Talking SEED with Sequoia

https://link.medium.com/tBsdaZE0Leb

Sequoia: Covid accelerated the future, what are the opportunities now

https://link.medium.com/rRXCDes0Leb

How to win at pitching competitions (it’s not just the check)

https://www.wework.com/ideas/growth-innovation/how-to-win-at-a-pitch-competition-even-if-you-end-up-losing

The Escape Room Challenge

Note: This blogpost is intended to serve as a discussion area for my students to evaluate a new business model. 

From NPR's "All Things Considered," October 20, 2015

"A new form of themed entertainment popping up across the country involves players willingly getting trapped in a room. To get out, they must solve a series of puzzles. They have just 60 minutes to escape. 

"They are called escape rooms, and they're pioneered by entrepreneurs who've created a growing business with an unusual business model. The rooms are a little like video games come to life. They're filled with gadgets and puzzles that teams — usually of two to six people — have to solve in order to win. In the castle room, the puzzles and clues lead to a pair of keys that open a lock on a massive set of wooden doors. The phenomenon started in Japan and was brought over to Europe before arriving on American shores. Escape Rooms are great ways to reinvent and revive old warehouses and strip malls, so the startup costs aren't as much a barrier as, say, creating another version of Disney's Haunted Mansion. 

"Tickets run around $30 a person at most places, or teams can buy out the room. But there's a catch: Once a team beats a room, there's no more fun to be had."

Discussion Questions

1. What are the merits of this business model? (think in terms of startup costs, novelty, new use of space, likely customer segments, value proposition to those segments, what is unique about the offering, etc.)
2. What factors about this opportunity might hinder or prevent this business model from being durable? How and when would these factors become a material problem?
3. The founders of an Escape Room business in Tuscaloosa approach you for advice on how to make it a success? What advice do you give them? Think about your answer in terms of the value proposition canvas and lean startup practices.
4. What kind of "analog" of this business would you create for the unique customer segments of Tuscaloosa? In other words, copy the business model, but change the value proposition (they like football, they are college students, etc.)
5. What facts or conditions would have to be true to compel you to open up this type of business?

Further reading

"The Unbelievably Lucrative Business of Escape Rooms," MarketWatch.com, 7/21/15

See also

EscapeRoomDirectory

Image source: Marketwatch.com

House of wiki

I've added wikis to blogspots. You can check out the latest in innovative entrepreneurship education at http://profcraigarmstrong.wikispaces.com. I post my assignments and learning materials for my students online for the whole world to see. In the past 3.5 years I've had over 65,000 visitors from 160 countries to my wiki. Thank you for visiting!

The War on Lemonade - Rich Lowry - National Review Online

The War on Lemonade - Rich Lowry - National Review Online: "In various localities around the country this summer, cops have raided and shut down lemonade stands. The incidents get — and deserve — national attention as telling collisions between classic Americana and the senseless pettifogging that is increasingly the American Way. There should be an easy rule of thumb for when enforcement of a regulation has gone too far: when it makes kids cry"

Scott Adams on the benefits of "soul-crushing boredom"

The Benefits of Soul-Crushing Boredom

online.wsj.com

Is constant stimulation hurting our creativity—and the economy? The Dilbert creator on his dull childhood and the power of tedium.

The creator of Dilbert argues that boredom provides fuel for creativity. Since we are never bored, the argument goes, we have become less creative. Anecdotal evidence includes people acting more dogmatically, more sequels and derivative products of movies, more reality TV, and most importantly, a flat-lining economy starving for industry-transforming innovation. I'd say he's mostly got it right, but the reason why we're less creative is because we are more distracted than ever. As a result, our attention spans have diminished to 10-minute windows of focus - if we can't find creative insights inside that window, no creativity emerges. Also, creativity comes from useful problems. Scott Adams' boredom as a child was a problem that he was able to solve creatively because he was so undistracted.