ENGR145’s Anchor Concept: Lemonade and Gua Gua Guacamole<\/p>\n
It moves you to the right on the entrepreneur bell curve <\/p>\n
By Larry Chiang<\/p>\n
Removing passages tells you a lot.<\/p>\n
In the hilarious Quora thread of my being Paris Hilton, the anonymous non-Stanford engineering student took ENGR 145. Its a class for technical majors only. He clearly and vehemently took personal offense by airing his grievances on Quora. Remember, in this class, I handed out EVALUATIONS that directly impacted grades.<\/p>\n
Let’s examine this non-technical majors shortcoming as it specifically pertains to being street smart. Yes, learning from what the wrong side of the bell-curve is smart.<\/p>\n
The student was at odds with an anchor concept (co-founding a sequel) that is designed to get *technical* majors to the successful side of the bell curve.<\/p>\n
He said of the concept of doing a sequel to a business that you didn’t co-found:<\/p>\n
\u201cpiggybacking off people and institutions of real success. One prime example: He once clearly recommended our class to build businesses off of existing businesses and replicate names similar to existing brands. I don\u2019t remember what term he made up for that approach.”<\/p>\n
Examples of people doing sequels to businesses abound and are everywhere.<\/p>\n
Star Trek –> Star Wars Federal Express –> USPS Thomas Jefferson –> John Locke Wicked, the play –> Wizard of Oz The Bible. Gua Gua Guacamole –> LuluLemon 1SemesterStartup –> ENGR 145 Physics 107 –> ENGR 145 Any romance novel. Any Quentin Tarantino movie is a remake \ud83d\ude42 Facebook –> HotOrNot for Harvard Google –> “Backrub” w Goto’s business model Apple –> Xerox Parc ENGR 145 at Stanford –> ENGR 145 #WhartonSF<\/p>\n
Seasoned executives like VCs listen for how exactly your new business is a sequel to something. A startup is likely to fail. It is incredibly much more likely to fail if you’re creating something from scratch. Remember, VCs have low domain experience. They just listen for “sequelization”<\/p>\n
The anchor concepts to ENGR 145 are Lemonade and Gua Gua Guacamole<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I clearly failed at reaching the student taking Stanford ENGR 145 in the summer quarter.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
CEO of Duck9 Stanford University Entrepreneur in Residence, Emeritus<\/p>\n
Duck9 = “Deep Underground Credit Knowledge” 9 125 University Avenue\/ 100 Palo Alto CA 94301 https:\/\/www.duck9.com\/ass<\/a> 650-566-9600 650-566-9696 (direct) 650-283-8008 (cell)<\/p>\n **************** Editor of the BusinessWeek Channel “What They Don’t Teach at Business School” https:\/\/whattheydontteachyouatstanfordbusinessschool.com\/blog<\/a> CNN Video Channel: https:\/\/ireport.cnn.com\/people\/larrychiang<\/a><\/p>\n Read my last 10 tweets at https:\/\/www.Twitter.com\/LarryChiang<\/a><\/p>\n Author, NY Times Bestseller https:\/\/whattheydontteachyouatstanfordbusinessschool.com\/blog\/?s=Ny+times+bestseller<\/a><\/p>\n “What They Will NEVER Teach You at Stanford Business School” comes out 11-11-14<\/p>\n