Venture Development Workshops

Lilie’s Venture Development Workshops (VDW) series exists to provide the Rice entrepreneurial ecosystem an open-invitation event that combines learning with doing.

Lilie brings together folks from diverse backgrounds together to learn about how ventures grow and progress from the ideation phase to building a sustainable business model. The aim of the VDW workshop is to not only arm attendees with actionable knowledge moving forward, but to also give founders and/or teams the chance to actually work ON their idea as part of the workshop. Don’t have an idea yet? No worries, we’ll have a problem space or idea generator to give you something to work with during the workshop. The idea here is that these skills are built just like muscles; the more times you flex that muscle, the stronger it becomes. Come flex your entrepreneurial muscle with us!

VDW workshops are designed to be stand-alone programs, though the greatest benefit can be realized by attending all the workshops. Open to any current Rice student or alum, each VDW workshop is a focused look at a particular phase of venture development. We’ll start the series at the Design Thinking and Ideation phases, and continue to later phases such as Customer Acquisition and Business Model development. We’ll also be collaborating with participants to see what topics THEY’D like to see in a VDW in the future, and building that into our program later on.

Fall 2023 Schedule:

September 5, 2023:
VDW 1: Ideation
This session is focused on iterative ideation to identify an actionable problem space. Be prepared to challenge ALL of your assumptions!
link: Register here

September 20, 2023:
VDW 2: Customer Development
Uncover the best techniques for finding product-market fit by gathering real-world experiences from the people your product will serve.
link: Register here

October 3, 2023:
VDW 3: The Founder’s Operating System
Getting stuff done is a key to becoming a successful founder. What tools will you chose to help you (and your company) stay on track?
link: Register here

November 1, 2023:
VDW 4: AI and Finding Your Customer
This session focuses on the effective use of artificial intelligence in venture development and in finding attractive market segments.
link: Register here