To be considered for enrollment in Startup Operations in the fall 2024 cohort, please submit this form before 5 PM eastern time on Friday, August 9, 2024.

We expect this course to fill up fast! Therefore, early applications are welcome and encouraged for both Founders and Joiners. It is OK if your idea evolves over the summer. See more details below.

The Startup Operations course is for registered, second year, HBS students ONLY. Cross registrants from other masters programs at Harvard or MIT will be accepted ONLY as co-founders with an HBS student or as venture joiners on an exception basis. Please contact Prof. Austin for consideration.
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Startup Operations is field a course focused on accelerating ventures currently in process and to foster learning for those thinking about launching or joining startup after HBS. This application ensures that we have the right number of ventures and that each venture is at the right stage for the course. Students will work in small teams throughout the course. No venture is too advanced for the course. To ensure a good fit with your learning goals, please review the course catalog description for Startup Operations here and our FAQ. You can also view our syllabus to get a sense of the topics we cover in the course.

This application is for both startup founders and joiners. After the application closes, we will first select venture teams. Then, we'll round out enrollment by selecting from the pool of joiner applicants. This group of joiners will be chosen by Prof. Austin who will consider: 1) joiners' reasons for wanting to enroll in Startup Operations; and 2) the value of having a diverse group in terms of past work experience, undergraduate degrees, etc.

We'll inform you about our selection decisions around August 21. For students who are invited to enroll, we'll then run a process to match joiner students to ventures. Our matching process goals are to: 1) give both sides of the match -- founders and joiners -- as much latitude as possible to chose who they want to work with; and 2) expedite the matching process, so we can jump right into the course at the start of the term -- ideally, without devoting much class time to team assembly. Consistent with those goals, we'll reserve the right to assign students to ventures if our matchmaking process as required.

Working on a classmate's venture will NOT earn a joiner any equity stake in the venture nor any claim on the venture's intellectual property, unless all parties agree to such arrangements.

FOR STUDENTS PROPOSING VENTURES ONLY

It's okay to apply as a team of one, two, three or four; you can specify that option below.

Teams of founders with fewer than four members MUST be willing to have joiners help with your venture. This requirement to accept a joiner also applies for students who have co-founders who are not enrolled in Startup Operations. Such co-founders are welcome to attend or audit the class, but we'd still ask you to expand your team to include joiners from this course. We will prioritize joiner matching for solo founders ahead of pre-assembled teams with 2-4 students.

All founding members of a team must complete the first portion of this application. Only ONE founding member needs to complete the second portion of this application.

A venture suited for Startup Operations will fit one of two profiles:

1. Your venture is at an early stage of development. You've done enough customer discovery work to have some confidence that you've identified a real problem to solve and you have some hypotheses about potential solutions. These hypotheses are in or beyond the early stages of the solution testing process. You have or are in the process of developing your MVP.

OR

2. You've already launched your business and you are scaling, preparing to make a significant set of changes or pivot towards a new target customer/use-case.

Ventures that are solutions looking for a problem will not be accepted.

Ventures deemed to be too early (not enough customer research/problem validation) will not be accepted.

Any sector, type of product and target market will benefit from the course structure and content.

Each accepted team may qualify for non-dilutive funding for the term. Funding amounts will depend on how much capital a team has raised to-date.

All venture applicants are required to meet with Prof. Austin ahead of the application deadline. Please grab a time on her calendar here or email her FSS mmunar@hbs.edu if available times don't match your schedule. Joiners are welcome, but not required, to meet with Prof. Austin ahead of the deadline.