Fran Romano
Designer and Engineer
I&E 352: Strategies for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
I&E 352 is the keystone of the certificate program. The course, taught by Kathie Amato, dives into a variety of business case studies where students put themselves in the shoes of the entrepreneur and brainstorm a solution in the face of adversity. The course also covers financial statements, company valuation, and business plans. Outside of coursework, groups of students were pared a mentor and met with the person to gain perspective and advice on innovation and entrepreneurship.
Final Reflection
My I&E352 experience started during the Spring semester of 2020 (online). I went to the first day of class where I was immediately intrigued by the content and heard that the second class was going to be about financial statements. During the time period between the first and second class, I had to drop the course because I couldn’t fit it into my schedule. This was a huge disappointment to me, so I emailed Kathie and asked her if I could sit in on Bill Mayew’s guest lecture. She granted me permission and after sitting in on that class I knew I had to take the course as soon as I could.
The original reason for taking the course was simply my interest in the subject matter - innovation and entrepreneurship, but more specifically learning about financial statements, company valuation, cash flow statements, and marketing analysis. Throughout my Duke career I felt as though I was developing my technical skills to build a product, but lacked the financial knowledge needed to start a venture. I had taken several I&E courses until finally reaching this one, which finally taught me the information I was looking for.
In looking back at our discussion on innovation and problem solving, one reading stood out to me. This was Know Your Customers’ “Jobs to be Done” which was highlighted by the t-shirt example from class. I remember the volunteers were asked why they had bought the shirt they were wearing that day. They initially respond with the features of the product that were beneficial, like softness or color, but when diving deeper you find there is a more fundamental reason for why they bought the shirt. There was a feeling deeply intertwined with their identity that pushed them to buy it. In this scenario, the job to be done was representation of one’s self image.
The jobs to be done goes further than that and taught me that “circumstances are more important than customer characteristics, products attributes, new technologies, or trends.” This resonated with me because I'm constantly thinking of new product ideas. Whether its an iPhone controlled electric skateboard or an app-controlled plant monitor I think about product attributes and new technologies all the time. This course has taught me that cool products only take you so far; there needs to be a job to be done, in other words, a problem to be solved. I think the Segway is a great example of this. The technology behind the Segway is fascinating but at the end of the day, there was no real job to be done.
I’ve also learned that validating that customer needs are met is essential when developing a venture. This can be done through market research, but through our mini-town simulation we learned that this is best learned through testing. Specially, testing a minimum viable product. This makes me think of Rent the Runway and how their team was able to test their idea in small groups to validate their approach. They learned that their job to be done was more than just providing a cheap designer dress, it was about making women feel empowered and special.
Throughout the course I also learned the importance of advocating for oneself. My team reached a point where two member’s felt as though they constantly had to carry the weight of all three. For me, this was no different from various other groups I’ve been in since high school and I'm sure other Duke students have felt the same way. I was personally willing to continue this trend throughout the semester, but my partner drew the line. She advocated for us and brought the situation up with Kathie. I am very glad she did so because things did improve from then on. More than anything, it taught me that it is okay to address these things. It’s very easy to just deal with it and do the extra work, but in the long run it’s damaging. This is especially true when everyone gets equal credit. This experience will be valuable as I enter the workforce and in various team environments. People should be held accountable and I shouldn’t be afraid to do so.
In the same vein of accountability, I have had various ethical discussions throughout my courses this semester. I learned about the Engineering Code of Ethics and how it plays a role in daily engineering work. From these discussions, I found that ethical culture in the context of I&E should have public safety at the forefront of decisions. This holds true for many areas of I&E, especially those of emerging technologies like AI and autonomous vehicles. One major takeaway I got was that ethics many times are based in culture and perception. We saw this in our discussion of Envirofit and their mission to sell cookstoves to developing communities in rural India in order to combat exposure to indoor air pollution. Most students in our class believed that this company was trying to solve a problem, but those with a closer perspective from a developing nation saw it as exploitation. Personally, I can see both sides, but I err more on the side portrayed by Monsignor Ivan Illich’s speech “To Hell with Good Intentions”. I think that cultural context is extremely important and selling something to a community you are considered an outsider of can quickly become problematic.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this course. I learned more about myself and finally found the quantitative analysis I was looking for in a business/venture context. There are certain things that I will never forget about because of mistakes I made on the tests we had. I really appreciated the support I received from Kathie in reviewing this material and gaining the confidence to carry it out in the future. Growing up I got some really good advice from my dad. He said something along the lines of - learning different subjects is essentially learning different languages. When you learn engineering you learn the language of engineers, or in public policy you learn the language of policy makers. One of my goals for my Duke career was to learn the language of business and entrepreneurship. This course was a great intro into learning this language and has exposed me to several concepts I had never seen before. It has furthered my interest in the subject and I look forward to continuing to learn the language. Perhaps one day I’ll finally be able to speak it.
Mentor Reflection (Group Setting)
Ginger, Joel, and I spoke with Grant Kelly, a global supply manager at Apple about his experience and got some advice on product design, setting professional goals, and a look into his career path. In reflecting on our conversation, Grant had an inspiring story. He spoke personally about his early education dealing with dyslexia and struggling to learn things that came naturally to others. He told us about his relentless work ethic to “rewire” his brain to the point where it could understand things. He felt as though this work off had culminated in him being one of the leading global experts in supply chain management for LCD touch screens; he used this story to emphasize that if he can do it, anyone can. He enjoyed saying, “I’m just Grant, from Apple,” as a way of grounding his accomplishments - which I appreciated because usually I feel like people at FAANG companies would have a sense of arrogance.
