Harvard Innovation Labs: Startups & Entrepreneurship

One of the top reasons many startups fails is surprisingly simple: Their value proposition isn’t compelling enough to prompt a customer to buy. Maybe they have too many other competing priorities. Or the existing solutions, while imperfect, are “good enough.” Whatever the reason, the product doesn’t provide enough value to spark customer action and sustain a business. Nailing your value prop – the benefit you provide to whom and how you do it uniquely well – can make or break your startup.

Uploaded 01-04-23

In this workshop, originally presented in-person at the Harvard Innovation Labs, Michael Skok, founding partner of Underscore VC, will guide you through a series of frameworks to articulate and validate your value prop to ensure that it’s highly compelling to customers.

About the Speaker:

Michael Skok is a founding partner at Underscore VC, a Boston-based firm investing in bold B2B software founders. Since starting his first software business as a teenager, Michael has spent 21 years as an entrepreneur and the past 18 years as a venture investor. During this time, he has founded, worked with, and invested in startups, and created thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of value.

As an entrepreneur and an investor, Michael has focused on breakthrough technologies and disruptive business models including Open Source, Cloud, IoT, and emerging domains such as Blockchain, Virtual/Augmented Reality, and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning. He has served on or is active on many private and public boards such as Acquia, Demandware (now a Salesforce company), Mautic (acquired by Acquia in 2019), Salsify, and Zaius. He has also held leadership roles in many industry groups such as the Software Publishers Association, where he served as chairman for many years.

In 2015, Michael co-founded Underscore VC to help founders create enduring companies through the power of community. He has a passion for helping the next generation of entrepreneurs succeed by not only backing them with capital but bringing the resources and commitment of an aligned community around them to propel their success. To help achieve this, he has mentored and taught for over 10 years at Harvard University, where he is an Entrepreneur in Residence, and created the Startup Secrets series.

Want to dive deeper into Startup Secrets? Explore the interactive Startup Secrets Sandbox for frameworks, insights, and tools to help you build and scale your startup: https://bit.ly/3Cwv0nK



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The seventh annual President's Innovation Challenge Awards Ceremony was a memorable evening. We celebrated innovation and entrepreneurship. We said farewell to President Drew Faust and thanked her for creating the Challenge and the One Harvard spirit of cross-disciplinary collaboration that inspired the creation of Harvard Innovation Labs. We heard pitches from 15 remarkable venture teams. And, of course, we handed out some big checks.

Uploaded 17-05-18

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The Harvard Innovation Lab (i-lab) is excited to continue to grow the resources around entrepreneurship for Harvard students, and Alumni. Following three years of growth, and more than 500 unique ventures, the i-lab is opening a “OneHarvard” inspired prototype co-working space adjacent to the i-lab for high potential Harvard Alumni startup ventures, called the Harvard Innovation Launch Lab.

Uploaded 03-12-14

Learn more about the Launch Lab from Jodi Goldstein, Director, and hear from the inaugural class of startups in residence at the Launch Lab!



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Take a virtual tour of the new Harvard Life Lab, courtesy of our architect, Shepley Bulfinch.

Uploaded 29-04-16

The Harvard Life Lab is a 15,000-square-foot fully-equipped and permitted laboratory and office space for early-stage companies on Harvard’s Allston campus, adjacent to the Harvard i-lab and Launch Lab.

Being a member of the Life Lab provides access to dedicated lab space for bench members as well as permits, waste handling, and all common lab equipment needed for life sciences research. The Life Lab is equipped with all the latest instruments, both fixed and benchtop equipment, industry-specific programming developed for life-sciences startups, and full access to and immersion in the resources of the adjacent Harvard i-lab including its 24 conference rooms, makerspace and prototyping room, and venture-focused programming such as workshops and advisors

To learn more, and to apply to join the Harvard Life Lab, visit http://harvardlifelab.com; for questions, send us an email at [email protected]



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Uploaded 04-06-12

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Get inspired by the impact @ChakuFoodsis having on farmers in Africa since winning the Harvard President's Innovation Challenge in 2021.

Uploaded 02-05-24

Videography:
Aaron James Sanchez
Patrick Fogarty
Samuel Mironko
Misper Apawu (Ghana)
Dennis Nipah (Ghana)



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In Part 3 of Michael Skok's Harvard i-lab lecture series, "Startup Secrets: An insiders guide to unfair competitive advantage," Skok helped students to think thorugh the three aspects of business model creation—identifying your C.O.R.E. value, finding Multipliers for growth and Levers for cost economies. This allows you to have much better odds of building a company that returns value disproportionally to all of its stakeholders.

Uploaded 07-05-12

You can read more about Michael Skok, and his Startup Secrets on his website: http://mjskok.com/ and follow him on twitter at http://twitter.com/mjskok

Learn more about the Harvard Innovation Lab at http://i-lab.harvard.edu/ and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/innovationlab and like us on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/harvardinnovationlab



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Check out the 10-minute final pitch by the 2016 Deans' Cultural Entrepreneurship Challenge Runner-Up, Songshark.

Uploaded 12-05-16

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"Artist as Entrepreneur" A Conversation with Wynton Marsalis

Uploaded 15-02-12

The i-lab hosted a conversation entitled "Artist as Entrepreneur" with Wynton Marsalis, and HBS professors Nancy Koehn, Rohit Deshpande, and Mukti Khaire, moderated by Mihir Desai on February 7, 2012.

This conversation was open to the Harvard community and members of the public.

Wynton Marsalis, internationally acclaimed musician, composer, bandleader, educator and a leading advocate of American culture.

Nancy Koehn, James E. Robison Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

Rohit Deshpande, Sebastian S. Kresge Professor of Marketing
Harvard Business School

Mukti Khaire, Associate Professor of Business Administration
Marvin Bower Fellow
Harvard Business School

Mihir A. Desai
Senior Associate Dean for Planning and University Affairs
Mizuho Financial Group Professor of Finance
Harvard Business School



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We are in the midst of a revolution in how athletes train, perform, and heal. Advances in mobile technology, AI, Big Data, sensors, GPS, and more have allowed humans to stretch the limits of their athletic capabilities and have merged the worlds of statistics and sports in manners unimaginable just a decade ago.

Uploaded 10-03-17

With unprecedented teamwork from those who have achieved success in the athletic arena to those whose achievements occur behind the closed doors of research labs, hospitals, and beyond, we are able to use data collected from the human body to monitor, measure, and predict athlete training and performance like never before.

During this event, the Harvard Innovation Labs, together with the Sports Innovation Lab and the OneTeam Collective, will explore the future of this dynamic, cross-industry, and fast-growing sector of sports technology.

Learn more about the Harvard Innovation Lab at http://i-lab.harvard.edu/ and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/innovationlab and like us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/harvardinnovationlab.



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