I-Corps Application Tips

Written By Nick Glavan

UARF is preparing for the first I-Corps cohort of the year. While the application is quite short, there are a few pivotal items that we look for in a stellar applicant. For this week’s blog, I wanted to highlight three ways applicants can stand out and show us that they are ready for the 7-week customer discovery program.
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Tell Us How You Are Different
This is the #1 criteria that we screen for when reviewing the applications. I-Corps is all about interviewing potential customers about their unique wants, needs and desires to fix a problem in their life. The key word is unique. I-Corps is built on the assumption that the participants are investigating a differentiated product or service. If we can google the keywords of your business and find 10 other providers, it’s probably not unique enough yet. There needs to be at least one aspect of your business idea that is focused on a specific need that other businesses aren’t addressing. That sounds like a tall order, but there are infinite ways that it can be done.
Our I-Corps reviewers aren’t likely to think a general skincare line, or a laundromat are different from others already in the market. However, these ideas can be differentiated. Maybe the skincare line is aimed at teenage males, who are typically not considered in the traditional market. Or perhaps this laundromat offers text notifications when each wash cycle is complete so you can run an errand in between switching loads. These little twists to the standard business models make the idea more innovative, offering a solution to a specific problem or something that competitors haven’t offered before.
To highlight how different your idea is, you’ll still want to tell us about the competitors you compare yourself to. Be sure to explain who is serving your market today and why their product or service isn’t as good as yours.

Describe Who Benefits From Your Solution
Sometimes, it *feels* like everyone might want to buy a product or service, but as a small business, you can’t reach everyone in the world. Narrowing down to a more specific type of person helps you illustrate the problem you are solving and why it has real value. Think deeply about your customer: What problem do they have that they desperately want fixed? What characteristics (jobs, hobbies, location or family situation) make them more likely to have this problem? Why can’t they use some other work-around solution? Describe your customer archetype as best as you can guess it. And tell us why you think this group of people will want to be your first purchasing customers. 
The more specific you are in describing that group of early customers, the easier it will be to find and interview your customers in the I-Corps program. Those who have participated in I-Corps in the past will tell you, it’s better to narrow in a specific type of customer so that you determine if their problem-situation is motivating them to need a solution ASAP. Don’t think about it as limiting your customer horizons, but rather focusing in on what makes your solution just right for your specific customer.

Share Your Motivations
Finally, we need applicants who are motivated to put in the work and learn. We are looking for participants who answer application questions fully by providing explanations of their thought process, not just quick 5-word responses. We want applicants that are motivated to improve their business, even if that means changing their idea to better fit the needs of the customer. Applicants should be ready to listen to critical feedback and adapt their solutions as they learn about their customers’ needs. 
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You may have seen our poll in a recent newsletter about who should perform customer interviews. Personally, I feel the founders and the startup employees are the best people to complete customer discovery. Customer discovery is an integral skillset to learn in order to validate your business and make your way towards sales and revenue. Additionally, insiders of your business(including you!) will have the best background for interpreting and asking the right follow-up questions within an interview to gain maximal insights. Trying to bring in a student volunteer or marketing agency and get them up to speed on the intricacies of your unique value that solves a customer’s unique problem can be really hard to do. But if a founder can dedicate their time over the 7-week I-Corps program to really getting involved in their own customer discovery, they will gain insights and a skillset that will be well worth the time they put in.


We are excited for the next batch of entrepreneurs to join us in this upcoming I-Corps cohort, and to see how far their business concepts can progress by utilizing customer discovery. I hope the tips from this week’s blog can help you put your best foot forward in your application, and that we’ll be working together soon in I-Corps!
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