GLIDR by LaunchPad Central

AI Lessons from Lean LaunchPad @ Haas - Customer Segments This week, Haas teams dove into Customer Segments— a critical aspect of startup success. A great idea means nothing if the right customers don’t see its value. Who are they? What do they care about? How do they currently solve their problems? This process isn’t just theoretical. With GLIDR.ai, teams get detailed AI-powered critiques, structured insights, and real-time feedback on their customer discovery efforts. Here’s what one student had to say: “This is truly remarkable—very high quality and helpful! I’m personally frustrated with courses that are living in the past and aren’t built around leveraging the latest tech advances (i.e. 'no AI use allowed on this assignment') to optimize learning. This class is definitely the trailblazer leading the way on that front and should be an example.” This week, we’re spotlighting SMPLER, a team rethinking how AI will impact the real estate market. SMPLER – A Charles Schwab Playbook for Real Estate? The real estate industry is ripe for disruption. SMPLER is tackling inefficiencies that frustrate buyers, sellers, and agents. At its core, SMPLER is applying the lessons of financial services automation. What makes this a compelling case? ? The current brokerage model is broken – Consumers often feel trapped between bad brokers (high fees, poor service) and good brokers (who are expensive and not always efficient). ? A tiered automation approach – SMPLER doesn’t seek to eliminate brokers but rather automate inefficiencies while keeping high-value human expertise and relationship management where it matters most. ? This mirrors prior tech disruptions in other service industries – stock trading, travel, insurance, and legal services.? Why not real estate? The Customer Segment Challenge Identifying who will adopt a new real estate model first is critical. SMPLER has done deep customer persona work to understand: Early adopters – Tech-savvy homebuyers and sellers looking for a smart, lower-cost alternative Skeptics – Buyers and sellers who still see agents as indispensable advisors Industry insiders – Real estate agents themselves, some of whom may see SMPLER as a threat rather than an opportunity AI-Powered Feedback: Strengths & Areas for Growth Each week, in addition to mentor and instructor feedback, teams also get a detailed AI critique of their work: strengths, weaknesses, and recommendations.? The Debate: AI vs. Human Expertise in Real Estate SMPLER’s model raises an important question: Would you trust an AI-powered platform to manage your real estate transaction, or do you still want a human agent? Or some hybrid of the two? Tech-driven automation has already transformed stock trading, legal services, and even healthcare—but real estate remains deeply human-centric. How far should automation go? More Lean LaunchPad updates coming soon! ?? #LeanStartup #AI #Entrepreneurship #BerkeleyHaas #Innovation #Startups #I-Corps

The Future of Startup Learning: AI Meets The Lean LaunchPad at Haas Every great innovation begins with a question: What if startups could learn faster, pivot smarter, and build with greater confidence? Over a decade ago, Steve Blank revolutionized entrepreneurship with the Lean LaunchPad—an experiential way to build startups via rapid iteration and real-world customer engagement. Eric Ries’ Lean Startup emphasized agile development principles and expanded the meaning of “pivot” Alexander Osterwalder Business Model Canvas provided the visual framework for teams to map and refine their business models At University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business, we’re not just teaching these principles—we’re redefining how startups learn. This semester, we’re seeing a transformation in how teams test ideas, gain insights, and make decisions leveraging AI. AI has changed the game. Our 7 teams of 34 grad students from across Berkeley are supported by 12 experienced investors and entrepreneurs: 8 as team mentors and 4 as instructors. The cohort is supported by a purpose-built AI engagement and workflow system, GLIDR.ai, that has supported 25,000+ teams over the past decade. Because experience is meant to be shared. Because technology is meant to be leveraged. Why This Matters Teams de-risk their ideas by embracing the scientific method of trial and error through customer discovery to: Rapidly test their riskiest ideas Learn from the market rather than their intuition But this time, something is different. AI Enables Innovation at 100x AI has elevated "knowledge arbitrage" - the ability to learn from the experiences of others?and accelerated it 100x: 10 times the ideas in 1/10th the time to help see around corners and make smarter, faster moves, challenge assumptions, surface blind spots and guide decisions. The Big Picture This isn’t just about one startup. It’s about something bigger. AI is reshaping how entrepreneurs learn - pushing teams to ask better questions, uncover deeper insights, and iterate with greater precision. And this is just the beginning. Over the coming weeks, I’ll share more stories from our cohort, showcasing how AI is helping turn their ideas into reality faster than ever before. To see AI-driven startup learning in action, read the first comment, highlighting one of our teams, GoalBridge, showing how AI is helping them refine their value proposition, differentiate from competitors, and accelerate their path to product-market fit. ?? Check out the comments below! A huge thanks to our Mentors: Neil Rudolph, Ralph Guggenheim, Lenny Stein, Samantha Fein, Bill Unger, Erik Blachford, Spencer Frank, Susan Morrow, and our Instructors Kim Polese, Michael Chai, and Jerome Engel Special acknowledgment to Errol Arkilic, who partnered with Steve Blank to launch the NSF I-Corps program, and to Kyra Woodward and the www.GLIDR.ai team for making it all happen #LeanStartup #AI #Entrepreneurship #BerkeleyHaas #Innovation #Startups