Tasks

Task 1: Survey on the nature of good communication (Grade percentage: 25%)

Task 1.1: Oral presentation (weight: 8%)

1. Who is the best communicator you have met? Give reasons
2. Who is the worst communicator you have met? Give reasons.
3. What according to you are the properties of good communication?

Task 1.2: Data collection (survey) (weight: 5%)

Instructions for filling the sheet

• In columns D and F you should fill not just the name of the person cited but either the role of the person or the relationship of the person to the respondent (the person making the presentation).
• In columns E, G and H you should summarise the points in brief in your own words.

Note: There will be no make-up presentation for those who miss the session on Wednesday the 13th. Those who have a valid medical certificate will be given make up work at the end of the semester if you are failing the class.

Task 1.3: Survey report (weight: 12%)

• A statement of the goals of the survey.
• Methodology. How was the data collected? Who were the respondents?
• Executive summary including a summary of findings and recommendations.
• Detailed presentation of findings. Try to find trends in the answers and organise the various aspects of the responses.
• Conclusions. What were the actionable conclusions of the survey, i.e., what kinds of issues prevent good communication and what factors enable it as per the respondents.
• Recommendations.

AI usage policy: You may use AI to create the survey report. If you do so, please add a cover page mentioning that you have done so and specifying how you used AI. Note that it is expected that you will proofread the report after using AI and ensure that no factual errors remain. If any hallucinations appear in the final report, you will be marked down.

Absentee submission policy: In case you miss the session on Wed the 13th of August you are allowed to borrow someone else's spreadsheet and make the survey. Please mention the name of the person in your cover page. In such a case your grade for this task will be capped at 6% of the course (i.e. 50% of the weightage).

Task 2: Startup pitch (Grade percentage: 60%)

Basic Instructions

1. Each pitch will be created in teams of 3. Note that since the class size is not a multiple of 3, I will allow teams of 2 as well but not more than a few of them,
2. At the time of team formation, roles will be differentiated as follows
   • Product manager: This person's primary responsibility will be the design and presentation of the key product/service offered by the startup.
   • Marketing manager: This person will be primarily responsible for developing the market-related aspects of the pitch (points #5-#9 in the document linked above).
   • Finance manager: This person will be primarily responsible for the financial details (points #11, #12 of the document)
   All team members will collaborate on all aspects. The role division is to indicate who is the main driver for and key custodian of which aspect of the process.
3. To the extent possible the startup idea should be a serious idea that could potentially go out into the world and succeed. There is no restriction in terms of domain and it doesn't need to be a tech startup.

Task 2.1: Team formation and pre-pitch (weight: 5%)

1. What is your startup idea and why do you think it might work? (100-150 words maximum)
2. Who are the team members and what are their roles? Give one line of justification for why a particular person has been given a particular role

Modality: Pdf file to be submitted on Moodle by 11:59PM on Sunday 31 August 2025. Please put your company name in the filename. Each of the team members should submit exactly the same file on Moodle.

Task 2.2: Research documents (weight: 10+10+10 = 30%)

1. Product specification. Here you will begin by describing the problem your product will solve, why it is a real problem, then describe your product or service, including operational details. There should also be some discussion on the challenges involved in implementing the product and some thoughts on how those challenges will be overcome.
2. Market plan. Here you will discuss the market opportunity, define your business model, discuss the metrics on which you will measure success and outline your plan for actually acquiring and retaining customers. You will also discuss your competition.
3. Investment plan. Here you will talk about the costs and revenues and outline your investment ask with a discussion on how it will drive scaling.

Modality: Pdf file to be submitted on Moodle by 11:59PM on Sunday 12 October 2025. The filenames should be in the format company-name-product-specification.pdf etc. The product specification is to be submitted by the product manager, the market plan by the marketing manager and the investment plan by the finance manager.

Task 2.3: Pitch (weight: 25%)

Modality: Oral presentation with slides at 3PM on 29th October 2025 in Bharti 501.

Task 3: Investment recommendation

Guidelines

1. Both documents should be grounded in data and arguments presented in the research documents submitted by the concerned startups and their slide deck. You may independently reach out to the relevant teams for the documents.
2. The documents should contain your thoughts on why the company will succeed or fail along with your estimate of timelines.
3. For the positive recommendation you should suggest the amounts of money to be invested and the percentage stake along with estimates on how you expect the value of the investment to grow.

Course policies

Unfair means policy

Late submission policy