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2016 Impact ReportIDEA: Northeastern University’s Venture Accelerator

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IDEA works with people who are passionate about

solving problems, building great products, and

developing businesses that impact the world around

them.

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Letter from the Team

Cumulative Impact

Year in Review

Measuring Venture Learning

Partners and Supporters

Thank You

040618264246

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IDEA began when a handful of Northeastern students came together to help

their peers start companies on campus. Over the past six years, the program

has grown and evolved under student leadership to support a rapidly growing

community of early-stage ventures. Today, IDEA provides Northeastern

entrepreneurs the valuable support, resources, and educational experience of

developing a business from concept to launch.

Each year IDEA grows and improves to better serve the Northeastern

community, and 2015 has been no different. As a team, we are committed

to ensuring that IDEA is built to last by focusing our attention on creating

resources, developing content, and establishing programming that will benefit

the IDEA community for years to come. This has been a big year for us, and we

are excited to share our accomplishments with you.

We are constantly in awe of the energy, support and tenacity of the IDEA

community.

Thank you. You are extraordinary.

Sincerely,

Annika Morgan, Altschuler-Meyer CEO

Letter from the Team

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IDEA has worked with nearly 850 concepts to date. The metrics we have

collected from our entrepreneurs show the power of the program to not only

launch successful companies, but also provide life-changing educational

experiences in entrepreneurship. As you read about IDEA and the impact we

are making, here are a few things to remember about the way we work;

Student-led Our team of 20 undergraduate students is responsible for the strategy and

operations of the program. We find this increases the program’s educational

impact by giving students hands-on learning experiences and makes us more

approachable to early-stage entrepreneurs.

Interdisciplinary collaboration It’s no surprise that the best companies are built by teams with a wide variety

of skill sets and experiences. IDEA works across colleges and is available to

Northeastern students, faculty, and alumni who want to solve big problems and

build great products.

Open and flexible The only criteria to join IDEA is that one member of the founding team must be

affiliated with Northeastern. There is no strict application process or mandatory

timelines at any point in the program. We operate year-round and accept new

entrepreneurs every two weeks. Everything we do is designed to match the

varying work pace and needs of our entrepreneurs.

Failure is part of the process At IDEA, we emphasize that concept failure does not equal personal failure.

The failures our entrepreneurs have now are valuable learning experiences

that will contribute to their future successes in starting companies or being

exceptional employees.

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Cumulative Impact

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IDEA ventures have gone on to:

6 years in operation

850+ total venture

concepts

1802016

602012

1002013

1302014

1452015

Ventures & Funding

42 ventures launched

Active Ventures

322011

9

$800K2013

$5M2014

$13M2015

1802016

$47MRaised in external funding

42 ventures launched

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Failure is part of the process. At IDEA, we encourage entrepreneurs to learn from every experience and apply it to their next concept.

How many venture concepts have you worked on before your current concept?

42%

28%

30%One Concept

Two Concepts

Three or more concepts

It’s Okay to Start Again

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Not to be cliche, but you fall down to learn how to pick yourself back up. Everything that made your first concept a failure is all a learning experience to make your second one better.

Julian Jung, Founder and CEO of Tablelist

You're only a failure once you stop.Iteration is a process for how

any great business is built.

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IDEA provides funding to ventures to support early-stage development and growth. Applications for funding are reviewed and awarded by student committees.

IDEA Prototype FundYou’ll never know if something works unless you try it. The IDEA Prototype Fund awards up to $1,000 for anyone at Northeastern to build and test an idea.

Funding Impact

$58,350in prototype funding 67

funded prototypes

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2/3are still in business

IDEA Gap FundA small amount of funding can have a big impact on an early-stage venture. The IDEA Gap Fund awards ventures $10,000 non-equity grants six times a year to fill a business gap.

$874kgap funds awarded

75ventures funded

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Experiential Impact

“I absolutely love working here. Being part of a team that understands the value of the Northeastern co-op education program has been infinitely valuable in terms of company culture.”

Vivian Ma, Co-op at Mavrck

When ventures launch from IDEA, they continue to benefit from the Northeastern community. Co-op is just one of the ways to stay connected.

former IDEA ventures used Northeastern’s

subsidized co-op program

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“The reciprocal value of co-op is best exemplified as launched ventures return to Northeastern and hire co-op students. Co-op is an incredible asset to this community!”

Esther Chewning, Associate Cooperative Education Faculty, Entrepreneurship & Management

“I absolutely love working here. Being part of a team that understands the value of the Northeastern co-op education program has been infinitely valuable in terms of company culture.”

Vivian Ma, Co-op at Mavrck

32 Co-op students hired at IDEA ventures

former IDEA ventures used Northeastern’s

subsidized co-op program

students have co-oped for their own venture

1st student venture hiring student co-ops

this semester

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Team Impact

Where do team members work after IDEA?

