For entrepreneurship programs
Your course, ready before term starts
Set it up in an afternoon. Students work their own ideas against the method, and by finals you have evidence of who learned to decide, not just who wrote well.
Book a DemoEntrepreneurship is the one course where the deliverable and the learning come apart
A student can write an excellent business plan for a business nobody wants, and there is no fair way to mark that down. So the grade lands on the artifact: slides, a plan, a pitch. Presentation quality, mostly.
What you wanted to teach was how to decide under uncertainty. Name what the idea depends on, go and find out, change your mind in public when the evidence says so. That work leaves a trail, and the trail is what deserves the grade.
What you can see today
The write-up
Finished at the end, polished by whoever writes best, and silent on whether anybody ever left the building.
What you can see here
The trail
What they assumed, which of it they tested, who they talked to, what came back, and what they changed as a result.
A trail is a great deal harder to produce the night before than a plan is.
Setting up the course
Four weeks out is comfortable. The week before is fine.
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Take the class through yourself first
Move around freely: skip ahead, look at the parts you want to teach, ignore the rest. You are preparing a lesson, not validating a startup, and the product should not make you pretend otherwise.
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Set the class up and drop the link in your syllabus
One link into Canvas, Blackboard or the syllabus itself. Students land in the same place rather than finding their own way in one at a time.
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Let them work their own ideas
Each student takes their own idea through the same steps. Broad strokes, not every box: desirability, viability, feasibility, and evidence for each.
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Grade the trail at finals
Participation and progress across the class in one view. You see who developed judgment and who produced a document, before the final presentation rather than after it.
Written for how a class actually runs
Three things instructors told us, and what each one changed.
- Your students will not finish the canvas, and that is fine. They are carrying three other courses. The assessment reads what they did work out and how well, rather than penalising them for the sections nobody had time for.
- You are not a founder with admin rights. An instructor account moves through the material in any order, at speed, without being walked through a founder flow first.
- Preparing a lesson should not spend the class budget. Instructor use is separate from the student allowance, so reading ahead in August does not cost you October.
The best on business model design that I've experienced. Loved it so much that we brought it into our University to train future entrepreneurs.
The method underneath
The Lean Canvas and the Running Lean method, created by Ash Maurya and used by more than a million founders. It is already on reading lists and in syllabi worldwide, which is often how the students arrive here before the course does.
Programs currently running it with their students include:
If Running Lean is already your textbook, this is that method with the work made visible.
This is probably not for you if
- Your course requires every student to finish a complete business model. Students carrying three other classes get through the broad strokes, not every section. This is built to show what they worked out, not to certify that they filled it all in.
- You're looking for an LMS or a gradebook. It is neither and replaces neither. It sits alongside Canvas or Blackboard and gives you something to put in them.
- The course is taught as theory, with no build or interview component. Nothing here works without students going out and talking to people. If that is not in the syllabus, there is nothing for this to record.
Procurement, before you ask
- We invoice. A quote your budget owner can approve, and an invoice that does not have to be paid by card online.
- Unused credits carry into the next academic year. A term that runs light does not burn the budget you argued for.
- Non-profit pricing for accredited institutions. Accredited schools and universities, 501(c)(3) non-profits and government-funded programs. Most verifications close in under a week.
- Students keep their work after the term. They continue on the free tier. Workspaces, canvases and history persist. No data lock-in.
Frequently asked
How long does setup actually take?
An afternoon to go through it yourself and set the class up. The part worth spending time on is deciding which sections you want to teach, not configuring anything.
What if my students are already using it?
That happens more than you would expect, usually because Running Lean is on the reading list. If a group from your class is already here, we can gather them into one class view rather than starting again. Ask us and we will check.
How much does one student need?
A business-model-design course needs enough for a full assessment plus ongoing coaching. Capstone and honors students doing extended validation need more. We set the per-student allowance with you when we scope the course.
Can I run two courses with different shapes?
Yes. A 90-day accelerator course and a lighter innovation course are different setups with different allowances, and they draw from the same contract.
Does this replace my LMS?
No, and it does not try to. It runs alongside Canvas, Blackboard or Brightspace and gives you something to put in the gradebook.
Tell us about the course
The course, the term, the class size. Twenty minutes and we will map the setup and the per-student allowance with you. Easier before a term opens than during one.
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