ENTR430:

Welcome to ENTR 430

This course puts you in the driver’s seat as an entrepreneur and requires you to work through much of the new product development process. Navigation through this process will not occur in isolation, however. You will work in small teams to create an idea and document the process, ultimately allowing you to leave this course and move into refining the idea or creating another until the product is able to be commercialized and distributed to a targeted consumer.

As the instructor of this course, I serve two purposes. First, I am a facilitator, guiding your learning experience through the resources within this course. Second, I will be your mentor, lending experience and expertise to assist with your individual needs. I may also be able to connect you to other people with the experience and expertise you are looking for. Each of you is coming to this course from a different place in the entrepreneurial path. Some are looking for inspiration and validation, while others are in development, production, or distribution of a product. Our goal for this course is to provide an experience that will help you further develop your product regardless of its current status.

As you progress through this first week module, read every page very carefully so that you have a clear understanding of how the course should be completed, including individual and team expectations. These modules, including this first week module, should be completed at your earliest convenience. Don’t procrastinate until the end of an instructional week, as time management and collaboration are among the most significant requirements of the course. Please reach out if you have any questions and concerns, and good luck in your journey!

Lesson Objectives

• Familiarize yourself with the content and expectations of the course.
• Align your personal entrepreneurial goals with the goals of the course.
• Form a community of thinkers and collaborators to assist in the new product development process.

New Product Development Process

Throughout this course, our core mission is to experience the new product development (NPD) process in a manner that is meaningful and transferable to real-world application. Though the course introduces information an entrepreneur can utilize, the experience is modified to accommodate the limitations of our 15-week time constraint and geographically dispersed class. It is also important to understand that each of you may be approaching this process from a different perspective. Some of you may have a product or idea already, possibly in development, production, or distribution, while others may be looking for inspiration or a way to determine if their current ideas are valid. In the end, this process is designed to help you further develop your idea, no matter its current status. If you are uncertain as to how this process will work for your particular circumstance, please contact the instructor for guidance at any time throughout the course. You may even be put in contact with someone outside of this course who can facilitate your journey.

Though we have chosen the following stages to guide you, remember that the new product development process can take many forms and the stages may occur in different order than in this course.  Table 0.1 identifies each stage of the process and its corresponding module of study.

Table 0.1  New Product Development Process

Module 1	Module 2	Module 3	Module 4	Module 5	Module 6	Module 7	Module 8
Organization and Planning	Idea Generation and Screening	Market Assessment	Concept Design and Development	Business  Analysis	Product Branding, Marketing, and Advertising	Prototype and User Testing	Commercialization and Distribution

You begin the process, in the Organization and Planning stage, by surrounding yourself with a team of individuals that will help you work through the development of your product. It is important to select individuals who have the same mindset and values, so this course will provide opportunities for each of you to align with others in the class. Next, in the Idea Generation and Screening stage, you determine whether the idea is viable—that is, whether the idea has enough merit for you to dedicate time and resources to further exploration of it. This exploration is done by talking to people and establishing a well-researched foundation from which the idea can develop. Once the idea is screened for viability, you move into a thorough Market Assessment, which involves an in-depth study of the market, to decide whether the idea should continue to concept design and development. The research consists of exploring the market size and potential market share, conducting a competitive analysis, and other steps that analyze the market where you can establish a niche, overcome barriers to entry, and set up an effective legal environment or business structure.

With the foundation in place, it’s time to put thoughts to paper—in other words, to turn a mental image of the product into a detailed illustration. The Concept Design and Development stage will bring form to your product. During this stage, you set specifications and requirements, in our case using a top-down design and bottom-up integration model, and illustrate the functionality and appearance of the product by allocating requirements to different pieces of the design. Looking ahead, this design will be built during a prototyping process and tested by end users in an iterative process.

However, before the prototype is made, it is recommended that you conduct a thorough Business Analysis to determine the idea’s financial feasibility. In this stage, you determine if it makes sense financially to continue with the product by assessing its costs and benefits; the pricing strategy, based on consumer feedback and manufacturing needs; and the points at which the product breaks even and provides a return on investment.

