Harvard i-lab | Startup Secrets: Roadmap to Success

MICHAEL SKOK: So let me jump right in and point out that you do not need to take notes on everything because I see people sometimes furiously scribbling away. Everything will be on startupsecrets.com. And if you follow on the hashtag or on my Twitter feed when we post materials, then we'll automatically give you notification of them.

So these materials, because they're brand new, will only get posted probably in the next week or two. But you can follow along on all of the other materials that I'm going to reference at startupsecrets.com. So why are we here? Well, the fun part about starting a company is that there are so many questions.

And in fact, the only thing I usually have is a bunch of answers that could be frequently question themselves. And so we wanted to just get straight to the heart of some of the questions that come up over and over again, like, what's involved in a startup? What do I need to think about?

What are some of the steps that I should be planning for? And all those kinds of questions that's so real to people. And in fact, I just had an example of it today in meeting with some of the i-lab teams. We wanted to say, look, you're not alone-- everybody else has these questions too.

And so let's develop a framework that will give you a basis to think about them and actually take some action on them that doesn't leave you feeling like you're stuck, which is the whole goal of this. So one of the things that I want to point out is that we generally talk about frameworks for a reason, which

is they're not answers-- they're a basis on which to discuss and to raise questions. So please don't walk away tonight thinking I've got the answer to how to do a startup-- that would mean I've failed. What I hope you'll have is better questions to think about what are the steps to take. And we're going to use Paula's story tonight, who