{"id":228,"date":"2012-11-05T23:02:24","date_gmt":"2012-11-06T05:02:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uwpowerswi.com\/?p=228"},"modified":"2016-03-17T07:59:46","modified_gmt":"2016-03-17T12:59:46","slug":"class-aims-to-birth-software-companies-at-uw-madison","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/class-aims-to-birth-software-companies-at-uw-madison\/","title":{"rendered":"Class aims to birth software companies at UW-Madison"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Paul Barford<\/a>, a UW-Madison professor of computer science, has a proposition, and he’s got five minutes to make it.<\/p>\n

He’s consciously mimicking the \u201cproduct pitch\u201d that entrepreneurs make before venture capitalists, except his audience is undergraduates in a class on starting a software company.<\/p>\n

Time is tight, so Barford lunges ahead. \u201cGoogle is earning $40 billion a year in advertising revenue, but advertisers are only interested in websites with substantial traffic,\u201d he says. Billions of times every day, ad space is auctioned on thousands of websites. Websites with high traffic can make money.<\/p>\n

That pretty much rules out a blog on your trip to the Grand Canyon.<\/p>\n

But Barford has a deal, and within three minutes, the class is hanging on every word. He’s located a high-traffic website that will split the profits with students who repackage its data to make additional revenue.<\/p>\n

This fastball pitch illustrates several key points of a class aimed at helping undergraduates create software companies: Work fast. Stress value. Innovate.<\/p>\n

\n

\"students<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of bright students on this campus,\u201d says co-teacher Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau<\/a>, also a professor of computer science. \u201cWhat do you do to enter this very exciting space?\u201d<\/p>\n

Arpaci-Dusseau says the class will focus on the mindset, techniques and multi-tasking needed to be a software entrepreneur. \u201cThe main goal is to start software companies, so students have to understand the startup process, learn to pitch ideas, and become familiar with business techniques and the commercial and legal aspects.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to give students training in the latest software development tools and techniques,\u201d adds Barford.\u00a0 But the class will also explore \u201cbusiness and entrepreneurship ideas that are essential in order to speak the language of industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the Wisconsin School of Business has devoted increasing attention to entrepreneurship in recent years, this will be the university’s first class devoted to the software business, says Barford, who has already started and sold Nemean Networks, a network security startup.<\/p>\n

The class has been granted 24\/7 access to offices in Hybrid Zone X in the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery<\/a> (WID). While working side-by-side, students benefit from companionship and advice during the long hours needed to write code while simultaneously determining the market, sales pitch and business plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cPhysical space is very important, and we are working with people at HzX in WID to turn the space into something that is reflective of the kind of incubation spaces you will see on the East or West Coast,\u201d Barford says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis class represents one in an ongoing series of experiments in HzX that aims to generate hybrids among researchers, students and entrepreneurs,\u201d says David Krakauer<\/a>, WID director. “HzX aims to amplify core UW research strengths into transformative courses and collaborations with an entrepreneurial focus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Madison is not Silicon Valley, but the experience of Barford and others shows that successful software startups are still possible. Comparing Madison to Silicon Valley or MIT is an unreasonable expectation, Barford says.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur students have significant talent, and there are amazing alumni and people on campus who are coalescing around the idea,\u201d Barford says. \u201cThis could lead to a very fertile environment for entrepreneurs that is uniquely Wisconsin. We want to create an environment that provides a framework for developing business, particularly software, that has not existed on this campus, and frankly has not existed on many other campuses.”<\/p>\n

The “Silicon Valley Badgers,” a group of successful Wisconsin alumni working in the epicenter of the digital world, have agreed to serve as mentors for the class, which also gets support from American Family Insurance and Facebook.<\/p>\n

For Dan Borkus, a senior economics major, Barford’s insights about his startup have been illuminating.\u00a0 \u201cIt was interesting having him walk us through how to get it started, how the team launched a product and eventually was able to exit the business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Long hours, disappointment, and gallons of energy drinks stand between the young entrepreneurs and success, but Barford likes what he’s seen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m very pleased with the response,\u201d he says. \u201cThey are quickly recognizing some of the basic essential elements of starting a company. These are very smart kids, and they are going to pick it up extremely quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul Barford, a UW-Madison professor of computer science, has a proposition, and he’s got five minutes to make it. He’s consciously mimicking the \u201cproduct pitch\u201d that entrepreneurs make before venture capitalists, except his audience is undergraduates in a class on starting a software company. Time is tight, so Barford lunges ahead. \u201cGoogle is earning $40 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":2644,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","institution":[103],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-228","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-madison"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=228"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}