Value Creation from Opportunities

Tina Seelig, Stanford University

Tina Seelig, Executive Director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, walks us through a life-changing hands-on classroom activity where students are taught to identify opportunities in nooks and crannies. With five dollars in seed funding and two hours of execution, she reports on the success of the exercise, and that many students reaped over one hundred times the initial investment (and others built a business without using any funding at all). Look for problems around you, says Seelig, and convert them into opportunities that create value. Embrace the opportunity to challenge assumptions and identify true cultural, social, or technological need.