Customers and Value Propositions
Spring 2016 Entrepreneurship Workshop with Edmund Pendleton
Event Description:
This workshop will show
you how to properly identify and pick the best
customer segments to go after - whether
you are selling to consumers or businesses. It will help you understand the
impact of “market type” on your entry strategy, and teach you how to
understand the various
motivations in a purchase decision. Learn how to
identify important customer problems or needs, and how to test your “value
propositions” for all stakeholders in the purchase decision. You will be introduced
to some of the key tenants of “Lean Startup” methodology,
specifically the fundamentals of customer discovery and business model
generation.
About Edmund:
Edmund is a technology entrepreneur, angel investor, and startup mentor. He co-founded a technology company that developed and sold a high accuracy “indoor GPS” system for aerospace and other industrial applications, which was ultimately acquired by Nikon Corporation. He earned an S.M. in Management from the Sloan School of Management at MIT, and an S.M. in Civil Engineering from MIT. He also holds a B.S. in Physics & Mathematics from the College of William and Mary, graduated as a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and served as a Rotary Foundation Scholar in New Zealand.
Edmund is currently the Director of the DC I-Corps program, which is administered by the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (Mtech) within the Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland. He is a certified NSF I-Corps instructor, acts as the Lead Instructor for national and regional teaching teams, and has led efforts to provide similar training to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and NSF SBIR programs. He has led many regional courses in the mid-Atlantic region, and has also trained international teams. In these various roles, he has provided innovation and entrepreneurship training to over 800 teams and companies. He also serves as the Assistant National Faculty Director for NSF. In this role, he helps to identify and develop new faculty for the program, and he has trained over 30 national and regional I‑Corps instructors and adjuncts.