Who We Are

Karan Girotra
Dyson Family Professor of Management
Professor, Technology & Operations, Cornell Tech/Johnson
girotra@cornell.edu

Josh Hartmann
Chief Practice Officer, Cornell Tech
jhartmann@cornell.edu

Leandra Elberger
Studio Director, Cornell Tech
leandra.elberger@cornell.edu

Tyler Rhorick
Studio Operations Lead, Cornell Tech
trhorick@cornell.edu

Top-level logistics

Course Times

Wed, 8-8:55 a.m.: All-Hands Meetings (Required)

Thu, 2-3 p.m.: Open Forum (Recommended)

Fri, 8-8:55 a.m.: Open Forum (Recommended)

Tue, Thu 8-8:55 a.m. 2-7 p.m.:
Hold for Cluster Meetings, Working on deliverables, Team Time, Coaching, Crits, etc.

Zoom Links

All Hands Meetings/Open Forum: Zoom Link

Cluster Meetings: TBD

Slack Channel

#product-studio-2020

Office Hours

Josh will have office hours every Thursday at 2 p.m. ET. Zoom link will be posted on Slack immediately beforehand.

Karan will have office hours every Thursday immediately after the open forum.

What is Studio?

The world is transformed by builders -- individuals who combine engineering, business, design, and leadership skills to build new products, services, and business models. The studio experience will train you to become a world-class builder.

We will learn in three different stages.

Identifying WHAT to build (Fall)
We will start the fall with learning a systematic process to identifying and validating different opportunities, honing in on something worth building, and identifying like-minded individuals to do it with.
Learning HOW to build (Late Fall and Early Spring)
In late fall and early spring, you will learn the key managerial skills required to build a product and manage a product team -- issues around your product architecture, product roadmaps, keeping your team aligned, managing its progress, etc. Together these skills are often called product management (though we prefer the word product science)
Learning how to launch, scale and grow (Spring)
In spring, your focus will be on bringing your products to life by raising resources, bringing together key stakeholders, encouraging community adoption, etc. You will have a choice to learn these skills in one of the three contexts: building as part of an existing big company, as a new commercially oriented venture (aka startup), or as a public interest venture.

Pedagogy

The best way to learn to be a builder is by actually building stuff in real life. Learning in the studio happens through 4 activities, each of which contributes to about 25% of your learning:

Learning the tools and processes for building via lectures, case discussions, simulations, etc. This is the traditional pedagogy that you are familiar with. Unfortunately, it goes only a quarter of the way.
Applying these tools in real life.
Internalizing feedback about how you and others applied these tools.
Redoing and Iterating. You learn to build by correcting your mistakes and getting better every iteration.

Overview of The Real World Experience

You will apply everything that we will teach you in the studio in "real-life" to build a product, service, or business model that creates value and makes the world better off. The Studio team has spent the summer canvassing hundreds of companies and organizations, asking them about their most pressing business problems. We have organized these challenges into domains (e.g., consumer tech, urban tech, healthcare, retail). In addition, each company is making available an industry expert who will be available to advise you in each domain.

At the start of the semester, we will share with you all of the details about the domains and their challenges, and based on your preferences we will match you to a domain. We will then start the product development process. First, you will research and "get smart" about the domain or some sub-aspect of the domain (e.g., at-home care in the healthcare domain). Students in each domain will share their research, and industry experts will be available to answer questions and provide additional context.

Next, you will individually generate several dozen ideas for new products, services, or business models. You will pitch these ideas to experts and other students in your domain. The ideas that generate the most interest from the community members will be developed further in teams of 4-5 students who all share an interest in working together to further a concept. You will also be matched with an industry expert who is interested in mentoring this team.

The team will then further develop the idea, validate key unknowns by building prototypes and pilots, and build key parts of the product.

Students who are taking Studio in the spring (everyone except first-year Jacobs students) will conclude the fall semester with an assessment of what is the best context to develop this idea further -- as an independent commercial venture, as a product for an interested established company, or as a public interest venture. In the spring, you will further develop this idea in one of the three spring studio options: Startup Studio, BigCo Studio, or the new Public Interest Tech (PiTech) Studio.

At all stages of the process, teams can pivot and change their concept. At certain points, you will also have the opportunity to bring in new members to your team.

Logistics

Weekly Sprints

The course experience will be organized as a series of week-long sprints, each corresponding to a step in our builder process. Sprints will run from Wednesday to Wednesday each week.

