Saral Shiksha Yojna
Courses/Technology Product Entrepreneurship

Technology Product Entrepreneurship

CS9.424
Ramesh Loganathan + Prakash Yalla•Monsoon 2025-26•4 credits
Sample Papers/TPE Mock End-Sem Paper 5 (200-mark extended format)

TPE Mock End-Sem Paper 5 (200-mark extended format)

Duration: 240 min • Max marks: 200

Part 1 — Foundations & Phase 1 (8 × 5 = 40 marks)

40 marks
  1. 1.State Steve Blank's definition of a startup. Identify and define the three pillars of Startup DNA. Explain why dropping any one yields a different kind of organisation.5 m
  2. 2.Distinguish FOMO from FOLS in investor psychology. Apply the distinction to design the opening 90 seconds of a two-act investor pitch for a robotics-for-agriculture startup.5 m
  3. 3.Explain the Gartner Hype Cycle (all five stages, in order). Place these technologies on the cycle today (2026): generative AI agents, quantum computing for cryptography, AR/VR consumer hardware, edge-AI inference accelerators. Identify the founder's sweet spot.5 m
  4. 4.Apply the Idea Hexagon to the seed 'wearable health monitor for elderly'. Generate one variant per dimension with the formula labelled. Each variant must specify target user and core problem.5 m
  5. 5.Walk the idea 'subscription-based dietary supplements personalised by gut-microbiome testing' through the Oxygen Test and the Five Filters. For each, state pass/fail/conditional and justify with one sentence of evidence.5 m
  6. 6.Distinguish a startup from (a) a clone, (b) a small business, (c) a corporate R&D project. Use the Startup DNA three-pillar Venn explicitly.5 m
  7. 7.Apply Gartner's 3C trend-spotting framework to the agritech sector. Identify one Convergence, one Connectedness, and one Context signal each.5 m
  8. 8.State the CB Insights '35% statistic' and explain why this single failure mode justifies the existence of the Oxygen Test in the Phase 1 pipeline.5 m

Part 2 — Problem Analysis & Customer Development (6 × 10 = 60 marks)

60 marks
  1. 1.Rewrite the Level-1 problem statement 'people waste food at home' as a Level-3 statement using Who + Context + Deficit. Then apply the 5Ws with Why as the keystone. Quantify Magnitude × Frequency × Population and conclude Painkiller or Vitamin.10 m
  2. 2.For a B2B SaaS sale into a mid-size hospital, map all seven stakeholder roles in the Stakeholder Ecosystem. For each role, write a *separate* version of the same problem statement, tailored to that role's pain.10 m
  3. 3.A founder's draft survey contains the question: 'Would you pay ₹2,000/month for an AI-tutoring service that personalises to your child's pace?' Critique using the Bias-Trap rule. Rewrite past-behaviour and quantifiable. Then design two additional questions that validate willingness to pay.10 m
  4. 4.Distinguish Problem-Solution Fit from Product-Market Fit. State Steve Blank's four stages of Customer Development with the question and fit-achieved per stage. Locate the 'Search vs Execute' dividing line and explain what happens when founders confuse the two.10 m
  5. 5.Reproduce the Detective Phase's four customer-interview question templates. Adapt each to the scenario: validating the problem 'busy urban professionals skip lunch'. Explicitly state what each question avoids that a founder-led question would do wrong.10 m
  6. 6.Draw the BML loop (Idea → Build → Measure → Learn → Persevere/Pivot). For the scenario 'telemedicine app for chronic-disease management', design an MVP that tests the Riskiest Assumption *without* requiring the full app to be built. State what the MVP measures and what the persevere/pivot decision criterion is.10 m

Part 3 — VPC / BMC / Strategic Positioning (4 × 15 = 60 marks)

60 marks
  1. 1.Draw the Value Proposition Canvas for 'Uber-equivalent for medical-emergency transport in Tier-2 cities'. Fill all six slots in order 1-6. Draw explicit arrows showing pain-reliever-to-pain and gain-creator-to-gain mapping. Evaluate the result against Characteristic #4 (narrow) and #9 (substantially differentiated) of the Strategyzer 10 Characteristics.15 m
  2. 2.Draw the Business Model Canvas (nine blocks, three zones) for 'subscription-based dietary supplements personalised by gut-microbiome testing'. Fill every block with specific content. State the Inflow > Outflow check at year 1 and year 3.15 m
  3. 3.Apply STP to 'electric scooter for last-mile food-delivery riders'. Draw the five-petal segmentation flower with at least 4 segments. Target one. Create a positioning concept in one sentence. Then walk through how STP feeds the 4P marketing mix (Price, Product, Promotion, Place).15 m
  4. 4.Apply Find-Your-USP four-zone Venn to 'AI-powered legal-document drafting tool' competing with LegalKart, LawSikho, and IndiaFilings. Populate Winning ✅, Risky ❓, Losing ❌, Who Cares zones with specific content for each. Assign one strategic verdict per zone.15 m

Part 4 — Synthesis & Pitch (2 × 20 = 40 marks)

40 marks
  1. 1.Cross-phase synthesis. Pick any startup of your choice and demonstrate ALL FOUR cross-phase connections explicitly: (i) VPC ⊂ BMC, (ii) Canvas = hypothesis / Board = scoreboard / BML = game, (iii) 5Ws Who → BMC CS → STP Segmentation → AHA Grid axes, (iv) Painkiller + Contenders + Tier 1-2. Cite each connection by name; provide one paragraph per connection.20 m
  2. 2.Design a complete two-act investor pitch for any TPE-eligible deeptech startup. Act I (FOMO ignition — market size, traction, vision, why-now): 5 slides. Act II (FOLS calming — team, defensibility, unit economics, named pilots, specific ask): 5 slides. Quote at least one canonical slide line (e.g., Steve Blank, Marc Andreessen, Clayton Christensen) in context. Close with a specific ask (amount + milestone + runway + equity).20 m

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