If the product makes financial sense, you will begin to think more about the product and the surrounding business by considering Product Branding, Marketing, and Advertising. Your objective is to build a branding strategy that uses marketing and advertising techniques to portray an effective message to the consumer. This involves logo and slogan design as well as strategies of communicating the product value to potential customers. Throughout this entire process, customer feedback will be vital to the design and development of the product.

In the next stage, this need for customer feedback is magnified, and the assistance of product engineers or developers is necessary. The Prototype and Concept Testing stage requires you to collect data and feedback from consumers and product development experts. This stage can take months to complete, but with every iteration and test of the prototype, the entrepreneur brings the product closer to what the market demands.

Once all modifications and enhancements have been made to the prototype, you reach the stage of Commercialization and Distribution, inching ever closer to the product launch. In this last stage of development, you must strategize how you will get the product to the end user, whether by direct or indirect methods, using online sales, retailers, wholesalers, or any number of other options. You prepare the product for launch and secure the necessary financing, possibly through investors. With the launch of the product, a whole new product journey begins.

You may now be wondering how you are going to fit this entire process into a 15-week online course. Let’s move on to an explanation of the course and its layout.

Explanation of the Course

On this page, we examine the course layout, specifically the module themes and instructional pacing, as well as the types of assignments to be done individually. Later in the module, we will discuss the new product development process and the team dynamic that has been integrated into this course.

Course Layout

Let’s first examine how the course is constructed. This first week, you are merely asked to accept your role in the course and begin the process of acclimating to the course dynamic. If you look at the layout of the course, much of the content is front loaded to accommodate activity in the team project. Each module has pages of commentary to read and occasional supplemental readings. However, this course, like many other entrepreneurial courses, rely heavily on videos cut from recorded interviews with successful entrepreneurs and related experts. Since this course lacks a significant reading requirement, you are asked to view every video to gain firsthand applied knowledge and practices that you may then apply to the team project and future entrepreneurial ventures. You will be introduced to these individuals later in this module.

The modules follow the phases of the new product development process. If you look ahead throughout the course or review your course syllabus, you will notice a significant expectation of team work starting in module 2 and lasting through the end of the course. The team and each individual will have other expectations in regards to the project, which will be explained later in this module. Table 0.2 illustrates the course layout.

Table 0.2  New Product Development Process Course Layout

Module 1	Module 2	Module 3	Module 4	Module 5	Module 6	Module 7	Module 8
1 Week	2 Weeks	10 Weeks - Dictated by Team Project Contract (Module 2)
Organization and Planning	Idea Generation and Screening	Market Assessment	Concept Design and Development	Business  Analysis	Product Branding, Marketing, and Advertising	Prototype and User Testing	Commercialization and Distribution

 

Module 1: Organization and Planning will last one instructional week and discusses the team dynamic, leadership within the new product development process, and strategies of conflict management. At the end of this module, teams will be formed during a live virtual conference session in order to start the development process in module 2.

Module 2: Idea Generation and Screening will last 2 instructional weeks. Each individual must complete the module reading and videos, and the team must not only complete a team contract that will govern the communication and collaboration efforts of the project, but also generate and screen ideas for the product to be used for the team project.

Modules 3-8: This is where the course becomes a bit less structured. Once the team has been assembled in module 2, the contract will dictate how the remaining modules, Modules 3-8, will be completed. The team will decide how these remaining six modules will be completed so that the team project can also be completed by the specified Syllabus due date. More information about the team project will be given later in this module, but for now, it is important to understand that while the first 4 instructional weeks of this course are done at the same pace, the following ten weeks are more flexible in completing the requirements of modules 3-8 and the team project. The last week of the course, not shown in Table 0.2, is meant for reflection and final questions.

A note about the content of the modules: Various marketing tools, such as company logos and slogans, are presented in this course. Their inclusion in this course does not indicate any promotion, sponsorship or endorsement by that company or The Pennsylvania State University.

Individual Assignments

The majority of the work done in this course will be focused on the team project and development of a new product. However, each individual will have certain requirements that must be done without the assistance of classmates. The three primary individual assignment types in this course are journal entries, weekly progress reports, and peer evaluations. Two of these requirements, weekly progress reports and peer evaluations, will be discussed a little later in this module when we address the expectations of each individual in regards to the team project. Some modules also have student submissions that must be made publically within the module in response to a prompt.

