Attention all students! Are you ready to unleash your inner entrepreneur and turn your dreams into reality? STTE’s Unicorn Academy is now accepting registrations for our new entrepreneurship program!

Join us on Saturdays for a series of interactive and fun workshops that will guide you through the fundamentals of starting your own business. And the best part? It’s totally free to join!

Unicorn Academy, is designed to teach students how to turn their ideas into successful startups. Through our program, students will learn about the five stages of Design Thinking, the Lean Business Model Canvas, and marketing in the Metaverse, providing them with the tools and knowledge they need to succeed in the competition and beyond. So whether you have a brilliant business idea or a passion for innovation, Unicorn Academy will provide the tools and resources to bring your ideas to life.

Top student startup projects will have the opportunity to pitch in front of a captive audience of judges at the Dia De Los Muertos Startup Week in November to win cash and prizes.

Take advantage of this incredible opportunity to learn from experienced entrepreneurs and connect with like-minded peers. Sign up now!

Unicorn Academy also features an online platform that engages, educates, and tracks students’ progress. Startosphere.io, the world’s first AI Lean Business Model Canvas generator, takes a startup idea and populates the nine components into a business model canvas. The Startosphere empowers entrepreneurs with a user-friendly interface and AI-driven insights to streamline business planning. It generates a comprehensive canvas, fosters collaboration, and allows iterative refinement.

Entrepreneurship Education Enters the Metaverse

Educators & Schools

If you would like to purchase books in bulk, please email us to get a quote.

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Unicorn Academy, the first-ever augmented reality (AR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) education program focused on advancing entrepreneurship.

Unicorn Academy is geared toward students grades 8-12 who are curious about entrepreneurship and want to develop the fundamental skills needed to launch their own businesses. Currently offered in English and Spanish and accessible from anywhere, the course is led by a virtual teacher who guides students on the impact of starting a business utilizing augmented reality.

Launched from a physical textbook, Unicorn Academy includes supplemental AR coursework that immerses students in design thinking and business model canvases from leading brands such as Tesla, Nike, Instagram, and TikTok. Students can also use the Startosphere to take any idea into the Lean Business Model Canvas powered by AI. Throughout the program, students will learn to create human-centered solutions in AR through a variety of assignments, and ultimately have the opportunity to develop their own AR-based businesses and accompanying marketing content.

There are several key advantages to Unicorn Academy’s book experience. First, personal information protection is essential in the K12 education sector. Therefore, readers need not provide any information to access the education experience. Additionally, the book has no walled gardens and is a fully “web-based interface,” which provides a frictionless user experience, eliminating the barrier to downloading an app to experience learning. Lastly, statistics confirm students remember 90% of the material if it is learned through experience. Thus, readers are introduced to a hologram teacher with the option to select English and Spanish as their preferred languages.

0 %

of material is remembered if learned through experience.

While public schools have effective models for nurturing academic development, there is currently a gap when it comes to teaching entrepreneurship. Consequently, today’s youth do not self-identify as entrepreneurs and are thus less likely to pursue business ownership. NMSU’s Hunt Center for Entrepreneurship at Arrowhead understands technology is a powerful tool to educate future generations of entrepreneurs.

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"We are excited about offering cutting-edge technology by Geenee AR to help us push innovation when building future educational experiences. With the commercial release of smart glasses on the horizon, how we consume information and learn will dramatically change. A phygital textbook is one clear way to impact the future."

Joseph Sapien, STTE Executive Director Tweet

Lets Look At Some Business Model Canvas Examples

This will help you start to think about what it takes to create yours.

The Nine Blocks of Lean Business

The business model is like a blueprint for a strategy to be implemented through organizational structures, processes, and systems. The 9 blocks cover the 4 main areas of a business: Customers, Offer, Infrastructure andFinancial viability.

Squad

Who experiences the problem you are solving? And how do you sell your solution to them?

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Who would be your target “audience”? Who is going to buy a solution to the problem you are solving? Take into account metrics like demographics. They can be a business, customer, or audience.

Can sell the solution:

Person to person
Business to business
Enterprise

Customer Segment answers questions like:

Who are we solving the problem for?
Who are the people that will find value in my company (value proposition).
What are the characteristics of the people who are looking for my value proposition?
What is the market size?

The best way to understand Customer Segment is to create a customer persona for each of the customer segments.

In order to better satisfy customers, a company may group them into distinct segments with common needs, common behaviors, or other attributes.

A business model may define one or several large or small Customer Segments.

Customer groups represent different segments if:

Their needs require and justify a distinct offer
They are reached through different Distribution Channels
They require different types of relationships
They have substantially different profitabilities

An organization must decide which segments to serve and which to ignore.

Once this decision is made, a business model can be carefully designed around a strong understanding of specific customer needs.

