Sprint Content

WELCOME

This will be an action-packed six weeks, designed for you to engage actively with the course (sprint) material and put your learnings into practice. The sprint moves quickly, so we’ve outlined all the information you need to make the most out of the next six weeks and beyond. First things first, watch Professor Kubicki’s video below introducing the Building Blocks sprint. Read on for a quick overview of the Sprint Studio (this site) and materials.

How do I access the materials for the sprint?

Check out the accordion sections below for sprint materials and important links.

How do I navigate this site?

Over the six weeks, you’ll complete six modules that include short videos, reading materials, and reflection questions or worksheets.

• Each module will be released on a specific day. Once the module is available, you’ll be able to play the videos and dig into the reading materials.
• To stay on track, you should watch each module within 48 hours of its release.
• With each video you’ll find reflections questions designed to help you apply the lessons. You will also get assignments that will be due in the following class.
• Head over to Slck to discuss your takeaways and learnings with your peers! Likely you will think of new ideas and or angles on your work by sharing, listening and interacting with each other.

What happens in Slack?

Students who get the most out of classes are those who engage and participate with the community, and this happens in Slack, as well in our class. New to Slack? It is an app that we recommend you download on your phone and desktop. Watch this Slack intro video to get acquainted.

We realize that you likely have many apps and methods to communicate with various groups and connections. Using Slack helps us create a more dynamic learning environment for you rather than only relying on in class participation. You will be sent an invitation to join our Slack community for this sprint.

Check out the Community Guidelines on how to interact with this awesome group of students throughout the sprint experience. If you have any questions or comments, reach out to Professor Kubicki directly at jkubicki@richmond.edu.

IMPORTANT MATERIAL & LINKS

MATERIALS

All materials for the sprint are included below. I keep a handful of documents editable, so you can customize them as you work through the content and create your entreprenurial roadmap.

General Class/Sprint Information

• Syllabus
• Slack Workspace
• Sprint Workbook
• Community Guidelines

Module 1

Modern lawyers are faced with more choices, challenges, and opportunities in building their legal businesses and practices. This requires more than a cursory appreciation for what a succesful business requires - it demands a toolkit, mindset, and an intentiaion that leads the lawyer on the entreprenurial journey. Meanwhile, the digital economy is training all of us to crave seamless experiences across all the analog, tech, and human touchpoints that businesses use to attract us, sell to us, deliver to us, and retain us.

Module 2 - Where to Play

If you are ambitious enough to start and run your own legal business, you should invest in de-risking your business - your life - as best you can. You want to thrive, not merely survive. This means doing some critical work before you even open your doors.

Many people who are new to entrepreneurship want to focus only on tactical work such as what technology to use, where to lease space, what a logo should look like, etc.. While this is important, it is also seductive in that when you do this work, you see the results right away – a new shiny laptop or a cool website. Don’t confuse this work with being the only work you need to do.

Just because you have an office, website, and business card does not mean customers will flock to you – or even find you. You must be intentional about how you find and create your customers. Compared to the tactical work above, this demands thinking work .

This work can feel abstract to the beginner, but any seasoned and successful entrepreneur will tell you it is the most important!

Module 3 - How to Win

Some businesses have more than just a competitive advantage in how they interact with their customers; they have unwavering loyalty. How do they do it? They know how to create, manage, and deliver on their customer’s expectations. Even being unafraid to raise customer expectations.

Understanding customer expectations is a prerequisite for delivering superior service. We know that customers compare perceptions with expectations. We are all customers of businesses. We do this ourselves all the time. For businesses that perform well on our expectations, our experience with them is positive, even addicting (not always good).

Here we breakdown two key practices that entrepreneurs use to gain meaningful insight into their business and their customers. They do this so they learn how to differentiate and create a competitive advantage. Ignoring this likely results in competing on price only.

Watch the videos below then head over to your Building Block Sprint Workbook for Module 3 content and tools.

Module 4 - What to Play With

You could be forgiven to consider all that has been covered so far as being academic or theoretical. While it certainly is not, this module should immediately dispell you of that belief. This is where you match what you want to do (strategy) with what you can do (resources).

There is no faster route to business failure than not matching your strategy with your capabilities. You will end up either being unable to execute your strategy or spending way too much money and time to do so. Either way you lose. You lose profit. You lose time. You lose opportunity.

The good news is that there is a powerful method and tool specifically designed to help you make sure your strategy and capabilities are aligned. And it has the added benefit of helping you uncover areas of improvement, correction, or even innovation.

Watch the videos below then head over to your Building Block Sprint Workbook for Module 4 content and tools.

Module 5 - How to Keep Score

This module was based on classroom discussion, exercises and the Module 5 section in the digital workbook.

Module 6 - Your Game Plan

Congratulations! You have accomplished some of the most important work that truly succesful business believe in and practice themselves. Don't stop now.

Now we bring everything together. All the prior work fits together neatly into your business model. The reason you want to get organized and see how everything fits is becuase it help keep you focused and firmly entrenched in what you need to work on and where you might want to make changes. But in truth, the most important reason you want to organize all your work into a seamless framework is that you will need to begin pitching your business. Pitching is selling. It is convincing. It is creating a reason to belive in you! It is soo easy to pitch horribly. The good news is that it is soo easy to do it wonderfully. You just to pull on some threads, find a good story, and practice - practice - practice.

Watch the videos below then head over to your Building Block Sprint Workbook for Module 6 content and tools.