Do you have an idea for an innovative product, service, or novel approach to a social problem? Would you like to develop your research or technology into products or services that can change the world?

Whether you’re just starting out or already launching a startup, UW’s Discovery to Product (D2P) is your connection to people, programs and resources to turn university research and ideas into impact. D2P programs and services are free and open to UW–Madison faculty, staff, students and employees of affiliate organizations in any school, college or discipline.

The Innovation-to-Market course is intended as an entry point for innovators, seekers of a creative solutions, designers of novel approaches to social problems or makers of impactful products at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

You’ll begin by forming a hypothesis about your business concept. You will then test that hypothesis by interviewing potential users and customers of your product or service. The purpose of this is to identify a “product-market fit.” Simply put, is your proposed product/service addressing a real need or demand? Is the pain point sufficiently large that customers will pay money for your solution? If so, how much? Is it a big enough market for you to bother pursuing? If the answer to any of these questions is “no” you are better off finding out earlier and pivoting to a new value proposition, perhaps changing which customers you will go after or what product features you will incorporate.

Innovation-to-Market is designed to get you thinking along these lines and get you started actually doing some of this customer discovery by getting out there and interviewing potential customers. It is not just a theory-based lecture course. While there is some delivery of content and knowledge sharing, the most important aspect is to gain some experiential learning-by-doing.

The I2M program consists of live classroom sessions and weekly mentor meetings. All D2P programs are free and open to UW–Madison faculty, staff, and students, and employees of UW–Madison affiliate organizations.

Fall 2022 dates: Oct 12 – Dec 7 (Wednesdays, 9 – 11 am)

Eight-week course includes 5 live online classroom sessions (Oct 12, 19, Nov 2, 16, Dec 7) plus weekly mentor check-ins.

Fall applications due: Monday, September 19, 2022, at 9 am