South Africa Summer 2017 Blog

Dear GSL Family, 

Wow! Just like that GSL is over! Our journey as family began five short weeks ago on June 24 when we began to get a glimpse into your personal stories, ambitions and goals. Throughout our journey we learned with you and from you. We started this experience as instructors, but quickly learned that you were the ones doing the teaching, and us the learning. 

Congratulations on a very successful demo day!!! We are SOOOOO proud of all that you have accomplished in five short weeks. You took ideas and inspirations and turned them into businesses. You started out as curious students and transformed into excellent entrepreneurs. This is only the beginning for each and every one of you, and we hope that you persevere and will purposefully continue on the path of entrepreneurship. 

We send a heartfelt thank you for you dedication to the GSL program and to us. Everyday you showed up and showed out. We cannot thank you enough for the many laughs, interesting conversations, and most importantly your presence. 

Our sincere hope is that our journey together does not end with the GSL program. We want you to stay in touch, leverage us as mentors, and reach out to us if you need anything! And we mean anything! We intend to keep the WhatsApp group active, so please join if you haven't already. Our personal contact information has been sent in an email to all of you.

The GSL content will be available on our website  for the foreseeable future, and this email address will also be active indefinitely, and managed by us until next year. 

Here is a quick JCSE Video with a recap of Saturday, but we will send the recorded presentations when they become available. 

Once again, THANK YOU FOR AN AMAZING EXPERIENCE! 

Sincerely,

Nupur, Chinasa, Erin, Jayanthi

Hi Team,

Today was our last full day of class. Words cannot express how proud we are of all of your for coming this far. The drive and passion you have brought to class every single day is inspiring and we are confident that it will shine through on Demo Day (and beyond).

Please find here the link to today's slides: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RbTJxvCIpuhakfA4pYaQzDyGtbdEFrF9/view?usp=sharing

As always, let us know if you have any questions as you are preparing for Demo Day. We will see all of you next week during office hours.

Good luck!

Best,

Nupur, Chinasa, Erin, Jayanthi

Hi Everyone,

We hope that you found the visits to the Google office and Third Space Roastery to be informative. Please find here the link to the short deck we reviewed today: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mwBM0H2sT4UgXdYkhoK4NmqptD1N09Q-/view?usp=sharing

As you prepare to launch your company, make sure to keep Cialdini’s principles of influence on your mind. 

Please make sure to send us your draft final pitch deck today.

See you all tomorrow for the last day of class!!

Best,

Nupur, Chinasa, Erin, Jayanthi

Hi Team,

We know today was a packed day, full of important and heavy content. But you have now accumulated the foundational knowledge for becoming successful entrepreneurs. :-)

Today we covered how to test assumptions and learned from our guest speaker Sayo on the impact of this activity on his start-up. Nelson provided us with an insightful overview of search engine optimization (SEO) and how you can use this to get your company's name out there. Our guest speaker and fintech entreprenuer, Dan, taught best practices about investor relations and financial management. In addition to all of this, we walked through how to build a financial model and how to test if customers would actually pay for your product, using your minimum viable product (MVP) as an example.

Please find here the link to today's slides:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3k2zIzVXvowLUlHQUxfVmJKV00/view?usp=sharing

Here's a link to an Excel financial model that you can use as a starting point if it's helpful:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d48DMlM8KilOYtpjROTPo3eYCIG5tnFL/view?usp=sharing

Please check your email for Dan's and Nelson's presentations. 

There's a lot to do, but we are at the final stretch. As always email us if you have any questions. Below is the homework for today.

Homework:

• Testing Assumptions: 5-10 well-thought-out assumptions about your company, customers and/or product, and the strategies that you will use to test the assumptions. 
• Product Launch Plan: A projection of the iterations of your product. Pick one of the format examples shown in the slides. Feel free to create your own, but the information should be similar (see slides for more info). 
• Financial Model: Version 1 of your financial model with the assumptions
• (Almost Optional) Proving that your customers will pay: Complete a thought exercise on ways to prove that customers will pay/use your product. Fill out the information in slide 56 and 57 as a start. 

We will be meeting at the Google Office at 9:15AM! (See slide 72 and 73).

Best,

Nupur, Chinasa, Erin, Jayanthi

Thank you to everyone who was able to join us for Mandela Day Volunteering! Hope you had a productive session this afternoon to catch-up on work and prepare for Demo Day next week. As always, please let us know if you have any questions.

Best,

Nupur, Chinasa, Erin, Jayanthi

Hi Team,

This is the last full week of classes! Please find here the link to the slides from today's lectures:https://drive.google.com/file/d/109Xf5DjeVCrPIF9sOys3mdoN2f0D4SVB/view?usp=sharing

We discussed mapping the sales process to acquire customers and the cost of customer acquisition (COCA) in the morning and how to develop your pitch deck for Demo Day in the afternoon. We also had a chance to play a passionate game of Jeapordy to review all of the content we have covered so far and we loved seeing the enthusiasm and energy from everyone.

Please note that the slide deck for today also includes summaries of all the content we have covered so far. It's not only a good review but can serve as a checklist for the appendix of your pitch deck. 

Remember to sign-up for two one-hour sessions to review your pitch decks between July 24th and July 29th here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gF0sIDX5501or5ZHW5Tu216htR7tP7f2uWtUB3thsAk/edit?usp=sharing.

See you all tomorrow morning for Mandela Day Volunteering!

Best,

Nupur, Chinasa, Erin, Jayanthi

Hi Everyone,

Today concludes our three day lecture series on technical development. Try to use what you've learned in these three days during the Hackathon Day on Saturday. We will be bringing in tech mentors for the Hackathon to help address your questions and enable the development of your wireframe or prototype. 

Please find here the link to today's slides: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q3sdxDIc0S87VYamSLiWUKj0sDtb840-/view?usp=sharing

Additional resources to learn Android can be found in our materials page here: 

http://gsl.mit.edu/materials/south-africa-summer-2017/

Best,

Elahe, Nupur, Chinasa, Erin, Jayanthi