Other16%

Entrepreneur

Startup

8%

40%IDEA provides a valuable educational experience for the coaches and student management team members running the program.

17Where do team members work after IDEA?

of IDEA team members strongly agree they

had a valuable learning experience

Fortune 500

93%

36%

“IDEA allowed me and my peers to develop on personal and professional levels quicker than one can imagine. It remains the largest educational impact on my life. Running IDEA allowed us to explore our passions at a young age.”

Matt Saitta, Management Team

and Coach 2011-2015

of former team members are in leadership roles at their current company

40%

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Year in Review

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This year we focused on continuing to build a robust entrepreneurial ecosystem to support our ventures and establish processes to ensure IDEA is built to last.

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Program ActivityIDEA’s stage-gate process accelerates the development of ventures by providing relevant educational and business resources as they advance through each stage.

ReadyCustomer Validation

SetBusiness Model

72Ventures

37Ventures

137Concepts

joined

GoTraction/Scale

Launch$200k+ in funding

37Ventures

9Ventures

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2015-16 Venture Demographics

Venture Industry

Consumer Software

Physical Products

Enterprise Software

Other

Food

Health Care / Life Sciences

Social Enterprise

32%

20%

15%

14%

8%

5%

5%

“Regardless of your background, the IDEA program has key steps that any entrepreneur needs to know.”

Jamall Oluokun, Revue.me

Undergraduate Students

Alumni

Graduate Students

Faculty

47%

36%

15%

2%

Ventures by Northeastern Relationship

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D’Amore-McKim School of Business

39%

College of Computer and Information Science

6%

College of Engineering

18%

College of Arts, Media and Design

7%

College of Science3%

Bouvé College of Health Sciences

1%

College of Social Sciences and Humanities

6%

College of Professional Studies

3%

Not Northeastern17%

Education of Founding Team

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Program Activity

On a scale of 1-10, would you recommend IDEA to another Northeastern entrepreneur?

75%Net Promoter Score

Neutral (7-8)21%

Detractor (1-6)2%

Promoter (9-10)77%

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Measuring Learning

We asked our ventures to assess their personal learning as a result of their involvement with IDEA.

Since starting in IDEA, venture founders have improved in the following areas

Cus

tom

er V

alid

atio

n

Mar

ket

Ana

lysi

s

83%

67%

Pitc

hing

Inve

stor

Rea

din

ess

73%

45%

Go

To M

arke

t

Bus

ines

s M

odel

ing

62%61%

Ready Stage Set Stage Go Stage

100% of ventures agree participating in IDEA has been a valuable learning experience

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IDEA provides the perfect next step for our lean innovation classes, which take students from opportunity assessment through prototype. Often, promising student’s projects end after the class, but IDEA is the perfect funnel to keep students engaged, and in some cases develop into nascent businesses.

This creates a complete ecosystem directly tying the classroom to entrepreneurship. Additionally, many of our graduate students in our various programs gain and give valuable coaching insight to venture teams. This provides them with exposure to entrepreneurship, and many end up entering their projects into IDEA.

Tucker J. Marion Ph.D. Associate Professor Entrepreneurship and Innovation

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Customer Insight

Business Model

Measuring Learning

Level of understanding

Venture learning in the IDEA process is the subject of a post-doctoral research project. Judges are evaluating a venture’s knowledge of business planning as they prepare to pass through each stage-gate. This insight allows us to improve entrepreneurship education programming at Northeastern. Starting from the middle with the lightest color representing when a venture begins in IDEA, the chart shows the span of venture knowledge as they move through the stages.

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Customer Insight

Solution Design

Beginning

Ready Stage

Set Stage

Level of understanding

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

Go Stage

Venture Stage

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“IDEA has been one of the most influential resources for us in scaling New Grounds Food to where it is today and truly speaks to Northeastern’s focus on experiential learning. We’ve learned so much more than what we could have in a conventional classroom setting by actually building our venture through the stage-gate process at IDEA.”

Johnny Fayad, Co-founder of New Grounds Foods

Alumna Founder

Student Founder

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“Building Conversation got its start from IDEA with all the basics of planning a startup: validating markets, patents, and incorporating, which helped us get accepted into MassChallenge. Likewise, at every later stage, IDEA mentors and networking have been there to push us and increase our chances of success.”

Terrence Masson, Founder of Building Conversation

Faculty Founder

Alumna Founder

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Events

“At NEXPO you see all of these other students who are pursuing their ideas as passionately as you are and it motivates you to keep doing what you're doing. Having conversations with these entrepreneurs broadens your outlook on your work and helps ideas grow.”

Abbey Titcomb, Co-Founder of Knightly

Celebrating what’s next in Northeastern innovation

36presenting ventures

513attendees

NEXPO

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“Founders dinners are a reminder that many of us are going through the same things and can benefit a lot from helping each other out.”

