Welcome to the I-Corps™ curriculum toolkit for I-Corps™ Faculty Members. The toolkit provides you with tools, templates and materials for you to adapt and use as you teach the course. Steve Blank, founder of the Lean LaunchPad approach, developed the original materials when he taught the first NSF I-Corps™ course in Fall 2011. We have since revised and developed additional materials to support the teaching teams now leading I-Corps™ nodes across the country. This toolkit will continue to expand as the I-Corps™ Faculty Development Program grows and scales to include greater numbers of teams. We look forward to your contributions to the toolkit as you teach and innovate the course. We welcome your comments and questions.

Resources

LLP Video Resource Library

Business Canvas Development Tools

I-Corps teams are asked to come to the I-Corps course having already completed a business canvas. The business canvas model and a video introducing the model are available here. The video features Alexander Osterwalder, co-author of Business Model Generation, who created it.

View the video below – or click the ‘YouTube’ button to view full-size.

Textbooks and Supplemental Readings

There are two texts for the I-Corps™ course: The Startup Owners Manual and Business Model Generation.

There are a number of readings in addition to the two course textbooks, including articles by Steve Blank, Giff Constable and Marc Pincus that are available online.

• Steve Blank, Why the Lean Start-Up Changes Everything
• Steve Blank, What’s a Startup? First Principles
• Steve Blank, Make No Little Plans – Defining the Scalable Startup
• Steve Blank, A Startup is Not a Smaller Version of a Large Company
• Giff Constable, 12 Tips for Early Customer Development Interviews
• Watch: Mark Pincus, Quick and Frequent Product Testing and Assessment

Additional Resources

View these excellent sources of entrepreneurship videos, materials, and ideas for teaching.

• Steve Blank’s Tools and Blogs for Entrepreneurs.
• Stanford University’s Entrepreneurship Corner offers 2000 free videos and podcasts, featuring entrepreneurship and innovation thought leaders.
• The Lester Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of California, Berkeley makes videos of many events and presentations available to the public; offers a list of business plan competitions; and links you to successful entrepreneurs at the University.

I-Corps™ Faculty Development Program Workbook, Node Handbook and Teaching Handbook

Our workbook is for new faculty in the I-Corps™ Faculty Development Program. It will orient you to the pedagogical process and your role within that process, while at the same time providing you with tools to capture the I-Corps™ course process. The goal of this workbook is to prepare you to teach the I-Corps™ course, building on what you learn and experience in the I-Corps™ Faculty Development Program. You’ll receive a link to the training materials in your confirmation email.