The purpose of journaling

At the end of each module, you will be asked to complete a journal entry that captures your learning path through the provided commentary, resources, and team project activity. While some courses use journal entries as a means of simple reflection, this course requires you to connect key concepts to everyday entrepreneurial tasks, particularly those relevant to your experience. You will use these 4 C’s to complete a thorough journal entry.

• Concepts - What concepts were of particular importance to you? Address a minimum of 5 key points encountered throughout the module that were of particular importance to you. These points may come from videos, text commentary, from within team activity, articles, etc. that have been included in the course. Do not just simply address these points, but explain why each of these concepts were of importance to you.
• Connect - How does what you learned in the module connect to your prior experience? Be specific and detailed about the example from the course and from your personal experience. The connection should be obvious and easily visualized.
• Change - Referring to specific content or experiences within your coursework, what behaviors or ideas will change in regards to your entrepreneurial processes? Describe how these behaviors or ideas will change.
• Challenge - Every entrepreneur views the process differently. Based on your experience, what information or viewpoints presented in the module can you challenge in regards to its validity or applicability? Think about what bothered you or you simply did not agree with. Similarly, based on what you heard or read, what topic(s) would you like to know more about? What questions do you still have?

As an entrepreneur, you are expected to make your journal entries thorough in order to synthesize everything you have learned, and you are also expected to seek the mentorship of other entrepreneurs. At no time should your submission be brief or simply state that you have nothing to share. The content of your submission may solicit meaningful dialog with the instructor or a connection with someone externally, such as a financial advisor or product manufacturer, to assist you in the development process. So please use the journal submission to your advantage.

With an understanding of the new product development process and the layout of the course, including individual assignments, let’s turn our attention to the team project that spans the entire course and should help you experience the development process.  

 

Team Project Overview

 

Let’s first address the concerns that some online students have about team projects. While team projects do bring with them challenges of collaboration and time management, this course and its theme must employ this strategy to assist individuals with the amount of work required to complete a meaningful activity in the weeks provided. The entrepreneurial landscape as it exists today requires teamwork spread over potentially geographically dispersed partners, so an entrepreneur should not be afraid to have this learning experience in an online course. An effective level of communication and collaboration must be leveraged to successfully develop, manufacture, and introduce a product to a wide target audience.

This course is unlike others you may have taken in the past. The structure is more flexible, and the goals are more aligned with the personal goals of each student. With that in mind, utilize the opportunities afforded in this course to form a community of thinkers and collaborators as you either move your idea to design and production or look for ways to improve or validate a current entrepreneurial venture. You will attempt to choose your own teams at the end of Module 1, which will require each of you to participate in first week introductions, engage in conversations, and scrutinize the public submissions made in Module 1 for potential teammates.

Now, with all of those concerns addressed, let’s discuss the documentation requirements of the team project. The New Product Development Process table below illustrates the requirements associated with each module. You will use the New Product Development Process Documentation Template to complete your documentation. You will be able to view and download this template on the following page or during Module 2.

New Product Development Process

	Module 1	Module 2	Module 3	Module 4	Module 5	Module 6	Module 7	Module 8
New Product Development Process	Organization and Planning	Idea Generation and Screening	Market Assessment	Concept Design and Development	Business Analysis	Product Branding, Marketing, and Advertising	Prototype and User Testing	Commercial-ization and Distribution
Documentation Requirement	Team Formation	Team Contract Idea Generation and Screening	Market and Legal Environment Analysis	Concept Design and Development	Business Analysis	Branding Strategy and Promotion	Prototype and Concept Testing	Distribution Plan Commercial-ization Plan Executive Summary

As the team progresses through the modules, the documentation requirements will accompany the text and video commentary introduced. This documentation is not a business plan; however, much of what is included in this documentation can be transferred to a business plan. The template used for the course is actually patterned from sample business plans available online, making the documentation assignments meaningful while keeping with the goals and objectives of ENTR 430. With that in mind, there are two primary expectations associated with each of these documentation requirements:

1. All work is submitted on time. All documentation is submitted by an agreed upon deadline, similar to the deadlines established by the stakeholders of an entrepreneurial venture. The documentation is completed in a collaborative manner, and each team member is held accountable for meaningful and valuable contributions. Weekly progress reports and strategically placed peer evaluations will inform the instructor of productivity and concerns to be addressed as needed. The team should not hesitate to reach out to the instructor at any time should a team member not be contributing according to the standards set in the team contract.
   