​
Grant spoke of his interest in music and the creative world in general. He told us that he was very much into music production during his first years as a Duke student. Apparently he worked for Justin Bieber’s producer as an intern during one summer and was able to do things at Ludacris's studio. I thought it was funny how casual he was about this story. Grant reflected on his desire to express his creativity and how it related to his work. He talked about how he loved that his job was a hybrid of creative people and technical people. I really resonated with this. I think the beauty of product design is merging art and design with engineering intent and functionality. Grant had a moment of wishing that he was in a purely creative space, but retracted his statement and truly valued the technical skills he’s learned and those of the people around him.
​
I really enjoyed hearing about Apple's mission and how it plays into the product they make. Grant explained that the company is very consumer centric and always considers what is best for the user and user experience. This is obviously true with the caliber of products and experiences that Apple has been able to produce. I was curious if the spirit of Steve Job’s remained within the company and Grant said yes - you see it in the way people design products and keep the user at the forefront. Apple truly revolutionized this concept and you can see it in the way they made things beautiful. From fonts and layout to physical feel and software, Apple is the epitome of product design.
​
This was interesting when we started talking about price point. I am personally interested in building things that take into account design for manufacturing and assembly practices. I asked Grant if at Apple they chose a price point and then the engineers design a product that hits that price point or if the engineers design a product and the price is just whatever the product actually costs. Grant said it was the latter. At Apple they want to put the best materials and technology into their product and don't factor in cost. This is why Apple products tend to be more expensive, but at the end of the day they are using quality material. I have a friend working at Apple now and he confirmed this notion. He told me about a material that Apple tried to source practices from other industries, but they simply did not meet the Apple standard - so Apple did everything from scratch, in-house in order to do it right.
​
Grant was extremely encouraging and hopeful of our future. He repeatedly relayed to us that everything works out in the end and to not worry about career things. He said that as long as we work hard and put ourselves out there, opportunities will arise and we will find things we like. I have the same philosophy and it's what I live by everyday. What was relevant for me was in choosing career goals. Someone asked me the other day if in the future i'd rather work for company x or company y. I thought about it for a bit, and I answered that what really mattered was the work I'd be doing. Grant confirmed this notion for me and said that what matters most is the work you do and the people you do it with. I plan on holding this advice close to heart, especially as I reach a point where I need to make these kinds of decisions.
Mentor Reflection (Individual Setting)
​
I spoke one-on-one with Grant Kelly for a follow up to our first call. Grant is a global supply manager at Apple and we talked about his experience in the Bay Area, Apple as a company, and I received advice on personal development.
​
I am moving to Fremont, California in early May to work at Tesla and so I wanted to hear about Grant’s experience in the Bay Area. He had nothing but positive things to say which was great to hear. He talked about how nice it was to have such beautiful natural scenery at a short-road-trip distance. He recommended going up to Lake Tahoe or Yosemite National park while I was there. Grant also mentioned that a lot of Duke alumni live in the Bay Area and that some of his closest friends there went to Duke. For me, that’s really exciting to hear especially because everyone talks about how hard the first year after college is. Perhaps I’ll move out there one day so it’s exciting to know that I’ll already have some connection to people there.
​
The second thing we talked about was Apple as a company. I’m really interested in the big company vs. little start-up dynamic. Grant explained to me that Apple has a very clear and structured hierarchy which has its pros and cons. One con he talked about was the pressure derived from the opinions of executives. He talked about how any meeting that had an executive in attendance automatically became significantly more intense. He said that the person running the meeting would deem the success of the meeting solely on the opinion of the executive. This seemed to bother Grant quite a bit, especially because of his personal experience in witnessing the stress some of these employees get put under. In my opinion this is really unfortunate. I understand the purpose of executive and their benefit, but the teams that are presenting to them are full of very smart people whose opinions should not be disregarded because of their title.
​
We also talked about the scale Apple operates at. Grant’s work directly affects the global supply chain which is frankly a pretty big deal. He likes that Apple seeks to hire great teachers above all else and has access to a large talent pool. This was nice to hear because I think that I may want to work at Apple one day and I find on the job learning to be important. I recently had a call with my mentor from Tesla and he told me that he loves teaching people which was probably the best news I could have heard.
​
I asked Grant how he defines personal success and we dove into a terrific conversation about the subject. Grant said that he started with a mentality similar to my own - success is building your own successful company from the ground up. But he started to pivot away from that and more towards personal happiness and work life balance. I think he’s right, but I don’t think I’m all the way there yet. He talked about the importance of a career and valuable work, but said there’s a lot more to life than working. I thought about this a lot while at my last internship. I saw people working very long hours for seven days a week and I kept trying to figure out what motivates someone to do that. The conclusion that I reached was that these people love their work so much that it has essentially become their life’s work. I don’t think I could sustain that lifestyle personally, but that was the conclusion I came to for these people and I respect it.
​
The last thing we talked about was to be tough, but stay respectful. Grant talked about how Steve Jobs set up the company in this way and has proven to push the organization to reach the best solution. I’m getting ready to dive into the tech/engineering world and this mentality is super important. It drives you to think critically about your design decisions and be able to defend those decisions. The respect portion of this framework is also very important and I am excited to develop myself into someone who can do these things effectively.