DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE

University of Toronto

CSC454/2527S: The Business of Software

January-April 2003

Assignment A: Ideas

Handed Out: 6 January 2003, 6 p.m.

Due In: 13 January 2003, 8 a.m.

Marks: 1%

Each individual will submit to the class listserv a single submission containing one or two new venture ideas, each described in a single short paragraph.

Each submission should also include:

• your name, phone number, and email address to facilitate team formation

• a list of useful skills or background, e.g., work in a particular industry, commerce courses taken, expertise in a field other than computer science or commerce

THE TITLE OF EACH LISTSERV SUBMISSION SHOULD DENOTE THE IDEA(S), and not your name or Assignment A.

The following hints may be useful in thinking up these ideas:

• Think about Drucker's Sources of Innovative Opportunity

• Think about new hardware and software paradigms

• Think about what you know well, other than programming. See if there is a way to leverage your knowledge.

• Think about who you know well. Think if there is some way you can leverage your connections to advantage.

• Think about something you have done that you are proud of, for example, a CSC318 project. See if your project could form the basis of a business idea.

• Think about the last few times you were frustrated, and said… "if only…" See if removing the source of the frustration could form the basis of a business idea.

• Put all the ideas you have on the board. See if you can turn an idea around to form a better idea. See if there are connections linking them that improve them.

• Ask all your friends for an idea.

• If all else fails, hand in your contact information and a description of your skills and background and hope that a team with ideas needs another member.

In your next assignment, due one week after this one, you will band together into teams of 5, pick one (or at most two) of your collective ideas, or a new one that you devise, and describe it in a single page or two. This idea should then be the basis for your business plan that you will develop over the semester.