SEED Builder Innovation Lab: Small Business Start-up

Ready to kickstart your own small biz? Join us in person at the SEED Builder Innovation Lab! This is your chance to dive into the basics of launching a business, and get hands-on tips to make your start-up dream a reality. Bring your passion, questions, and let's build something amazing together!

Info: In this stage, students step into their customers’ shoes to understand what people truly need, want, or struggle with. Through conversations, observations, and simple interviews, they uncover real problems and frustrations. By listening closely and noticing what’s missing in the current market, students identify meaningful gaps — the opportunities where new business ideas can grow.

Info: In this stage, students take everything they learned from exploring customer needs and spotting market gaps, then narrow it down to the most important problem worth solving. They sort through patterns, frustrations, and opportunities to define a clear challenge their business idea will address. By focusing the problem, they set the foundation for strong, creative solutions in the next stage.

Info: In this stage, students unleash their creativity to brainstorm as many solutions as possible to the problem they defined. Using what they learned about customer needs and market gaps, they explore fresh, innovative ideas without judging or limiting themselves. The goal is to think big, think differently, and imagine multiple ways to solve the challenge — then identify the most promising concepts to develop further.

Info: In this stage, students turn their best idea into a simple, hands‑on version of the product or service — a prototype they can show, explain, or demonstrate. It doesn’t have to be perfect; it just needs to make the idea real enough for others to react to.

Info: Students then test their prototype with a community panel, gather honest feedback, and learn what works, what doesn’t, and what needs to be improved. This stage helps them refine their concept so it’s stronger, clearer, and more aligned with real market needs.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher Dinetta Richardson