Date/Time
Date(s) - 10/21/2015
8:00 am - 4:30 pm
Location
Polaris MEP
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Register Here
Led by Danny Warshay
dwarshay@dewventures.com
www.dewventures.com
Entrepreneurship is innovation in practice: Transforming ideas into opportunities, and, through a deliberate process, opportunities into commercial realities. Our primary objective is to expose you to case-based fundamentals of the entrepreneurial process that will provide practical skills, perspectives, and motivation.
Because we have tailored it specifically to the needs of Rhode Island-based manufacturers, by the end of this Entrepreneurial Process workshop you will:
- Master and apply the structured entrepreneurial process to your Rhode Island-based manufacturing business
- Develop entrepreneurial confidence in some ways significantly outside of your day-to-day comfort zones
- Enhance your communication skills by sharing your analysis of four Harvard Business School case studies
- Build your entrepreneurial network onsite and through the Warshay Innovation Network of several thousand Entrepreneurial Process alumni worldwide
- Identify new revenue sources within your existing markets to expand your company’s profitability
- Learn how to find and validate unmet needs as sources of incremental revenue and enhanced profitability in new high-growth markets
The format of this workshop will follow a typical Harvard Business School methodology, exposing you to the rhythm and demands of a Socratic case study approach. It will challenge you to apply your own experience and what you learn through your own analyses of the cases and supplementary readings in workshop discussions. It is critical that you read and analyze the cases and supplementary readings before you come to the workshop sessions, and come ready to be called on to start and participate in the discussion. In short, this Socratic case study approach will present topics on entrepreneurship in a context that will simulate the real-life entrepreneurial contexts. In particular, we will look to draw explicitly on some of your own experience – entrepreneurial and otherwise.
Through this workshop, we intend for participants to focus on specific demands of the entrepreneurial process, and to develop additional confidence and acquire tools needed to approach your challenges more entrepreneurially.
This intensive workshop will be rigorous. Participants who meet this challenge and who work hard will find the process satisfying, and will reap significant rewards for the commitment and investment you make.
At the same time, we also intend for this to be an exciting and fun experience. Having now taught The Entrepreneurial Process Workshop in business, governmental and academic contexts in Egypt, Portugal, Israel, China, Bahrain, South Africa, Slovenia, Jordan, Palestine and throughout the United States, as full-semester courses at Brown for years, and in the Sofaer iMBA and Executive MBA programs at Tel Aviv University, Danny will do whatever he can to help you initiate and develop relationships with his professional colleagues and former students throughout his networks at universities, companies, and social ventures around the world. He fully intends to do whatever he can to help make this first workshop experience together fruitful and have long-term impact.
Warshay Innovation Network
Alumni of all of Danny’s courses and workshops worldwide are eligible to join the private online Warshay Innovation Network (WIN). Members affiliate with their specific course or workshop group, and then can interact, discuss, post ideas, share resources, and collaborate on entrepreneurial opportunities with all members of the network. They can access course materials and watch videos of class guests, and they can also easily stay in touch with me and with each other, and use the alumni map to make new contacts with fellow WIN alumni all over the world. Thank you to Andrew Skinner (Brown Entrepreneurial Process Spring ’06) for developing WIN and to Lawrence Chan (Brown Entrepreneurial Process Fall ’09) for generously hosting WIN on Akliz.
Testimonials
“I asked Danny to work with our management team and board of directors to help us focus on the necessity of change and to instill a culture of entrepreneurial thinking and innovative action. Danny’s workshops helped all of us appreciate that successful innovation and creating new business models do not come about by unbridled brainstorming, but rather via a disciplined process that focuses on the customer of tomorrow. With Danny’s help, our organization is firmly committed to change through entrepreneurship and innovation because we know that without change, the likelihood of success is non-existent.”
– Joe Nagle, CEO, Delta Dental of Rhode Island
“At CVS Health we are always looking for new ways to develop our team with the right tools and a mindset for innovation. Danny added a fresh new perspective through his dynamic seminar style workshop with 40 leaders at our company. Through dissecting and debating 4 Harvard Business School cases across industries, we learned about how relevant and useful entrepreneurship principles are not just for scrappy startups, but for us as a $130+ billion publicly traded company. As one participant commented about a key insight she gained, ‘Entrepreneurship is NOT rich people taking risk, but rather a structured, thoughtful approach on whether and how to move forward with an idea.’ Our teams are incorporating the frameworks and principles we learned in Danny’s workshop into our work to continue to create and deliver best-in-class pharmacy innovation services.“
– Jonathan Shaw, VP of Product Innovation and Management, CVSHealth
“A major challenge for most CEOs is that sooner or later we get stuck in the trenches of day-to-day operations. The consequence is that we fail to incorporate the innovative, long-term planning – the type of entrepreneurial process that helped us launch our companies originally – in the current development of our business. The company may lose track of its identity during this phase.
I chose to work with Danny and together we decided to organize his Entrepreneurial Process workshop at our company. Using Harvard Business School case studies, he challenged and motivated all the participants who represented a cross section of our various functions. Danny taught us that entrepreneurship can be a deliberate process andthrough Danny’s workshop we developed a common language that today helps us address opportunities and challenges in both a fast and structured way. It was really amazing.