   The work involved for each submission is time consuming and should not be started close to the required submission date. It is recommended that you preview the entire course this week, especially the pages titled Team Project Module Expectations. A career as an entrepreneur is not a consistent, 40-hour per week schedule. But it can be a very rewarding career if you have a good idea and an exceptional drive to accomplish goals. This necessary mentality—a drive to work and succeed—is also needed for this course. For example, you will be asked to get feedback from members of the product’s target market a minimum of three times throughout the process. The first time you will solicit feedback is during the idea generation stage (Module 2), when each individual will need to conduct interviews with consumers. Focus groups will be conducted during Modules 4 and 7. In Module 4, you will receive feedback on a two-dimensional representation of your concept design. In Module 7, you will receive feedback on a three-dimensional prototype design model. However, remember that a successful entrepreneur solicits feedback as often as possible, so please do not feel limited to these requirements.
2. Each submission adheres to quality standards and enhances previous submissions.  Each submission is completed in a preliminary stage aligned with the team’s movement through the module, and is then enhanced or updated as each new module is completed. As the team moves through the modules, new commentary or ideas may require the team to revisit previous submissions to modify initial entries to create one cohesive document. This is why the entire documentation template will be submitted each time. Each documentation submission is part of a larger template that is completed in labeled stages. Prompts for each submission are given in the template as well as on Team Project Module Expectations pages found within the actual module of study. Your team may decide to utilize a “divide-and-conquer” strategy of completing documentation, in which each person is responsible for one piece, or you may work on pieces collaboratively, whether it be in small group or a full group. This will be decided throughout the process as well as considered during the Team Contract draft.
   
   What is the Team Contract? More information and a template will be provided in Module 2. Your team will craft a contract that governs methods of communication and collaboration and sets the standard for each individual's contributions. Your team will apply this contract to the idea generation phase of the project and then have a chance to finalize the team contract before submission to the instructor. The contract will require the team to draft a timeline of individual activity completion and documentation contribution and submission. The instructor will hold you accountable to this schedule of submissions. Any change in the timeline will need to be discussed with, approved by, and changed in the course by the instructor.

On the following page, we will discuss the expectations of the team and each of its members in regard to the team project.

Expectations for Team Project

Read the following expectations as they pertain to the team and an individual's contributions to the team project. You are asked to complete a survey on the next page demonstrating your understanding and acceptance of these expectations.

Within the team project, each team will be expected to do the following:

• Craft a contract that governs methods of communication and collaboration, and also sets the standard for each individual's contributions. A template for this contract will be provided to your team in Module 2. Your team will apply this contract to the idea generation phase of the project then have a chance to finalize the team contract before submission to the instructor.

Within the team project, each individual will be expected to do the following:

• Provide quality contributions in a timely fashion. The contributions and deliverable schedule will be determined by the team based on the assignment due date specified in the course syllabus.
• Please note: After consulting the instructor, a team member may be removed from a team at any point in a project if these standards are not met. This team member would then be responsible for completing the entire project alone.
• Attend team virtual or phone meetings. The times and means of communication and collaboration will be documented in the team contract.
• Submit weekly progress reports, starting during Module 2, that detail your contributions to the team project and what you feel each of the other team members have contributed. Weekly progress reports should be submitted to the Weekly Progress Reports assignment by each team member by Sunday, 11:59pm EST of the associated week. The instructor will intervene as necessary. These progress reports can be accessed and submitted by clicking the "Weekly Progress Reports" course tab then selecting the appropriate week.
• Submit two peer evaluations, each at a designated time during the project timeline. A peer evaluation form will be provided for each submission via the "Peer Evaluations" course tab. You will download the form and rename it with the given naming convention, then submit it to the assignment once completed.

Please confirm your understanding and acceptance of these expectations by completing the survey on the next page.

Introduction to our Panel

Throughout this course, you will encounter interviews with successful entrepreneurs structured around that module’s theme. Below is a biosketch introducing you to each entrepreneur and his or her background and expertise. Explore their associated website also to learn more about the products offered.