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Session 4: October 1, 2008

From Idea To Opportunity - IMVU Our First Case Study

Guest: To Be Announced

Quote of the Day

"Customers Don’t Read Your Business Plan." ~ Steve Blank

Summary

This is the first of two sessions where we discuss the differences between an idea and an opportunity. In this session, we look at the particular challenges of new ventures in virtual worlds.

Required Readings (Policy on Required Readings.)

• Readings from the Textbooks:
• Technology Ventures (Dorf and Byers): Ch 6 Risk and Return; Ch 7 Venture Creation and the Business Plan (Highlights: 6.3, 6.5, 7.1, 7.2)
• Additional articles to read:
• Case Analysis Guidelines
• Case:  IMVU [in the course reader]
• "Four Steps to the Epiphany” Chapter 3 (You’ve read chapters 1-2 last week.)
• Startup Funding Slides

Study Questions (Policy on Study Questions.)

1. What were the three operating principles of the IMVU Owners Manual?
2. How long do you think the development cycle for each release of the IMVU software was?  Why?

Team Case Analysis (Policy on Case Analyses.)

Should IMVU (1) work with ROC, (2) Pacific Capital or (3) take the Janga acquisition?  Why?

Cases must be submitted by 9AM on the due date to e145-homework@lists.stanford.edu.

Note: All teams must submit an assignment. Assigned day submissions will begin next week.

Submission Format

1.      PUT IN EMAIL HEADER: E145: Case Number, Case Name, Team Name
          i.e. E145: Case 1, IMVU

          You must submit all cases with this format for the subject line. Your assignment may not be graded if you fail to do so.

2.            PUT IN CASE STUDY:

• Names of the students in the team
• First sentence should be whether or not you agree with the prompt

Last modified Tue Sep 30 15:39:06 2008