The Disciplined Entrepreneurship Toolbox
Stay ahead by using the 24 steps together with your team, mentors, and investors.
The books
This methodology with 24 steps and 15 tactics was created at MIT to help you translate your technology or idea into innovative new products. The books were designed for first-time and repeat entrepreneurs so that they can build great ventures.
MIT delta v 2024 (the 13th cohort) is now in the books and here are all the videos of the different teams who graduated from it along with some musing about this year’s edition.
The Videos of the Presentations
Probably what you all want to see the most is the videos of the teams that presented and here they are. It is the proof that the process works. These students started one year ago at zero miles per hour (most did not have an idea let alone a team) and worked their way up to what you see in these videos. Even after 13 years, it blows my mind.
Everything AI
Including the tools to build the companies: In 2011, Marc Andreessen said software was going to eat the world. It certainly has. Now AI is going to eat the world and be pervasive. It is already happening. This year’s cohort is absolutely pervasive in its use of AI. This was also the first year that the DE JetPack AI assistant was used in the program. The JetPack certainly contributed to raising the floor of the cohort and allowing teams to iterate more. AI is here not just as a fundamental part of new companies today but also as part of the process of entrepreneurship.
Impressive Group of Lab to Market
One of the great desires of universities, corporations, governments and society is to improve the quantity, quality and speed of moving discoveries in the lab from research into the real world where they have positive impact. This year had a robust group of students working with inventors who did just that. It feels like we get better at this every year. Here are five examples from the cohort: Continuity, Helix Carbon, Lyme Alert, OGMA, Vertical Horizons.
Pattern of Women CEOs Remains Strong
By my count, half the CEOs are women again this year, which as we know, pretty well reflects the population. This tells me that when you provide a welcoming and fair environment, entrepreneurs are everywhere and not limited to a single group.
The Ceiling Keeps Rising
What is clear is that each year, the process gets better and better. This year, every team that was in delta v made it to the goal line, that is to present in Demo Day. That is not a given. The program is not easy or just passes everyone through because it is designed to create the actual conditions of being an entrepreneur. Also, not only did each team present at Demo Day, they are all “running through the tape”. That means Demo Day is the last you will hear of the new ventures. They all intend to continue forward as real companies. It has been a long time since either of those were true and it is a testament to the program being able to lift up everyone at this point.
Extraordinarily Diverse Portfolio of Industries Addressed
In our selection process, we choose the people not the ideas or technologies. We don’t create an investment thesis on what industries or technologies are hot and have the most opportunity. We strictly choose on the quality and commitment of the people applying. This can lead to concentration in certain areas – like robots or healthcare – but we don’t make adjustments for this. This year’s cohort was extraordinarily diverse in the industries and problems it chose to address, from pet adoption and haircare to the most technical aspects in ClimateTech of moving from brown molecules to green – plus many things in the vast area in between. The businesses were more evenly spread across these industries, technologies and types of problems to solve. Not sure why, but just an observation. Interestingly, the same basic principles of entrepreneurship still applied to all these teams, no matter the vertical.
It is always such a rush of adrenaline each summer for three months for the delta v program and then it goes to a whole new level for Demo Day, but it is important to note, the work started well before the 90 days of delta v.
delta v is a capstone program expertly led this year by the incredible team of Ben Soltoff, Jenny Larios-Berlin, Macauley Kenney and Stephanie MacConnell, with the invaluable and tireless help particularly of Amu Killada, Ylana Lopez, Greg Wymer, Maya Freed, Lucia Solorzano, Susan Neal, and the rest of the Trust Center team.
Nor does the Trust Center do it alone; we do it with our many cherished partners across the MIT campus and beyond. It takes a village to create entrepreneurs and they need to find their own unique mix of resources because every journey is unique.
Finally, a huge shout out to the long list of mock board members listed on page 58 of our Demo Day program, the other members of the entrepreneurial community in Boston and NYC who volunteered their time, the many financial supporters who opened their wallets to provide crucial support (page 60) and the amazing group of delta v alumni who continually give back to make this community so special (page 61).
delta v 13 is now in the books and it is on to delta v 14, continuing to raise the bar.
If you have any comments on the teams or the programs, we would love to hear them. Always want to help our students and always know we can and want to get better.
