IDEA RODEO // Startup Ace Kit [UPCOMING]

2025

January 2025 update — Startup Ace becomes IdeaRodeo

Take a look at the first concept, tested with couple student groups in university: Loom Video

The concept

Some of the initial sketches for the learning product dashboard.

Throughout my tenure as an entrepreneurship educator, I observed a recurring pattern that ultimately led me to start the development of Startup Ace. I noticed that students consistently demonstrated remarkable creativity and drive in their business ideation at first, yet struggled to transform their concepts and drive into structured, viable ventures over time.

The pivotal moment came during a particularly intense startup workshop series in Fall 2024, where I was mentoring over 30 student teams simultaneously. Despite having access to traditional business planning tools and lean startup methodologies, students were overwhelmed by the complexity of existing frameworks and often missed critical validation steps in their enthusiasm to move forward. We kept bumping into the same issues over and over and over again. The existing tools, while comprehensive, were not designed with the unique learning curve of student entrepreneurs in mind, just starting out and making their first steps.

This observation catalyzed a user research initiative, during which I documented the specific challenges faced by student entrepreneurs. Through interviews with 20+ student founders, faculty members, several initial key insights emerged:

  1. Students required a more intuitive, educational approach to business validation
  2. Traditional business planning tools lacked the iterative feedback loops essential for learning, which is slightly different ideation process compared to a ‘normal’ business building.
  3. The gap between theoretical frameworks and practical application is especially pronounced in academic settings.

Startup Ace emerged as a direct response to these challenges, combining the rigor of the Lean Canvas methodology with an educational architecture specifically designed for student entrepreneurs. The platform integrates mentoring capabilities with a progressive learning system, allowing students to build their business models while receiving structured guidance at each critical decision point.

The platform’s development has been guided by two core principles: maintaining academic rigor while ensuring accessibility, and fostering a balance between structured learning and creative exploration.

Planned pilot iteration launch: Spring 2025. Interested in using that in your own classroom? Email me: tomsiu@faculty.ism.lt.

More Projects in random order