सSaral Shiksha Yojna
Courses/Technology Product Entrepreneurship

Technology Product Entrepreneurship

CS9.424
Ramesh Loganathan + Prakash Yalla•Monsoon 2025-26•4 credits
Sample Papers/TPE practice paper · Paper 4

TPE practice paper · Paper 4

Duration: 120 min • Max marks: 100

Section A — MCQs (10 × 1 = 10 marks)

10 marks
  1. 1.** "A new material is invented; what are all its applications?" — which Idea Hexagon move is this? (a) Generalize (b) Fusion (c) Find the Nails (d) Find the Hammers1 m
  2. 2.** Which is the *third* step in Customer Development? (a) Discovery (b) Validation (c) Creation (d) Company Building1 m
  3. 3.** Customer Acquisition Cost for a Mary was approximately: (a) $500 (b) $1,000 (c) $5,000 (d) $15,0001 m
  4. 4.** The Five Filters' "Inherent Story (Virality)" criterion sits under which filter? (a) Customer (b) Product/Service (c) Economic (d) Timing1 m
  5. 5.** Which is *not* a key question of Customer Validation? (a) Have we found a scalable business model? (b) Have we found earlyvangelists? (c) Have we found PMF? (d) Have we calculated our IPO valuation?1 m
  6. 6.** Rolocule's first formal funding came from: (a) Sequoia Capital (b) Power of Ideas competition at IIM Ahmedabad (c) Apple Ventures (d) SoftBank1 m
  7. 7.** Eventbrite's founders were: (a) Brian Chesky & Joe Gebbia (b) Kevin & Julia Hartz with Renaud Visage (c) Travis Kalanick & Garrett Camp (d) Reid Hoffman & Jeff Weiner1 m
  8. 8.** Pine & Gilmore's progression places "a can of food" at which level? (a) Commodity (b) Goods (c) Service (d) Experience1 m
  9. 9.** In the BMC, which block answers "How costly are they?" referring to relationships: (a) Customer Segments (b) Customer Relationships (c) Channels (d) Cost Structure1 m
  10. 10.** Total Value, per the deck's value equation, equals: (a) Price − Cost (b) Value Created − Price (c) Value Created − Cost (d) Revenue − Marketing Spend1 m

Section B — MSQs (5 × 2 = 10 marks)

10 marks
  1. 1.** Which of these are sub-criteria of the **Economic Filter**? (a) Healthy Margins (b) Demand Constraints (c) Customer Loyalty (d) Supply Constraints (e) Sunk Costs2 m
  2. 2.** Which forces does the deck list as influencing every transaction? (a) Demand side (b) Supply side (c) Founder ego (d) Formal/informal rules (e) Time of day2 m
  3. 3.** Which of these are part of Pine & Gilmore's five-level progression? (a) Commodity (b) Goods (c) Service (d) Experience (e) Reputation2 m
  4. 4.** Which of the following Rolocule games used the F2P model on Apple TV? (a) Super Badminton (b) Flick Tennis: College Wars (c) Dance Party (d) Bowling Central (re-launched 2015) (e) Touch Squash2 m
  5. 5.** Which of these are valid Idea Hexagon *examples* from the deck? (a) Flickr → Share what? (anything but photos) (b) Banking → AI-powered Banking (c) Phone + Camera (d) Last-mile delivery → drones (e) Selling cars → renting cars only2 m

Section C — Short answer (6 × 5 = 30 marks)

30 marks
  1. 1.** Explain the three core components of a startup's DNA.5 m
  2. 2.** What does the deck mean by "the canvas is never finished"? Reference the Validation Board.5 m
  3. 3.** Apply the Oxygen Test to: (a) WhatsApp for an Indian small-business owner, (b) Spotify, (c) a Rolex watch. Justify each classification.5 m
  4. 4.** What is a "long-tail customer" market, and why was it core to Eventbrite's strategy?5 m
  5. 5.** Differentiate **Customer Segments** (a BMC block) from **Market Segmentation** (the S in STP). When does each one matter in the TPE timeline?5 m
  6. 6.** Why did the strategy of "build for Apple TV only" hurt Rolocule, and how did they adapt for Bowling Central and Dead Among Us?5 m

