Give your students, members, or employees the tools to launch real businesses without the overhead of traditional entrepreneurship programs. In a single working session, every participant takes an idea of their own from concept to a functioning minimum viable product.
Tell us the shape of it and we will send scope, dates, and price in writing.
Entrepreneurial capability already exists across most organizations. What is missing is a structured occasion that turns it into something measurable.
Most institutions have already run the sequence. A speaker series, because it is the easiest thing to get approved: strong turnout, real energy, no follow-through, because there is nothing for anyone to do the next morning. Then something longer, eight or twelve weeks, which loses participants every week, not because the content is weak but because it asks working people for four months of evenings. Then referrals out to the SBDC, the local incubator, a pitch competition, where the same already-polished few advance and everyone else reads it as confirmation that the program was never really for them.
What comes out the other side is attendance, a satisfaction score, and photographs. Programming that everyone agrees worked, and that no one can evidence in a form anybody funds.
Your people leave the room witha business, not a notebook
A working session, not a lecture. Every participant takes an idea of their own from concept to a functioning minimum viable product, in a single sitting.
The session is built around the Big Idea Lifecycle, a three-stage framework of Discovery, Structuring, and Validation drawn from the lessons in Build the Damn Thing and the framework in Everybody's an Entrepreneur. Participants work from a personal idea rather than a set business plan or a case study. That personal brief is deliberate, and it is what makes people think differently about building.
The work itself runs on the live BUILD platform, on the phones participants already carry. There is nothing to install, no licences to provision in advance, and no equipment to arrange. Laptops are welcome but not required.
One question goes up on the wall: what do you want to do?
The Big Idea Lifecycle is introduced as the structure for the session: Discovery, Structuring, and Validation.
Each participant takes a personal idea through the full process on the live BUILD tools, from concept to a functioning minimum viable product, usually a working site.
Depending on group size, each participant or group presents for one minute and receives direct feedback.
The group identifies which ideas it would back, and what would have to be true for each to progress.
Something built and finished on the day, not a page of notes.
Colleagues find out what each other are interested in outside the current work environment. Because the session works from each person's own background, it surfaces strengths the team did not know were in the room, and gives communication a new place to start.
A way to move through building something without overthinking it. The instinct of capable people is to think harder. The work is to get to a product and test it.
Practice putting an idea in front of other people, taking their feedback on it, and reading how much real interest it attracts.
1.5 to 2 hours, tailored to the group.
Up to 50 in a single session. Larger groups run as repeat sessions.
Led by Kathryn Finney, with her support team on the floor.
One discovery call with the sponsor, plus an attendee list with titles seven business days in advance.
Clustered tables of four to six, and guest wifi.
None. The session runs on participants' phones. Laptops are welcome.
Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Build the Damn Thing, an investor in over 100 companies, and a serial founder who has built and scaled several companies from idea to exit. Through the Doonie Fund she has made $250K in micro-investments across more than 3,000 Black women-owned businesses.
She leads the session with her support team on the floor.
The session is one day. The platform is what your participants keep, and what gives you something to report.
Purchase licences for cohorts of 10 to 500 or more, with volume discounts.
Monitor completion rates, download business plans, and export data for reporting.
Optional white-label solution carrying your institution's branding and logo.
Priority email support and optional live training sessions for your team.
Every participant leaves with a month of free access to the BUILD platform.
Every participant completes with a business plan, a name, a brand, and a live site.
Build entrepreneurship into workforce development programs, business courses, and career services.
Used by 15+ institutions [source needed]Support small business owners, social entrepreneurs, and economic mobility programs.
Thousands served [source needed]Employee entrepreneurship programs, outplacement services, and economic development initiatives.
Enterprise solutions availableEvery engagement is scoped to your group, your dates, and your budget. Pricing is provided in a written proposal.
A 45 to 60 minute talk with Q and A, delivered live or virtually. Four talks to choose from, tailored to your audience.
1.5 to 2 hours, tailored to the group, facilitated on the floor.
Multiple sessions built around your calendar, for larger groups or programs running across a term.
Pricing is per engagement and scoped to group size, format, and dates. Travel is billed at cost for in-person events. Every tier includes one month of free access to the BUILD platform for each participant. Booking requires one discovery call with the sponsor and an attendee list with titles seven business days before the session. Purchase orders and invoicing are accepted. Nothing is charged until a scope is signed.
Send the form and the workshop one-pager opens straight away, so you have something to forward before anyone asks you for it. A written proposal covering scope, deliverables, and price follows within two business days. If the fit is wrong, we will tell you that rather than send a proposal anyway.
Once a date is confirmed, the discovery call is scheduled and we request your attendee list seven business days out. Nothing before that costs you anything.
