Just say Yes, And

This was the stock intro wording in the website so I decided to go with it… seems appropriate to say, Hello World! I’m taking the first step in my blogging journey.

Now that I’m a free agent, I write for myself, about things that I have learned, and what I’m working on. I’ll be able to share insights from 20+ years of Entrepreneurship, Negotiation and Improvisation training. And fun stories from being a professional stand-up comic. And a venture capital investor. And an elected town officer. And a wife and mom. So buckle up.

Since today is Dec 12, or 12/12, it seemed like a great time to launch. I have the 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 song from Sesame Street in my head. Those of you old enough to remember it will now be cursed (blessed?) with hearing it over and over now. Enjoy! Making today extra extra is the other fun numerological fact that 12+12 = 24! So 12/12/24 is a great day regardless of what actually happens to you today; to me, it will be the day I said Yes, And to starting the next chapter of my life, literally and figuratively, by starting writing this blog and by starting my new take on life, love, and Entrepreneurship. Not in that order.

First things first. After spending my sabbatical in federal government working on entrepreneurship policy, I went back to my MBA Entrepreneurship teaching job scared. Kids were using AI to complete assignments and professors didn’t like it. I didn’t want to have tell the students not to use AI when it clearly was the best technology of our time. But all of my teaching had been focused on evaluating their memorization and writing…all of which AI can do for them. When lamenting about this fear with my own MBA classmate, he suggested instead of fearing AI, I could embrace AI and teach it – create a way for students to benefit from AI as they should…

As my improvisational training had taught me…I just said YES, AND…and turned my Crisis into Opportunity! Classic Entrepreneuring!

I had already been thinking about how to make the lessons of Entrepreneurship more accessible to any entrepreneur after working with I-Corps at NSF. The entrepreneurship program run out of multiple federal agencies is great…but a lot. It relies on Lean Launch Pad by Steve Blank – which is an awesome program for inventors to understand their markets. But it also requires a lot of time. It occurred to me that most entrepreneurs start their businesses as a ‘side hustle.’ They wait until they get traction before they can leave their job, their security, their health insurance, etc. and focus on the venture full time.

In this period of building, they could do a lot of thing on their own – things that I taught for 20 years. And AI can help them analyze the business and think through the how-tos. Most importantly, I wanted something they could do briefly, everyday, to make the ‘side hustle’ of Entrepreneuring possible for anyone. Something they could work on for 20 minutes or so everyday. In other words, I wanted to make myself, the Entrepreneurship Professor, obsolete.

I spent last year writing all the quick content I was thinking about, and now proudly share with you today my own AI entrepreneurship workbook entitled: Entrepreneurship in 20 Minutes a Day Each exercise takes about 20 minutes to read and do with the associated AI bot. You either enter info through the chat or you can talk to the bot, which is particularly useful for practicing your venture pitch or interviewing a customer. Then you take 20 minutes everyday to follow up on the insights provided by the E-20 AI bot.

Introducing the E-20 Bot! Isn’t it cute?

I used it last year in my Babson courses and the students got a lot out of it. The best part is that I designed it using idecisiongames.com platform – they already have a course learning management system in place for professors to be able to distribute exercises and then monitor how the students perform. By using idecisiongames to embed the AI bot, as a professor I could not only assign them to use AI, but I could MAKE THEM USE AI. I could see what they did on each E20 AI bot interaction through the classroom interface (outside of the classroom version, all interactions are private). It was a game changer for me as a professor. The value of AI is truly unbounded. I invite you all to see what AI can do for you and your entrepreneurial ideas through my workbook!

Here’s the Link: ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN 20 MINUTES A DAY