Matt Handy, Co-Founder of SQD

Founders Dinners Bringing the IDEA community together

52ventures

9dinners

Pitch-A-Thon IDEA’s most investment-ready ventures in series of fast-paced 5-minute pitches

11 venturespitched

163investors,mentors & supporters

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Our Coaches

34coaches

office hour sessions

The IDEA coaching team is made up of young alumni, undergraduate, and graduate students who love startups. They work one-on-one with ventures to guide them through the stage-gate process and connect them with resources.

3,288 total coaching hours

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"The best part of being a coach is witnessing the transformation of a venture. Entrepreneurs walk in the door with an idea and leave with a business plan, funding support, and an entire community of people rooting for them to succeed. "

Jake Moody, IDEA Coach

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Our Entrepreneurs in Residence

“The number of ideas being pursued through IDEA is amazing. Young entrepreneurs come from essentially every college at Northeastern, from food ventures to ventures conducting drug discovery. The breadth of ideas being developed says so much about Northeastern and the environment the university has created to encourage and support entrepreneurship.”

Bob Lentz, Entrepreneur in Residence

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“The number of ideas being pursued through IDEA is amazing. Young entrepreneurs come from essentially every college at Northeastern, from food ventures to ventures conducting drug discovery. The breadth of ideas being developed says so much about Northeastern and the environment the university has created to encourage and support entrepreneurship.”

Bob Lentz, Entrepreneur in Residence

“Bob has been crucial to Jobble’s early stage development. He pushed us to meet our milestones and has made valuable connections for us. Even after we launched from IDEA, we still come back to meet with Bob and the rest of the IDEA team.”

Zack Smith, Founder of Jobble

2 entrepreneurs in residence

267 whiteboardingsessions

New HireHealth Science EIR

Kevin Scanlon

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Our Mentors

“Our mentors have such a depth of knowledge in our field. They don’t just give us broad guidance, they are able to provide industry-specific predictions that we can trust. We have been able to focus our energy based on that specialized knowledge.”

Chris Canal, Co-founder of Wizio

62 ventures with mentors

182 mentorship meetings

hours spent with ventures

per month

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Thank You to Our Mentorship Partners

VentureMentoringNetwork

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Northeastern’s Ecosystem: Mosaic

Mosiac is Northeastern University’s network of student-led organizations that support entrepreneurship and venture creation.

CO-L ABIPFor innovators at Northeastern University

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Ian McLarney, COO Scout

IDEA ventures have challenged us to develop and strengthen our design capabilities while improving our workflows. From the perspective of our team members,

ventures have acted as the highest quality of experiential learning opportunitiesby enabling our team to develop their technical and leadership skills.

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Service Providers

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working with IDEA was a no-brainer.

Libby Botsford, Version 2.0 Communications

IDEA is on a mission to support the entrepreneurs of tomorrow, and because Version 2.0 loves to partner with innovative companies and brands,

It's been a pleasure providing in-kind PR resources and support to the unique and creative entrepreneurs from both IDEA and the ventures that have stemmed from the organization.

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Supporters

Advisory Board

Roy Liu - Chair of the BoardDeb BoedickerJim BourdonKen ColemanRich CorleyHugh CourtneyRobin DevereuxTom DurkinAaron GowellMax KayeNicholas LentoAlan MateoDan McCarthyKrish NangegaddaNick NaraghiSteve PichenyDennis ShaughnessyChris Wolfel

Faculty and StaffNortheastern University Center for

Entrepreneurship Education

Dan GregoryDan McCarthyMarc MeyerEsther ChewningGreg Dalle-MolleKatie DempseyLauren DibbleKatelyn HusereauBob LentzCaitlin RileyKevin ScanlonKathryn Wells

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Thank you

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Alex AlloccaMiranda BegginOmkar BhatKevin CasasLucas Ferreira da RochaChris DenaroNeel DesaiTanner ElvidgeDrew HartmanConnie HeGabi HomonoffBailey KaneMaia KayeRebecca KlingLauren MaloneyElsa Mayer

Seth McIntyreAnnika MorganKatie MulliganEmily O’BrienJohn O’ConnorAlli PierpontDan PrawdzikLindsey SampsonSarah SienkiewiczEvan SutherlandSarah UrbonasJordan VallininoNina WaskiewiczEbryonna WigginsTed Wolf

The enthusiasm and support of the IDEA community continues to inspire and amaze us year after year. Thank you to all of our entrepreneurs, coaches, mentors, and advisors– it’s an honor to work alongside you.

Keep changing the world!

Sincerely,The 2015-2016 IDEA Management Team

Portrait Photography by Catherine PatchellIcon Illustration by Gabi HomonoffDesigned by Emily O’Brien

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Venture AcceleratorNortheastern University ’s

northeastern.edu/idea@IDEANEU