Innovation and Entrepreneurship involves many steps – from idea to developing, testing and evaluating a product and a business model as well as strategies for developing and protecting your valuable intellectual property.
You will need to learn how to research the competitive landscape, protect intellectual property, develop business and marketing plans, obtain funding, and go to market.
- Embrace entrepreneurial thinking
- Understand the difference between a good idea and an opportunity
- Build a strong team with diverse skills
- Protect your intellectual property
- Evaluate real-world potential for a new innovation, device, or product
- Create an effective business model and plan to execute
- Identify the right investors and raise capital -
- Make the right marketing and distribution decisions
- Understand deal-making, valuation, negotiation, strategy, and communication
Resources
- Identify what kind of innovation you have - review Doblin for ways to articulate why your innovation is unique and worth pursuing.
- Check out the Small Business Development Center, co-located with TI&ED in the Ice House, for examples of various plans (business plans)
- Check out our Guidance and Process section for information on protecting your intellectual property!
- The TI&ED team can help you to identify local and state funding via investors as well as grants and research partnerships (see Startup Resources for more information)
- Link to prototyping spaces on campus JMU XLabs
- Society of Entrepreneurs - James Madison University entrepreneurially minded student club