Each sprint will start with an all-hands meeting (Wednesday, 8 a.m.) where we will discuss wins and losses from the preceding sprint and set our next milestone. You will be expected to master the relevant course material (provided via Canvas modules) by Friday, 8 a.m. On Friday, we will do an exercise/quiz to confirm and solidify your understanding of the toolkit and discuss any outstanding questions.

You will then apply the toolkit in the context of your real-world project. On Monday, 8 a.m., we will discuss any challenges you may have encountered while applying the toolkit. You will be required to complete and submit your work on the real-world project by Monday, 6 p.m.

Slack

You will receive an invite to our Slack instance at cornelltech.slack.com. Slack is the main way you will communicate with the Studio team. All general inquiries should be posted in our main #product-studio-2020 channel. For more specific personal inquiries, please contact the following Studio team members:

@Karan Girotra and @Josh Hartmann for course content, project advice, etc.
@Leandra Elberger for Studio policies, teaming / advisor issues, etc.
@Tyler Rhorick for Canvas submissions, class logistics, device library check-outs, Zoom, etc.

To support you during your time at Cornell Tech, we have also upgraded our Slack to include Grow premium (a 2019 Cornell Tech Startup Award Recipient) so you can regularly give feedback to fellow students while working on team assignments.

Canvas

All course materials, announcements, and submissions will be managed via Canvas. Canvas is the authoritative information source for the course and you should refer to it for all assignments, due dates, our class calendar, etc. Submissions can only be accepted via Canvas. Please do not email or slack these assignments to members of the Studio team or your assigned Studio Assistant.

Zoom

You are here at Cornell Tech to learn something, but you are also here to meet people -- people who may become your future colleagues or co-founders. It is harder to meet people when we can't always be in the same spot, so it's all the more important for all of us to try harder.

Zoom is the backbone for how we are going to meet with and get to know one another. Our time on Zoom is going to be better if people have their cameras on and are fully engaged, without distractions. Some of you may choose to use virtual backgrounds, but we ask you to avoid using animated backgrounds.

You can find the Zoom link for classes in Canvas under the "Zoom" tab. To ensure we are able to start our classes and events on time, please be prepared to join the call 5 minutes before we are scheduled to start. You will not be able to join the class unless you are signed in to Zoom using your Cornell NetID. If you are having trouble joining a class, please contact Tyler Rhorick over Slack.

Sprint Sequence

Sprint 0: The Idea Funnel✝

Sprint 1: Industry and Technology Research (Secondary data)
Sprint 2: Stakeholder Research (Primary Data)

Sprint 3: Ideating: The Science, Products, Services and Business Models
Sprint 4: Ideating: Digital Transformation, Risk Driven Business Models*

Sprint 5: Selection: The Science, Darwinator.
Sprint 6: Pitching✝ (The Elevator Pitch)
Sprint 7: Pairing up
Sprint 8: Value Creation Analysis: Technical feasibility, Competitive Landscape, secondary data.* 
Sprint 9: Externalities and Impact Assessment
Sprint 10: Quartet, Teams

Sprint 11: Experimentation (Primary data based validation)*
Sprint 12: Sequencing and Derisking
Sprint 13: Piloting your experiments

End of Fall Activities: Reflection, Open Studio, and Final Submission

Bridge: Product Analytics, Metrics, Product Roadmaps..

* Super Sprint, Includes Maker Days
✝ Abbreviated Sprints, Includes Holidays
Schedule is subject to change based on participants' pedagogical progress.

Grading

The course grade will roughly be determined as

50% Weekly Sprints (In-class/Asynchronous Exercises, Comprehension Checks, Participation and Deliverable)
30% Maker Day Deliverables
20% Final Deliverable

We will routinely solicit feedback on your contributions from your teammates. Your grades will be adjusted (up or down) based on this feedback.

Our course is fast-paced with many behind-the-scenes activities. It is impossible for you to catch up if you fall behind on a deliverable, so keep track of due dates, plan ahead and turn in your work on time. Late submissions will receive limited feedback and will be penalized at the rate of 20% of the score, per day of delay.

Frequently Asked Questions

We have written a number of answers to Frequently Asked Questions. You can also review the slides of the Studio Orientation.

If you are wondering how Studio 2020 compares with past iterations of the studio, read more here.

Other Important Information

Course Syllabus