Summer Program

Startup teams are assigned a lead instructor and team mentors, with whom they get time each week. There is a combination of interactive class discussions, team time, instructor check-ins, and community feedback to ensure personal growth and startup progress.

Market research and prototyping has its pros and cons when working remotely. You’ll be in the same location during the program as after, and have access to some of the resources that you already know. Roles in your team will be important to consider, and we’ll help with shipping materials you identify for prototyping, providing mentors, and outsourcing where we can.

Startup teams are part of a cohort for classroom sessions, feedback amongst teams, and community building. Plus, students have opportunities to attend community events to get to know their fellow classmates outside of the classroom and startup team environment.

Christa Chambers-Price is the CEO of Entre-SLAM, Inc. a brand story and marketing strategy group. Christa is a U.S. Military Intelligence Army veteran and a former FBI Analyst. She helps brands discover, build, and launch big ideas that move the world. With an emphasis on consumer psychology, behavioral science, and storytelling, Entre-SLAM has crafted a methodology that guides innovators on how to discover what makes their brands unique and identify market opportunities, while learning how to blend them together to tell a compelling story.

Our students had this to say:

• Miss Chambers-Price is quite different from other speakers considering that she has been in the army – this may be common in the US, but definitely NOT where I live in (Hong Kong). We don’t often see (former) army members hosting lectures for high school kids.
  But I enjoyed it quite a lot since she was able to inspire me to think how to discover my purpose at Launch and at my own startup with her unique experiences.
• Your brand isn’t just company it is building your image so that it is compelling and presentable to others because people invest in others, not the company.
• Never ever give up on your mission! Your mission should be so compelling that everyone involved with your brand is subconsciously aware of it.

Bill Aulet is changing the way entrepreneurship is understood, taught and practiced around the world. He is an award-winning educator and author whose current work is built off the foundation of his 25-year successful business career first at IBM and then as a three-time serial entrepreneur. His first book, Disciplined Entrepreneurship, released in August 2013, has been translated into 18 languages and has been the content for three online edX courses which have been taken by hundreds of thousands of people in 199 different countries. He has been a featured speaker on shows such as CNBC’s Squawk Box, BBC News, Bloomberg News as well as at events and conferences around the world. He has degrees from Harvard and MIT and is a board member of MITEK Systems (NASDAQ: MITK) and XL Hybrids Inc. (Private) as well as a visiting professor at University of Strathclyde (Scotland). On July 1, 2017, Bill was named a Professor of the Practice at MIT Sloan.

Our student had this to say about their session with Bill:

• Definitely one of the highlights of my LaunchX experience! I loved this session. I learned about different myths that really challenged my mindset and how I view entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs.
• The content is pretty interesting and the slides are really cool, which totally drew my attention to the course
• Entrepreneurship is invention combined with commercialization, and both are very important in ensuring a successful startup! In a team, you should have people specializing in both aspects.
• Being a successful entrepreneur takes skill, passion and drive. Passion for an idea isn’t enough – be passionate about your vision, your values.

Frankie Arvelo is an experienced attorney with a demonstrated history of working with founders on issues that shape their companies. I’ve been involved in transactions worth more than $800M with much of that involved in early stage fundraising. I am a lecturer at Penn where I teach a short course on early stage financing to JD/MBA students. I hold a B.S. from UMass, J.D. from Penn, and MBA from UTexas.

Jheal has done her BSc (Hons) in Biology from University of Warwick, UK; AAS in Fashion Marketing from Parsons the New School for Design, New York, USA; International Business from Harvard Business School (summer course), Boston, USA and Executive Education from IIM, Ahmedabad, India.
She has also had the opportunity of working with Tommy Hilfiger, Vera Wang, Armani Exchange, Bank of America and Times of India and therefore brings forth tremendous work experience from several sectors, prior to successfully launching The Stylease. She currently also runs a digital marketing and branding agency by the name of Raise the Bar and is working on a mental health start up called Ikaria

Students had this to say about Jheal’s session:

• I really enjoyed the presentation. I found it to be very informative and the guest speaker was so entertaining and interactive and super nice so I really enjoyed the session and would not change it at all, it’s perfect! Thank you!
• Absolutely loved Jheal’s presentation. She is a really engaging speaker!
• I really enjoyed this session, I thought that it would be greatly beneficial to my team, who have trouble selecting specific target customers and industries with our product. The speaker was engaging and informative.

Deirdre is the Founder & CEO of Capsho, software that helps high-ticket coaches who podcast create their show notes, captions and audiograms with Content Honey Traps so that they can use their podcast to fill their email list and conversion events!

She is the creator of Content Honey Traps, author of Honey Trap Marketing and host of the Grow My Podcast Show.

She is a serial entrepreneur, having founded and led 7 businesses across 5 industries in the last 9 years, and has navigated the entire spectrum of experiences and emotions (the good, the bad and the ugly) that comes with starting, running and closing businesses.

With her hands-on experience in successfully growing her businesses to 6 & 7 figures, she now coaches and works hands-on with high-ticket coaches & consultants who podcast produce multiple high-ticket clients each month using the Content Honey Trap System.

Antonio is a creative director and (self-identified) inventor. He started working on Marketing, Sales and Strategic Planning before quitting his job, going back to school and becoming a full-time creative. Over the past 10 years he has worked at top agencies like 360i and McCann for clients such as Oreo, Verizon and Barilla just to name a few. He’s now a Creative Director at TikTok’s Global Creative Lab inspiring brands and marketers on how to create the best branded content on the app. In his spare time, Antonio is an avid runner, a professional mosquito killer and wanna-be Twitch streamer.

