Startup Studio: AI-Accelerated Building & Validation

What goes on in the course

Students form teams and build a startup across the semester. Teams launch real products and acquire real users, and they learn along the way how to build products that people want, need, and love. The course rests on three pillars.

• Agentic engineering Using AI tools to rapidly build software that is reliable and secure.
• UX techniques Methods for advancing product-market fit, including user interviews and usability testing.
• Startup knowledge Growth hacking, presentation skills, fundraising, and how founders operate.

How a semester runs

Each team carries one idea through the semester. The work moves through five stages, and every stage produces something a person outside the class can look at.

1. 1

   Form the team and the concept

   Teams come together and settle on the problem they want to work on.

2. 2

   Validate the pain point and people's desire for a solution

   Wizard of Oz tests, vaporware sites, paid ad campaigns and other demand experiments, measured rather than argued about.

3. 3

   Build the MVP with AI tools

   A working product, built fast with AI coding and design assistants.

4. 4

   Interview users and iterate

   UX research feeds the next version. Iteration history is part of what gets graded.

5. 5

   Demo Day

   Each team presents to peers, instructors, invited alumni, hiring representatives, and potential mentors.

Demo Day

Each team gets fifteen minutes to present and answer questions. The pitch covers the problem, the solution, validation results, iteration history, and where the product could go next. A panel of industry guests gives feedback, and there is usually a networking session afterward.

Materials

The full syllabus lives on GitHub, and it covers the reading list, the grading breakdown, and what students need to supply themselves. Read the course syllabus.

Slides go up after each class, so the class materials repository fills in through the semester.