Prob

What PROBLEM are you solving in your community that has an impact in the world?

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A business is a solution that emerges when an entrepreneur is trying to solve a problem. When thinking about your business, you should define the problem first and establish your business as the solution to that problem. What problem are you solving in your community that has an impact in the world.

Problem answers questions like:

What problem am I trying to solve?
Why would someone want to have this problem solved? Why would they come to you?
What is the underlying motivator for this problem?

Fire

Based on your squads prob come up with your top three features to test your MVP.

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Solution is addressing the problem. The fire at this point is just an untested hypothesis.

Three step process:

Features: come up with the top three features that the solution addresses.
Squad: once you know your squad, interview them to validate your fire
Solution: after squad interviews, come up with your startup minimum viable product or service.

Influencers

INFLUENCERS are creative ways you engage with your SQUAD. Channels can be email, social, ads, blogs, articles, trade shows, radio, TV, webinars.

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The Channels Building Block describes how a company communicates with and reaches its Customer Segments to deliver a Value Proposition.

Communication, distribution, and sales Channels comprise a company’s interface with customers
Channels serve several functions, including:
- Raising awareness among customers about a company’s products and services
- Helping customers evaluate a company’s Value Proposition
- Allowing customers to purchase specific products and services
- Delivering a Value Proposition to customers
- Providing post-purchase customer support
Channels have 5 distinct phases. Each channel can cover some or all of these phases. We can distinguish between direct Channels and indirect ones, as well as between owned Channels and partner Channels.

Drip

Your DRIP is a clear description on why your business is 🔥. What makes your business 😎 unique so that squads want to buy 💸 from you and no one else.

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Value proposition is a fundamental concept in which there is an exchange of value between the business and customer. The value proposition is why your business is fire. What makes your business so unique that squads want to buy it from you and no one else?

The Value Proposition is the reason why customers turn to one company versus another (It solves a customer problem or satisfies a customer need)
Each Value Proposition consists of a selected bundle of products and/or services that caters to the requirements of a specific Customer Segment
Values may be quantitative (e.g. price, speed of service) or qualitative (e.g. design, customer experience)
Elements that can contribute to Value Proposition include:
- Newness
- Performance
- Customization
- Assurance/Guarantee: Ability to “Get the job done”
- Design
- Brand/Status
- Price
- Cost Reduction
- Risk Reduction
- Accessibility: Making services accessible to a Customer Segment that previously did not have access
- Convenience

Value proposition answers questions like:

What makes your business valuable and will help it gain clout?
What makes your business so unique that your customers will want to buy it from you and no one else?
How does your product solve customers’ problems?
Who is your squad selling too?
Why should squads buy from you and not from competitors?
What makes your offering unique and different?

Grades

GRADES are what you measure to determine if your business is making progress. You can apply GRADES to: INFLUENCERS, SQUAD & BREAD .

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Bread

BREAD is the amount of money your startup receives from selling a product or service.

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Revenue Streams are the ways that the value proposition is turned into financial gain. In other words, is the amount of money your startup receives from selling a particular product or service.

A business model can involve two different types of Revenue Streams:
- 1. Transaction revenues resulting from one-time customer payments
- 2. Recurring revenues resulting from ongoing payments to either deliver a Value Proposition to customers or provide post-purchase customer support
There are several ways to generate Revenue Streams:
- Asset sale: Selling ownership to physical product
- Usage fee: The more a service is used, the more a customer pays
- Subscription fees: Fee for continuous access of service
- Lending/Renting/Leasing: Temporarily granting exclusive usage for a fee
- Licensing: Permission to use intellectual property for licensing fee
- Brokerage fees: Derived from intermediation service on behalf of 2 or more parties (i.e. Credit card companies, real estate agents, etc)
- Advertising Fees for advertising

Gross profit margin is an important GRADE to assess a company’s financial health by calculating the amount of money left over from sales after subtracting the costs.

Broke

BROKE equals costs. What items in your startup do you have to pay for one time and reoccurring?

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The Cost Structure describes all costs incurred to operate a business model.

Cost Structure describes the most important costs incurred while operating under a particular business model.
Creating and delivering value, maintaining Customer Relationships, and generating revenue all incur costs.
Such costs can be calculated relatively easily after defining Key Resources, Key Activities, and Key Partnerships.
Two broad classes of Cost Structure:
- Cost-driven: Minimizing costs whenever possible
- Value-driven: Less concerned with cost; more emphasis on service
Cost Structures can have the following characteristics:
- Fixed costs: Costs remain same regardless of volume (i.e. salaries)
- Variable costs: Costs that vary with volume
- Economies of scale: Cost decreases as output expands
- Economies of scope: Cost decreases as company obtains larger scope of operations