Sonali Lamba
Sonali Lamba is an entrepreneur, executive coach and Adjunct Lecturer in Entrepreneurship. Her course, New Venture Development, has been structured as a start-up studio. In the course, she guides student founders and their teams as they test their riskiest assumptions, pressure-test their value propositions with real customers, launch prototypes, and make an honest go/no-go decision on their ventures.
Through her executive coaching practice, Sonali partners with CEOs, founders, and senior leaders, from early-stage startups to mid-market companies, helping them grow into who they need to become as their companies scale and their ambitions evolve.
Sonali came to coaching after years as an operator and founder. She co-founded Brideside, a venture-backed, national bridal retailer she incubated as a Kellogg student, and served as its COO. She later became Executive Director of The Soil Inventory Project (TSIP), a climate-tech organization measuring soil carbon across U.S. agriculture to help farmers adopt climate-friendly practices. There she helped raise more than $25 million in federal grants and private funding, and oversaw hardware and software development.
Sonali is also a member of the executive coaching team for Kellogg’s Zell Fellows Program.
Sonali received her MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management ('12) and her AB from Duke University.
New Venture Development (ENTR-464-0)
New Venture Development is the logical continuation of New Venture Discovery (ENTR 462). Students that have completed initial testing and market research and have determined that there appears to be a product-market fit for a customer base of a significant size, can apply to this course. This course is focused on testing and validating product-market fit, user interfaces and experience and advancing to the development of a refined MVP concept. There is an emphasis on using digital tools to test customer acquisition and messaging.
Teams are not expected to have programmers at this point in time as the focus is on using a variety of free ware to test the product/service. A significant portion of the workload for this course will occur outside of the classroom. Students must be prepared to engage with potential customers and industry experts. Within the classroom, students will be encouraged to share learning experiences and help other student teams. The course work will be supplemented by guest speakers who are experts in specific industries as well as functional areas and a pool of alumni and local mentors who can assist in the development of their businesses.
New Venture Development will be offered in the winter and spring quarters. Upon the completion of New Venture Development, student teams and faculty will determine whether a team should move to New Venture Launch. Other courses that are beneficial to take in advance of this course are: MKTG 961: Entrepreneurial Tools for Digital Marketing and MORS 952: Building Innovation, Teams, and Cultures. Admittance to New Venture Development is by application only. The application is available here. If a student wants to by-pass ENTR 462, they must identify that they are well versed in the process of design thinking and have already conducted significant market research to validate their business concept.
