MIT EDP 2024: The Ultimate One-Week MIT Entrepreneurship Experience

Almost a month ago, now, MIT EDP (Entrepreneurship Development Program) 2024 concluded and I feel like I have just recovered but am so much better off for it.

For over 20 years now in January, entrepreneurs gather at MIT for EDP and they are put through an intense and fully immersive experience they will never forget. It takes everything we have to offer as MIT faculty and staff to put it on but it never ceases to amaze and produce new levels of awe. In one week, approximately 80 participants from all over the world, from very successful entrepreneurs to those desiring to be entrepreneurs to academics to government employees to corporate entrepreneurs and many other types are challenged to start a new company from nothing in six days with people they have never met before. And it always works … even though it seems like an impossible task as much as 12 hours or less before they present on Friday morning.

While at the macro level and with regard to much of the content and process, it is similar year to year still every year is special and this year was absolutely no different.

It would be impossible to capture all of what was new but here are a few highlights:

1. The Real Thing! Since COVID and teaching remotely often, it has become so clear how much value there is to teaching entrepreneurship in person. Entrepreneurship is not just a skill set but it is also a mindset and a way of operating that cannot be fully conveyed through books, videos, or online chats. It is a craft that is by far best taught in an apprenticeship model with master craftsmen. It is also to transplant people into the MIT culture which is full of role models and a “yes you can” fragrance that permeates everything. You can tell people but they will never understand until they experience it. Doing this in person is the Real Thing and nothing else comes close. As the old Hertz commercial used to say, “There is Hertz and there is not exactly …”
2. Industry Agnostic: I must admit I do not have much domain expertise in many of the participants’ industries but I can see that what we are teaching is getting a hugely positive response. From Scott Fraser’s “Angus & Oink Ltd.” BBQ sauce business in Aberdeen, Scotland to Mike Wandler’s “L&H Industrial” based in Wyoming but serving the world as a global heavy industrial machinery leader. What could they have in common? Or with professors in Electrical Engineering from Saudi Arabia, Design from Australia, and Business from an HBCU in Louisiana? Or with PhD’s in BioTech and Cybersecurity trying to launch companies in Europe and Asia? Not to mention an intrapreneur from Chanel, an investor in Cameroon, or a logistics entrepreneur in LATAM? And much, much more. Well, it turns out as you could see in their eyes by the end of the week, what they learned had sooooo much to do with improving their performance in their jobs in their crazy wide spectrum of industries and cultures/societies. I can’t tell you exactly how and why but I know the 24 Steps and all the other things we teach about being anti-fragile are industry-agnostic.
3. New Content Takes Us to Another Level: While as mentioned above, we have been running EDP for over 20 years now and the material is continually updated, this year we took a huge leap forward with the expanded and updated Disciplined Entrepreneurship approach and the new Disciplined Entrepreneurship Startup Tactics of my co-instructor in this course, the great Paul Cheek, which will be fully documented in the new books coming out in approximately 30 days. We knew it worked from our semester-long courses at MIT with MIT students but it was great to see how impactful it could be in a radically time-compressed environment with participants who were not MIT students. The previous stuff worked as the studies have shown but this works even better.
4. Educators are the Force Multipliers: With all the challenges in the world today increasing at an exponential rate, it is imperative that we have more and better entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial communities. If you do this as an entrepreneur, we salute you and cherish you. You are at the front lines and making it happen. But we must also salute the great innovation-driven entrepreneurship educators who help to create many great new entrepreneurs each year. In the program, we were so honored to have top faculty from Queensland University of Technology (Australia), KFUPM (Saudi Arabia), University of Aberdeen, Southern University (LA), San Bernardino Community College (CA), Mayo Clinic, Harvard Medical School and more but it is our deep desire that most of the people in this program will also become informal contributors to the growing innovation-driven educational system that must continually raise the bar on its quality – in rigorous and relevance. In that sense, the dividends of this program will come from the force multiplier of education, and that is not to ever be overlooked. Because that is recurring and grows and hopefully never ends.
5. Left More Anti-Fragile Than They Came: I am proud to say that I am extremely confident that every student left more anti-fragile than when they came. We talk about the 4Hs of being anti-fragile, the Heart, the Head, the Hand, and the Home. Spending one week with a group of crazily entrepreneurial people and seeing all the progress that can be made can only add to the confidence and excitement of doing more entrepreneurship. This enlarges the heart. The knowledge the students get from being directly exposed to global experts and being pushed to understand this material but also implement it with the help of an army of master craftspeople (i.e., a curated group of successful entrepreneurs who understand the pedagogy and have implemented it themselves) under the pressure of a deadline. This sears the knowledge into their heads in a way that is not possible otherwise (i.e., they won’t easily forget it) but it also translates that knowledge into capability (hence the hands) to implement it when they return how. Lastly, every participant has made new global friends that will last a lifetime. This is their new community or entrepreneurial home base, they did not have before. All of this makes them more anti-fragile to not just survive in a world of increasingly rapid change but to *thrive* in that world.
6. The Proof Is in the Pudding: I am uncomfortable saying too much because the results should speak for themselves and they surely do in this case. Every year, the quality of final presentations in EDP goes up and this year was certainly another example. This year set the new gold standard and below is the presentation of the winning team, Halo but I am very comfortable saying that all the presentations this year were impressive and left the judges asking questions as if they were a real business that had been around for six months or even years. Just watch this and see that the process works and gets better each year.

Halo Pitch (Password: Entrepreneurship)

Remember, the Halo team did not know each other six days before this presentation and they had to come up with an idea and do all the primary market research and other work … and then present it on Friday. Truly amazing and inspiring. Trust the Process!

Paul Cheek, Ann Marie Maxwell, Peter Hirst, myself, and the whole EDP team who work year-round to make this happen want to thank the participants of this year’s program. It was very special and so rewarding. While as I mentioned, the week is so draining for everyone including us, it is the most rewarding week to see it all happen at such a fast pace with such a group of wildly diverse people. It gives us great joy and hope for the future. Go forth and be successful, and then multiply.

Peace,

Bill