Brandeis Innovation

Innovation Resources: 2021 Summer Speaker Series

Our From Idea to Business speaker series provides a toolkit of everything you need to launch a business. From figuring out whether your idea is a good one to financing your business to building a website, get the expert guidance you need, on-demand, to launch any type of business. 

Making Decisions Based on Limited Data

You want to launch your product or service, and you don’t have any data on what your consumers want, how big the market is, or what you need to do – at all. Learn how to fix that, quickly and for free.

Network Like a Professional

No contacts? No problem! Create your own Network from scratch.

Whether you are starting your own company, non-profit, or building a corporate career; there is one skill you need in order to achieve your goals faster – Networking.

This workshop will provide you with the tools and tactics to create and grow your network from scratch. You will Learn how to network via email, how to ask your network for introductions, how to consistently grow your network, and to keep your network engaged/ up to date with what you are up to.

Branding for Startups

How to talk so your clients understand. How to get noticed in a crowded market Companies often struggle with finding the right message to engage their target audiences, making it difficult to gain traction. There is the inside-out, navel-gazing view of what the company wants to be, but with no relevance to its audience.The jargon-infused messages that go right over the heads of potential customers. The multi-point messages that barrage their audience with a multitude of messages but fail to grab their attention with the right one. Last but not least,the cure for no known disease, the incredibly different message addressing a problem that isn’t as important to your audience as it is to you.No matter how great the product, how dynamic the creative, how efficient the channel planning or how effective the measurement and optimization, if you have the wrong value proposition your efforts will fail to meet expectations. They will be trudging in quicksand. This workshop helps companies develop sharp, audience-centric positioning/messaging strategies that will connect and convert audience, inspire great creative and get the most of out of your channels and spend. Beyond marketing, it will also provide improved company focus – impacting things like product/feature set prioritization and speed of decision making. This is big, BIG impact.Workshop Agenda
What is a brand?
Why it matters?
6 mistakes to avoid 6 step process to position your brand-Inventory of current messages
Find the blue sky in your market
Select the optimum point
Crafting positionings that connect
How to validate your work
Build a messaging architecture that convert

Fundraising 101

What materials do you need to put together? How do you find investors? How do you close the deal?

Overview of tech/startup fundraising basics, a 5-step how-to on the tactics of raising a seed round from angels/VCs, and some key pitch tips/lessons learned.

How I Did It: Insights From a Successful Entrepreneur

How do you turn your ideas into reality? Hear from a successful serial entrepreneur about his journey, and learn how to start and scale a venture. Christopher Lee is an experienced healthcare operator and entrepreneur, founder of two companies, one that had a successful exit and one a MassChallenge Gold Prize winner. As Co-Founder, COO of InfiniteMD, which was acquired by ConsumerMedical in 2020, Chris now serves as SVP of Product and Innovation at ConsumerMedical. Prior to InfiniteMD, Chris co-founded Recon Therapeutics, a medical device start-up, which won the MassChallenge Gold Prize.

Creating a Landing Page - Part 1

Creating a Landing Page - Part 2

A step by step guide to create your own landing page. The do’s and don’ts, tips and tricks and general outline of what a great landing page should look like. In this day and age, creating a successful landing page is something everybody should know how to do. This step-by-step guide will provide you with : The tactical basics
Where should I host my domain? – AWS vs Godaddy
What platform should I use to create my website? – Wix vs Squarespace vs WordPress
What are plugins and what are they used for?
How do I make sure my website is indexed by Google? The strategy basics
What information should I include in my landing page?
What are calls to action (CTAs)?
What is “above the fold”?
How do I know my landing page is working?