVIDENCE FOR YOUR DESCRIPTIONS/ASSERTIONS IN THE NOTES FOR SLIDE 2-5 (enriching descriptions may be adequate for your personal story and concluding value proposition story). Here are the required elements of your presentation with some illustrative questions to guide you:

1. Personal story – Why are you interested in solving this problem? Was there an inciting incident? (refer to Startup Step #2)
2. Problem story – What is the problem and why should we care? (refer to Startup Steps #3 & #4)
3. Competitor story – What current alternatives are used to address the problem?
4. Customer story – Who experiences this problem? Who is MOST frustrated with current alternatives? (refer to Startup Steps #5 & #6)
5. Solution story – What is your solution and how is it better than alternatives? (may include two slides) (refer to Startup Steps #7, #8 & #9)
6. Overall value proposition – Can you clearly and concisely summarize your value proposition? Can you explain and provide credible evidence that your solution solves your customers’ problem?

Keep in mind that it’s better to show than to tell, so emphasize meaningful illustrative images, keep text on your slides compelling and concise (about 20 words max per slide, 28 point font or bigger), and use the notes section to add enriching descriptions and supportive evidence.