Entrepreneurship of Physical Products

Catalog description

This course is targeted at both individuals interested in starting or joining a physical product company as well as students currently working in or looking at a product management role at an existing business creating physical products. Unlike engineering courses that focus on the nuts and bolts of creating a physical product, this course will examine the creation of the product business. The course will explore the recent renaissance in physical product development being driven by desktop tools, new funding models, small batch manufacturing, production techniques and offshore volume manufacturing. An important component of the course will be a discussion on user center design techniques and incorporating user feedback in the successive iterations of the prototyping process. The course will also look at the unique organizational, financial, and marketplace considerations for physical product businesses. The final day of the course will be held at Rev (Ithaca's startup incubator) with a hand-on look at Rev's rapid prototyping facility.