Next Gen Founders Program

The Next Gen Founders program works with kids in grades 2 - 12 to teach the frameworks of entrepreneurship and innovation. We believe best innovation comes under constraint and want to encourage this next generation of inventors to think even more creatively to build the future. We seek to inspire kids to create, innovate, communicate, and build. We wish to build psychological safety and empower them to hypothesize ideas, test them, fail fast, and develop passion and persistence on their entrepreneurship and life journey.

The Next Gen Founders program will be conducted through a 5 week synchronous & asynchronous online program culminating in a Entrepreneurship Showcase

Schedule

Pre-work: Hypothesize

• Students will identify a problem, product or service they wish to build and sell in week 5

• Conduct customer interviews

Empathize and Discover

• Discuss entrepreneurship, failing fast, passion and persistence

• Identify the customer and understand their needs / wants

• Create a hypothesis, product positioning, and plan

• Capture customer interviews

Ideate and Plan

• Share ideas and refine hypotheses

• Discuss constraints and financing - inventory, budget, pricing, and forecasting

• Create an online store, name, and logo

Create and Iterate

• Share plans continue to create and explore their ideas

• Discuss communication & presentation

• Show their product and store progress

• Begin developing short presentation on Customer Problem, Product, and Plan

Communicate and Show

• Recap communication plan

• Finalize short presentation on Customer Problem, Product, and Plan

• Discuss accounting, income statement, fulfillment, and Customer Service

• Develop punch list

Entrepreneurial Showcase

• Present their 5 week journey and business pitches

• Shop for each others’ goods and services

• Encourage each other in entrepreneurship

• Prizes will be awarded