Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations Commons^™

The Role Of Early Customers In The Venture Creation Process, Maya Kumar

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

While startups’ interactions with early potential customers may occur long before product creation, entrepreneurs often fail to recognize how these interactions impact startup development. My research proposes that early customers are central influences and develops a model of customer interactions. More specifically, my dissertation focuses on answering: When and how do startups interact with early customers during the venture creation process, and how do these interactions create path dependence for the type of organization being created?

I undertook an inductive, qualitative process study of nine startups located in incubators and studied customer interactions in near-real-time. My findings show that types …

Do Rio, Barbara Brasil Marcolini

Capstones

Do Rio is a solutions journalism platform for residents of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It consists of a website and Facebook page where Rio de Janeiro’s citizens find inspiring stories of people who found solutions for their city’s problems, exchange ideas about the the challenges Rio faces and take part in events with positive impact. This project was created by Barbara Marcolini at the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism as part of her Master’s in Entrepreneurial Journalism at CUNY J-School.

Link: http://do-rio.com/

Zeppy Low Calorie Alcoholic Beverages Business Plan, Allison Zeppuhar

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The documentation of a college-level student starting her first company in the alcoholic beverage industry. Allison Zeppuhar created a low calorie alcoholic beverage brand called Zeppy during her junior and senior year of college at James Madison University. This documentation includes an executive summary, a reflection of her findings, her timeline, an entity-relationship diagram, To Be Manufacturing and Customer Order process maps, and a progress journal.