Testimonials:

The Go Deep Entrepreneurship Teaching and Learning Scholars Program was an experience that has impacted not only how I will approach teaching entrepreneurship but how I approach teaching students. It has reminded me to focus my efforts on creating learning experiences that teach to the hearts, heads, and hands of my learners. It has also reminded me that when I want to solve a problem, better to ask for help than to teach in isolation.

The process of forming a mastermind group for entrepreneurial education has been wonderful. By far the most enjoyable and intellectually stimulating experience I have had in this domain. I can’t wait to continue learning from and helping my mastermind colleagues into the future. I would recommend this process to anyone interested in advancing theirselves and/or interested in advancing the domain of entrepreneurship education.

Alex Bruton’s Go Deep Program allowed me to explore a terrifically complex problem with a group of very talented people. With this expert guidance, we walked though a series of semi-structured activities focusing on our own set of projects. The peer group added immeasurable value to helping me better define my project and then offered tools to use when available, and great advice in cases where no tools exist.

I used your “Really Big Idea Sketch Pad” recently. I asked my students for their feedback. Immediately, they said it was well-structured, simple, visual, and helped them think through their early-stage business ideas effectively. I echo their sentiments completely. Thanks Alex for making your materials available for instructors around the world to help their students create and launch the next big ideas!

These tools have proven to be easy to teach and easy to learn. Not only that, they work as a system and not just as independent pieces. From idea generation, to business model design, all the way through pitching your project, there is a tool that can be used at each step. All of those tools have a BIG common denominator: they are visual! That is extremely important when trying to communicate in a simple and easy, yet comprehensive way. With these tools each iteration or pivot has an instant feedback, which saves a lot of trouble and disappointments. Even if you are still in the desert, you know which way you have to walk.

The Innographer and The Straight Up Business Institute have provided the practical tools that my university students and entrepreneurial and corporate clients easily use to move their innovative ideas forward. I’ve seen individuals and groups make meaningful progress in a scary and ambiguous process in literally minutes – what you’ll find here are intuitive, powerful tools that provide a parachute for jumping off the entrepreneurship ledge.

The tools from the Straight Up Business Institute are powerful, practical, and fun. I’ve used them working with companies in California and with students from Florida to Finland. Straight Up continues to produce some of the most transformative and visually compelling, yet simple, tools for empowering the next generation of entrepreneurs. This is where design thinking meets entrepreneurship education!

These tools and approaches have had incredible impact on our organization. As an executive responsible for innovation at a technology company I have been to many seminars and events trying to improve our ability to innovate.

These have been the most impactful we have used. Our team is now having deeper more constructive conversations about innovation. We’re creating innovative and powerful ideas beyond what we historical have produced.

We were using them within hours and they now have become an integral part of our organization.

I highly recommend this approach to anyone trying to create innovation inside their organization.

I used to think that the whole concept of ‘innovation’ or thinking creatively was for the artists, engineers and of course, the designers out there … winning ideas seemed to ‘just happen’ to everyone else. Likewise, it seemed I was often trying to take my ideas straight from ‘napkin to business plan’; I felt frustrated with the process and was rarely happy with the results.

With these approaches, I learned to stop seeing my ideas as fixed entities out of my control, but instead as ripe ‘opportunities’ with the potential to grow into those fantastic, winning ventures by my deliberately designing them to be. I now see all along I was missing valuable opportunities to prototype and workshop my ideas into winning ones. I wish I could have experienced this years ago! Don’t expect to sit back and simply be told what to do … an integral part of the learning experience is to roll up your sleeves and dive right in, creating and exploring throughout.

Thank you … I feel the learning has only just begun!