2026
Entrepreneurship &
New Ventures (ENV)
Course Details &
Onboarding Survey
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Welcome!
The onboarding survey helps me get to know you better, helps me to send you an invitation to join the course on Canvas, and helps me to facilitate a selection process if this course is oversubscribed.
Please complete the survey before the first class. If that is not possible, then please complete the survey immediately after the first class. If you did not attend the first class, you should still complete the onboarding survey as soon as possible before the second class.
“What should I do if I cannot wait until the fall term begins to start learning about entrepreneurship?”
- Read this article: Cheek, P. (2025). AI-Driven Enterprises: How AI is Redefining Innovation-Driven Enterprises. MIT.
- Next, use this tool https://lovable.dev/ to build something fun and valuable.
WHEN & WHERE
•Class Meeting Days/Times: Saturdays / 10:50 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. (2nd Period | Saturday Timetable)
•Classroom Meeting Location: TBA
FIRST & LAST CLASS
•First Class Session: Saturday, September 19, 2026 is our First Class Session. This meeting will be LIVE ONLINE VIA ZOOM.
•Last Class Session: The last scheduled meeting for this course is on Saturday, January 09, 2026. This session will be LIVE ONLINE VIA ZOOM.
WHY is the last Class Session held REMOTELY?
Historically, this course attracts ESOP students and HOSEI students who reach the age of 20. So, some students cannot attend the last Class Session because they are unable to return Tokyo due to the fact that they have opted to remain in their home country (i.e. ESOP students) and/or they have opted to remain in their home town (i.e. for Coming of Age Day Celebrations).
I look forward to seeing you ONLINE on Saturday, September 19th at 10:50 a.m.
If you have any questions, please send me an email.
Resources for Intellectually Curious Future Entrepreneurs
Launchpad
This is a course designed by Stanford’s d.school to launch new ventures. Significant results have been achieved.
Lean Launchpad
Stanford ENGR 245 Lean Launchpad! This course teaches you how to rigorously evaluate a business idea, apply the Lean Startup Methodology and maximize your chances of establishing product-market fit.
MIT Delta V & Orbit
The MIT delta v accelerator is the capstone entrepreneurial experience for students at MIT.
Orbit is the one-stop shop for student entrepreneurs at MIT.
Startup School
This is the Y Combinator pre-accelerator course. Significant results have been achieved.
Pretotyping
Pretotyping is a set of tools, techniques, and tactics designed to help you validate any idea for a new product quickly, objectively, and accurately. The goal of pretotyping is to help you make sure that you are building The Right It before you build It right.
Pretotyping was originally developed at Google in 2010 and since then has been tested, refined, taught, and put into practice with great success in hundreds of projects and organizations.
Prehype & Audos
Prehype, a pre-defined process for building new ventures; especially attractive for large companies seeking to create growth through innovation, based on the idea of startup as a service.
Audos is an AI co-pilot trained by the founders of everything from unicorn startups to side projects and non-profits at Prehype. Go from inkling to in-market – fast.
On Deck Founders (ODF)
This is a recurring intense one-week in-person event produced by nZero Labs that helps participants prepare to launch a startup.
PitchBook
PitchBook is the leading resource for comprehensive data, research and insights spanning the global capital markets.
crunchbase
crunchbase enables you to discover and act on private market activity with predictive company intelligence. Their AI is reported to predict startup success with 95% accuracy.
Alchemist Accelerator
The Alchemist Accelerator is a venture-backed initiative focused on accelerating the development of seed-stage ventures that monetize from enterprises (not consumers).
Neo Accelerator
Serial entrepreneur and investor Ali Partovi created Neo Accelerator, a tight-knit group of today’s most promising startup founders. They accept teams and solo technical founders based in North America.
The first two batches of Antler was completely Japanese, a hundred percent Japanese. We really didn’t have a big success rate and the minute that we changed our program to one hundred percent English… a very interesting thing happened. Even the people that are one hundred percent Japanese speakers started applying to the program because they want to really build global companies and find global co-founders.
- Sandeep CASI, Partner at Antler
Global Startup Campus Initiative
Under the Global Startup Campus Initiative, the Japanese government is working to build an ecosystem for innovation and startups in the deep tech sector, with the aim of resolving global social issues and promoting domestic economic growth.
Maybe (I am not certain) one part of the Global Startup Campus Initiative is emerging at Shibuya Sakura Stage, Sakuragaokacho, 1−1, 37F, Shibuya, Tokyo 150-0031.
Finally, if you want an introduction to how the Japanese market is different, and how this difference complicates the Global Startup Campus initiative, check out this video: Japan is DIFFERENT: your guide to the Japanese SaaS market .