One of the major benefits of working with Danny is that he helped me to discover how much hidden potential there is in my colleagues and, most of all, that I can now count on them to move our growing company to the next level. Danny’s success did not stop at the end of the workshop; it continued through the relationship and support he maintains with all the participants who now can seek his advice and guidance. He helped us to build entrepreneurial confidence and to grow our entrepreneurial network throughout the world via the Warshay Innovation Network, which we were all invited to join. It is real pleasure working with Danny. I recommend him to all executives and entrepreneurs looking to develop their companies and to develop themselves.”
– Rok Ursic, CEO, Instrumentation Technologies, Solkan, Slovenia
“It’s hard to teach someone to be an entrepreneur, and Danny has mastered the process. I know – my company, Premama, is just one of many innovations launched from his classes and corporate workshops.
Premama – which has raised several million dollars in venture capital and whose prenatal vitamin drink is for sale in thousands of stores, including Target – came right from the entrepreneurial process that Danny teaches in class:
- Starting with his classic bottom-up research method, we discovered an unmet need among pregnant women.
- Through Danny’s contacts we developed a solution to this need.
- Through his business planning process, we developed and pitched the plan we wrote in class to receive enthusiastic and generous backing.
- And embracing the growth elements of Danny’s methodology, we continue to grow our company.
Without Danny’s teaching, I would never have become an entrepreneur. He helped me harness the creative person inside and put me on a new, fulfilling entrepreneurial path.”
– Dan Aziz, CEO and founder of Premama
“Walking into Danny’s class, I never imagined that it would be the catalyst to start my own company that same year. Every other class I took was predictable: there were goals and tests and skills to be learned. Danny’s class was different in that it was strikingly similar to real life and from the moment we started writing our business plan, I was overcome with a sense of purpose, determination, and pure joy that blossomed throughout the class. I was previously unaware of the concept of venture capital or angel investing and became fascinated with the notion that I could create a product line and grow a company with the support of investors. It’s not possible to learn and experience everything there is to know about starting a company or raising venture funding in one class, however, Danny taught us the fundamentals to dive into the startup world. The things I learned in his class have greatly enriched the last six years of my life and I know will continue to inspire and shape my career for many years to come.”
– Julie Sygiel, CEO and founder of DearKate, Brown Entrepreneurial Process Course
“Entrepreneurship is the energy that inspires and motivates people with commitment for action. And this energy requires sharpening and guidance. Taking an entrepreneurship workshop with Danny will provide entrepreneurs with the essential dose of concepts and frameworks needed to develop and nurture any entrepreneurial idea. To be able to maximize learning, deep analysis of the cases and material and full engagement and participation will definitely allow participants to reflect on and share their unique experience. I recall that the Palestinian context was always floating in the background while reflecting on the case discussions led by Danny. Gradually I learned that commitment, teamwork and a good and simple business/social model would open a new path: a path of fulfilling and promising future. Enjoy your learning journey!”
– Marwan Durzi, Ramallah , MPA/Harvard University, MBA/Kellogg School of Management, Entrepreneurial Process Course
Who is leading The Entrepreneurial Process Workshop?
Danny Warshay has devoted his career to building, managing and harvesting high-growth entrepreneurial ventures. He began his entrepreneurial pursuits while an undergraduate at Brown, as co-founder of Clearview Software, which Apple acquired in 1989. Since then, he has co-founded 15 other successful companies acquired by Medline, Time, Belo Corporation, Sealed Air, Penton Media.
Beyond his own successful ventures, Danny is internationally recognized for his approach to teaching entrepreneurship. He is a member of the entrepreneurship faculty at Brown, where the Critical Reviewrecognized his Entrepreneurial Process course as the highest-rated course in the University. Danny is also a member of the entrepreneurship faculty in the Tel Aviv University MBA program, and he leads intensive Entrepreneurial Process workshops in corporate, governmental, and academic contexts throughout the United States, and in China, Egypt, Portugal, Bahrain, Slovenia, South Africa, Jordan, Palestine, and Israel.
In all of his entrepreneurial pursuits, Danny emphasizes breakthrough techniques of bottom-up consumer research that he learned at Procter & Gamble as a member of the Duncan Hines Brand Management team, where he managed the development and marketing of new products. One of Danny’s business passions on which he has spoken in national forums and been interviewed in Inc. Magazine is Open-Book Management – an approach to empowering, motivating and rewarding employees through exposure to all relevant measures and financial literacy, and by providing a meaningful stake in the outcome through employee ownership.
In recognition of his active support for Brown students in and out of the classroom, Danny was awarded the first ever Nathalie Rutherford Pierrepont Prize for Leadership, Career Advising, and Motivation. Google’s University Program awarded Brown’s Business, Entrepreneurship and Organizations Concentration an unrestricted grant in recognition of the impact Danny’s teaching has had on his students, many of whom have gone on to work at Google. To recognize Danny’s leadership during his tenure as President of its Board of Trustees, Brown Hillel annually awards the Danny Warshay ’87 Exceptional Leadership Award to the student who has most clearly demonstrated the leadership qualities of mentoring, modeling and community building. Danny was also the recipient of the Merrill L. Hassenfeld Leadership in Community Service Award, and most recently, the Brown Football team recognized Danny with the Dave Zucconi ’55 Brown Pride Award for loyalty, support, service and faith in Brown football.
Danny received an A.B. in History, magna cum laude, from Brown University (Junior Year at Hebrew University in Jerusalem), and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
In addition to spending time with his wonderful wife (Dr. Debra Herman ’87) and three terrific children, Danny loves the mental and physical challenges and rewards of vinyasa yoga. He is also an avid (and tortured) Cleveland sports fan.
More details available at DEWVentures.com
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