CISC 492 - Software Startups

Winter 2012

Instructor:	Doug Wightman (wightman (at) cs.queensu.ca), (613) 449-0583, 636 Goodwin Hall
	Office Hours: by appointment

Class Location:	Goodwin Hall, room 254
Time:	Thursday 6:30-9:30 p.m.
Time:
Teaching Assistant:	Hazem Ahmed (hazem (at) cs.queensu.ca)
Tutorial Location:	Goodwin Hall, room 248
Times:	Mondays: 4:40-6:30 p.m. and Thursdays: 4:30-6:30 p.m.
Times:

Course Description

Interdisciplinary course in entrepreneurship and software development. Student teams write a business plan and complete a significant programming project. Programming experience is not required. Course topics will include methods to create and evaluate new software enterprises.

Prerequisites: CISC 235 or CISC 212 or COMM 112 or COMM 200 or permission of the instructor

Objectives
This course introduces students to the creation and evaluation of software enterprises. Working on interdisciplinary teams, students develop a business plan and software prototype. Expectations for students are commensurate with their prior experience, including current field of study. There are multiple roles to be filled on each team, including roles that do not require programming experience.
Lecture material will include business and software development case studies, and methods for developing scalable software systems.
Each week, students present their current work to the class. During the first half of the course, student teams develop business plans and software proofs-of-concept. During the second half, the student teams focus on developing their software systems and validating their business plan.
This course is not only for students with immediate entrepreneurial aspirations. This is an opportunity for students to extend their critical thinking and domain-specific expertise, developing a project with commercial potential within the structure of a course.

Topics
Entrepreneurship (topics introduced with software business case studies)

Evaluation of business opportunities, including financial valuation
Negotiation, including general methods and specific case studies for shareholders’ agreements and other contracts
Methods for working effectively with an interdisciplinary team
Design thinking, and other creative problem solving methods

Software Development (topics introduced during in-class workshops)

Introduction to web development
Design patterns for web development
Software as a service, and integration using REST or SOAP APIs
Introduction to SQL
Efficient data processing

Course Structure

Project Reports
Opportunity Analysis	20%
Technical Analysis	20%
Final Report	35%
Presentations	10%
Class Participation	10%
Lessons Learned (individual)	5%

Schedule

Week	Date	Topics	Readings	Due	Tutorial Notes
1	Jan. 12	Brainstorming	How to start a startup, Brainstorming rules, Software is eating the world
2	Jan. 19	Pitch #1	Communicating your point-of-view, Business model canvas (more detail), Prototype to test
3	Jan. 26	Guest speaker, PEST	PEST analysis, Getting Real
4	Feb. 2	Guest speaker, Check-in	Steve Wozniak interview		HTML tutorial
5	Feb. 9	Storyboarding	Storyboarding, Balsamiq, Adobe Fireworks		HTML tutorial (same as previous week) on Monday only
6	Feb. 16	Guest speaker		Opportunity Analysis	XAMPP tutorial
		Reading Week
7	Mar. 1	Guest speaker, Legal contracts, Contract negotiation	Corporate Primer (speaker slides), Getting to Yes (summaries: 1, 2), The Lean Startup, Startup School talks		PHP and MySQL tutorial
8	Mar. 8	Guest speaker, Databases	SQLzoo, Example code: PHP and MySQL, REST and SOAP, Three APIs: Facebook (example), Parse (example), and PayPal, Twitter Bootstrap, SendGrid		Help session
9	Mar. 15	Funding	Venture Deals, Introduction to stock options	Technical Analysis	Help session, Thursday revised time: 5:30-6:30 p.m.
10	Mar. 22	Vision			Help session, Thursday revised time: 5:30-6:30 p.m.
11	Mar. 29	Final check-in			Help session
12	Apr. 5	Final Presentations		Final Report, Lessons Learned	Help session on Monday only