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TiE-Smith Fellows in Entrepreneurship Program

A Partnership Between TiE-DC and the Smith School of Business

TiE-DC invites Emerging Entrepreneur and Professional members to apply for this fall's TiE-Smith Fellowship program.  Details of the program can be found below.  (Participants in the program are obliged to join TiE as EEP members if they have not already done so.)  Send applications for participation, consisting of the form which can be downloaded from http://dc.tie.org/Home/News/TiE%20Smith%20Fellowship%20Application, to agupta@rhsmith.umd.edu.

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Mission: The goal of the TiE-Smith Fellows in Entrepreneurship Program is to help promising entrepreneurs significantly improve the odds of success for their early stage ventures. This program was launched in Fall 2005 as a partnership between TiE-DC and the Smith School of Business, The University of Maryland at College Park. After a very successful run in Fall 2005, we will now repeat this program for a new set of entrepreneurs. In this second round, scheduled for September-December 2006, the program will be limited to only 15 budding entrepreneurs who have already launched their ventures but not yet received VC funding.

Program Co-Directors:

Prashanth Boccasam, CEO, Approva Corporation and Board Member, TiE-DC

Anil K. Gupta, Professor, Smith Business School and Board Member, TiE-DC

J. Robert Baum, Professor, Smith Business School

Duration: September 2006 – Mid-December 2006

Number: 15 entrepreneurs (designated TiE-Smith Fellows in Entrepreneurship)

Structure: Each TiE-Smith Fellow gets the following value added services from the program:

 Participate in 11-12 once/week workshops (Friday mornings, 8.00-12.00): Each workshop to include: (a) lecture/presentation by faculty – about 1 hour, (b) presentation/sharing of perspective by guest speaker – about 2 hours, and (c) discussion of the Fellows’ issues – about 1 hour. In each session, in the last hour, we’d also do a deeper “case analysisâ€� of two ventures from within the group.

 Have up to 4 small group mentoring meetings (3 Fellows/Mentor) with veteran VCs/Entrepreneurs who agree to serve as TiE-Smith Mentors.

Location: Smith Business School, College Park, MD

Program Fee: $2500 (a limited number of Fellows may be provided with 50% support from TiE-DC)

Staffing:

- Faculty-in-Charge (Bob Baum & Anil Gupta from Smith)

- 12 different Guest Speakers (entrepreneurs/VCs) - one for each Friday morning

- 5 Mentors (veteran VCs/Entrepreneurs)

- Administrative help (from Smith)

Program Design: (START: Sep 22, 2006; END: Dec 8, 2006)

Session topics:

1. Sep 22, 2006: Defining/Clarifying Your Business Model

2. Sep 29, 2006: Evaluating Your Business Model: Demand-Side Assessment

3. Oct 6, 2006: Evaluating Your Business Model: Competitive Advantage Assessment (including IP issues)

4. Oct 13, 2006: Leading, Assembling, and Managing Your Team

5. Oct 20, 2006: Managing Innovation: Bringing Product to Market

6. Oct 27, 2006: Developing A Market Awareness Strategy

7. Nov 3, 2006: Developing A Customer Acquisition Strategy

8. Nov 10, 2006: Developing An Alliance (Partner Acquisition) Strategy

9. Nov 17, 2006: Sources of Financing

10. Dec 1, 2006: Selling Yourself (Making Presentations, Pitching to Investors, etc.)

11. Dec 8, 2006:  Deal Structure and Term Sheet, Managing the Exit