MIT Global Startup Labs 2017 - Syllabus

Updated: 6/13/17

MIT Global Startup Labs is an intensive, hands-on experience in which you will get instruction
and mentorship to help you bring your business ideas to reality. Being held at Insper’s São
Paulo Campus during the six-week entrepreneurial journey of MIT-led activities, lectures, and
workshops that will provide the basic tools and ideas to start a technology based venture. The
program will take place from June 26th to August 4th, 2017. Additional speakers, investors, and
mentors will be invited from the São Paulo area to interact with the student

The program has the aim of shaping and incubating one technology-based startup per team of
students formed. A group of MIT mentors will guide teams through the process generating
ideas, developing a business model, and creating a minimum viable product to showcase at a
Demo Day at the end of the program.

The below is a tentative schedule of topics addressed and deliverables for each week. These
are subject to change. Additionally, based on the needs of the teams, different topics may be
selected for teaching.

Our curriculum is based upon several sources:

- Disciplined Entrepreneurship​, a program developed by MIT professor Bill Aulet
- MIT System Design and Management Course Curriculum
- MIT Course 6.813
- Personal Experiences Creating and Running Startup Ventures

Tentative Schedule & Objectives:

High Level Focus Deliverables

Week 1 Jun 26-30 - Get To Know Each Team Presentation & Demographic
Other Selection
- Team Building and
Management
- User Demographics
- Understanding Markets
- Understanding Needs
- Ideation

Week 2 Jul 3-7 - Technical Trainings Problem Statement & User

(Selecting Appropriate Interviews
Technologies, System
Architecture)
- Ideation
- User Testing
- Prototyping
Week 3 Jul 10-14 - Technical Trainings Non-Functional Prototype & User
(Classes on Specific Testing Results
Technologies)
- Pricing
- Funding

Week 4 Jul 17-21 - Technical Trainings Working Prototype (Shallow) &

- Reworking User Tests
- Verification & Validation

Week 5 Jul 24-28 - Technical Trainings Prototype (Fully Functional)

Week 6 Jul 31-Aug 4 - Technical Trainings MVP & Demo

General Topics: Technical Topics:

- Problem Statements - Databases:
- Disciplined Entrepreneurship - Relational (Postgresql, MySql)
- Total Addressable Market - NoSQL (MongoDB, CouchDB,
- Primary Market Research RethinkDB)
- Minimum Viable Products - Debugging
- Solution Neutral Architecture - Client Side Scripting:
- NPV/Profitability - JavaScript
- Ideation - Frameworks: ReactJS,
- Personas AngularJS, Backbone,
- Stakeholder Analysis WebPack
- Prototyping - Server Side Scripting:
- User Testing - Python/Django/Flask
- Business Models - NodeJS/Sails/Express
- Funding/Venture Capital - NPM/Yarn
- Beachhead Market - Security:
- User Experience - SSL/HTTPS
- Decision Making Unit - XSS
- Team Formation and Dynamics - SQL Injections
- Target Demographics - Input Validation
- Usability - Mobile:
- System Architecture - iOS
- Tradespace Analysis - Android
- Verification and Validation - Web Services:
- Mens et Manus - Firebase
- Pricing - AWS
- Life Cycle - REST
- Planning - Web Sockets
- Source Code Management:
 - Git
- GitHub/Bitbucket
- Pull Requests
- Branching/Merging
- UI Frameworks:
- Bootstrap, Material UI
- CSS
- Responsive Layouts