Max Mirho, host of EntrepreNerd, an online live-stream that builds businesses on the go, and the co-founder of Moss Generation. Max teaches entrepreneurship online with the aim to give students a realistic understanding of how entrepreneurship functions. He uses no-code tools and simple marketing to prototype quickly.

Here are a few things students said about Max’s session:

• This elective is so helpful! It provided us a lot of info and tools in 50 min. I hope that all the electives can be as helpful as this one! 
• I really liked this session and found it really helpful. Will definitely be sharing these tools with my teammates who weren’t able to take this session and maybe use these tools for our project! 
• The session was great and very helpful, not only for my team’s (LaunchX) startup but for the future…

Philip Greenwald is the associate director of technology at Harvard Innovation Labs. Before founding the Lab’s Technology Development department, he lead technology programming and advised student and alumni entrepreneurs on software development and building new technologies.

In addition to teaching, Phil has worked with aspiring CEOs and young professionals from Boston to Korea to bring minimum viable products (MVPs) to realization, secure business funding, and get accepted into accelerators such as Y Combinator and MassChallenge. He has officially advised approximately 60 startups that have in aggregate raised over $100 Million. Prior to teaching, Phil was the chief software architect on several large-scale web and mobile applications and the Founder of the Code Undercover coding school. Phil continues to take on a small number of clients for whom he oversees large-scale and tough tech development tasks, primarily in the fields of AI, AR/VR, and mobile app development.

Students had this to say about Philip’s session:

• He’s seriously the best teacher I’ve ever had in my entire life I never imagined that a virtual class would be the best thing I’ve experienced so far I’m so thankful for having this opportunity and for sure I’ve learned far more than just coding and nerdy stuff. He was so patient with 35 students, each had their own problems and difficulties but he was committed and he helped every single one, he put in his time and patience and just went through it all. Instead of 8 hours per day we worked for 12 and more per day which is something not much people would sacrifice for others, he inspired me to change for the better. I’m so grateful, I don’t think I made him know how much I enjoyed this weekend, but he deserves tons of credit for it and I hope one day I could meet him which is pretty close to impossible, but I really hope thank you for giving me this opportunity.
• BEST CLASS I HAVE EVER TAKEN! I learned so much about Ruby on Rails, the different syntax, and a lot about the back end of programming!
• Phil is an incredible instructor! What a treat to learn from him this weekend. I gained lots of valuable insight into how coding works because I came into this workshop with little experience with coding.
• This was an amazing experience. Mr. Greenwald as a fantastic teacher. He was patient with all questions and happily shared his knowledge about deeper concepts that weren’t part of the course. He spent hours and hours making sure that everyone was on the same page and that everyone’s code would work. I learned a ton from this session and every second was worth it!

Before starting her own business as a speaker, consultant, and career coach, Diane’s career spanned the globe. She was a tour leader on all seven continents and in over 60 countries, a non-profit fund-raiser, and a business guru helping top companies maximize their talent, time, and money.

Drawing from these experiences, Diane’s talks and one-on-one coaching services teach people how to find common ground with others in order to form beneficial relationships for mutual benefit.

As an internationally published author, educator, and consultant, every year Diane teaches thousands how to find their voice and use it to advance their careers and find success in their lives. McGraw-Hill published her books in 9 languages – which is amazing since she only speaks English.

Student comments:

• I’ve watched quite a number of pitches before Launch, but I didn’t think closely to how it is crafted in a systematic but unique way. I learned about great ways to put oneself out there, and effectively deliver the core message behind one’s startup. The lessons taught in this elective also will help me when pitching during LaunchX, and after.
• It was especially helpful as we are crafting our pitches now and I learned a lot about the importance of storytelling which we could include in our pitch.

Martin Culpepper, a Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and was until recently MIT’s first “Maker Czar.” As Maker Czar, he led MIT’s effort to upgrade makerspaces with a particular focus on making these resources available to inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs.

He is a self-described gear head who loves working on his Ducati and Mustang, but not as much as riding/driving them. He loves building things at MIT and at home in his own shop. His favorite maker tools are mills and waterjets, though he’s become fond of glass blowing.

Bill Zimmerman is a lecturer in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State. He teaches courses in digital public relations and social media in addition to supervising the social media division within the college’s student-run creative agency, CommAgency. In 2020, he received the Deans’ Excellence Award for Integrated Scholarship from his college. For four years, he produced an entrepreneurship podcast titled “Happy Valley Hustle,” which collected 22,000+ downloads. Bill also holds the Accreditation in Public Relations.

What students learned from Bill’s session:

• “You should pay more attention to the problems you encounter in life – can be a startup idea. You should also step back and observe others to see problems they might encounter.” – Hai Yen Tran
• “It is all about mindset. Every morning try to make space in your mind for the day and to “contemplate.” – Sienna Kauh
• “I learned that being addicted to entrepreneurship and nurturing your idea isn’t the best way, but being determined to make your idea come to life is.” – Sanath Muralidhara

For over 10 years, Henri has been a well-respected voice on entrepreneurship in Africa, renewable energy, innovation & technology impact and more…. As a mentor, speaker, strategist on social entrepreneur in Africa, he was able to shed the light on some of the challenges in the African marketplace, but also the key solutions needed to solve some of the major challenges we encounter today as a continent such as unemployment, lack of access to energy, access to smart funding.

Henri is a talented and engaging communicator who can cut through the myths and misunderstandings to provide clarity and perspective on what it means to be a green leader in business. He brings to his audiences a clear understanding of the opportunities and challenges facing mainstream entrepreneurs on the ground as they try to build their own social enterprises in a way that drives bottom-line performance and top-line growth.

In Henri’s session students learned “Entrepreneurship is all about solving problems: try to solve the ones of the world!” – Maanya Singh