Team Formation
We are inviting the entire Stanford community to participate in Hacking 4 Recovery – including undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, staff, DCI Fellows and Stanford alumni, too. Stanford Summer Session students taking at least one Summer Session course (3 units minimum) may also apply.
** If you are interested in mentoring a team or providing technical advice to a team, please email us and let us know on which topics or you are best suited to advise, your position, LinkedIn profile, and contact information.
Yes, teams can apply with any type of problem or concept to explore, including Health, Travel and Hospitality, Food Service, Entertainment, Education, Small Business Recovery and more. No cannabis, alcohol, tobacco, gambling or gun-related startup ideas accepted.
There have been exceptions where teams had 3 or 5 team members, however we recommend that you assemble a team of 4 team members. If you face any issues finding a team to join or team members for your team, please contact our TAs.
No. The entire Stanford community is invited to participate in Hacking 4 Recovery – including Stanford alumni, undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, staff, DCI Fellows and Stanford Summer Session students, too.
We will strive to accept all teams on a rolling admissions basis, subject to availability, so please apply early. The application process will be covered in more detail at the scheduled information sessions and team formation mixers. Please attend these events for advice on how to form a team and join the class.
If you apply as an individual, there will be ample opportunity for you to meet other individual applicants at online info sessions and team mixers. We strongly recommend that you find other team members during these events, and individuals who cannot find a team to join will be assigned to a team at the start of class.
Make sure to sign up for information sessions and team formation mixers. Add your name or your team to the Team Formation Sheet to find a team or to find teammates.
Intellectual Property
If you’re working with a Stanford related-technology (i.e. either research from one of the team members or University IP), you must check with the Office of Technology Licensing to understand Stanford ownership rights in any resulting IP.
- You own what Intellectual Property (patents, hardware, algorithms, etc.) you brought to class with you. No one (other than Stanford) has claim to anything you brought to class.
- You all own any intellectual property developed for the class (such as code for a web-based project) developed during class. You are agreeing to open-source your class developed assets.
- You and your team members need to disclose to each other what IP/Licensing rights any company you’ve worked at may have regarding inventions you make at school.
- If any of you decide to start a company based on the class, you own only what was written and completed in the class. You have no claim for work done before or after the class session.
- If a subset of the team decides to start a company they do NOT “owe” anything to any other team members for work done in and during the class. All team members are free to start the same company, without permission of the others. (We would hope that a modicum of common sense and fairness would apply.)
- By taking this class you have agreed to these terms with your team. You may decide to modify these terms before the class by having all team members agree in writing before the team is accepted in the class.
This is more than likely the wrong class to take. Your team owns everything done in class. Discuss Intellectual Property rights with your team from the beginning. If you can’t come to agreement with the team, join another team, pick another project, or drop the class. Remember anything you do and learn in the class is public.
If you plan to pursue your idea after class, we suggest using a fake or alternate name for your company during the class in order to avoid your class work showing up later during online searches.
NO. This is an open class. There are no non-disclosures. All your presentations and Customer Discovery and Validation notes, business model canvas, blogs and slides can, and most likely will, be made public. Keep in mind that successful companies are less about the original idea and more about the learning, discovery and execution. (That’s the purpose of this class.) Therefore you must be prepared to share your ideas openly with the class. It is a forum for you to “bounce” your ideas off your peers.
Don’t take this class. This class is not an incubator. At times you will learn by seeing how previous classes solved the same class of problem by looking at their slides, notes and blogs.
Your slides, notes and findings will be publicly shared.
If you are still concerned about your Intellectual Property, please email us and we’ll help you make a decision.
Resources Available
The teaching team consists of professors, experienced business professionals, and multiple teaching assistants. Your team may be assigned a mentor who has volunteered to help with the class and your team because they love hard problems, love startups and appreciate the importance of addressing the recovery. Their job is to guide your team as you “get out of the building.”
You first stop is our TA’s. Email our TAs immediately if you have a problem. Your instructors will also have office hours during the class.
By all means, do so. Good entrepreneurs seek all the help they can get from friends, classmates, colleagues, and sometimes even competitors. Look around the class to find engineering, marketing, and other expertise and ask if they’ll spend some time with you and/or your team.
Team Dynamics
Traditionally, each team member is part of the “customer development team.” You have to figure out how to allocate the work.
Prepare to work through difficult issues. If the situation continues, please contact the teaching team. Do not wait until the end of class to raise the issue.