Section D — Descriptive (3 × 10 = 30 marks)

30 marks
  1. 1.** Apply the full Idea Hexagon to the concept "online education for underserved rural students in India." Generate one realistic variant per dimension and briefly justify each.10 m
  2. 2.** Describe the entire process of customer development for a hypothetical AI-medical-imaging startup — from listing hypotheses to verifying the business model. Include the four-step test sequences for both Problem and Product hypotheses, name a likely earlyvangelist, and state where the pivot rule might fire.10 m
  3. 3.** Compare Eventbrite's situation in 2013 with HubSpot/SparkPlace's situation around 2012. Both companies faced a fundamental strategic question about their identity / market. State each question, the key data each company used to answer it, and how each company's choice would change its product, sales, and capital strategy.10 m

Section E — Long analytical (1 × 20 = 20 marks)

20 marks
  1. 1.** A deeptech startup has developed a patented technique for green-hydrogen production with 30% lower energy cost than incumbents. They have one industrial pilot signed. They want to raise a Series A. Build the full investor pitch using TPE frameworks — specify problem framing (with magnitude/frequency/trend), customer & stakeholder map, VPC, BMC, STP + Aha! Grid, USP defensibility tier, lifecycle stage, and a specific ask tied to milestones. ---20 m
  2. 2.** (c) Find the Nails (X↑ — solution exists, hunt for problems)20 m
  3. 3.** (c) Customer Creation20 m
  4. 4.** (c) $5,00020 m
  5. 5.** (b) Product/Service Filter20 m
  6. 6.** (d) IPO valuation is not a Customer Validation question20 m
  7. 7.** (b) Power of Ideas competition at IIM Ahmedabad (INR 20 lakh / ~USD 29K)20 m
  8. 8.** (b) Kevin Hartz (CEO), Julia Hartz (President), Renaud Visage (CTO)20 m
  9. 9.** (b) Goods (a distinctive tangible thing)20 m
  10. 10.** (b) Customer Relationships20 m
  11. 11.** (c) Value Created − Cost20 m
  12. 12.** (a), (b), (d), (e) — *Customer Loyalty is in the Customer Filter*20 m
  13. 13.** (a), (b), (d) — *founder ego and time of day are not deck categories*20 m
  14. 14.** (a), (b), (c), (d) — Pine & Gilmore's fifth level is *Transformation*, not Reputation20 m
  15. 15.** (c), (d) — Dance Party and re-launched Bowling Central were F2P (Apple TV initially, then tablets/phones)20 m
  16. 16.** (a), (b), (c), (d) — *(e) is not from the deck's stated examples*20 m
  17. 17.** (i) **Innovation** — leverages a new technology or business model to create a unique, defensible advantage, often born from research labs (the TPE-relevant origin). (ii) **Scalability** — designed from day one to serve a massive market and grow exponentially without proportional cost increases (software vs consulting). (iii) **Uncertainty** — embraces the Lean Startup methodology of pivoting and iterating on customer feedback, because the startup is a *temporary organization in search of a viable business model.*20 m
  18. 18.** Every BMC block is an *assumption* until validated by customers. Founders must continuously identify the **riskiest assumption**, design an experiment to test it, **GET OUT OF THE BUILDING** to run it, and record the outcome on the **Validation Board** in either the *Invalidated* or *Validated* column. The canvas is therefore a living document — it is "never finished" because each validation loop updates one or more blocks. Only after multiple loops do its blocks become evidence-backed rather than hypothetical.20 m
  19. 19.** *(a) WhatsApp for an Indian small-business owner:* **Oxygen** — order-taking, customer service, and supplier coordination all flow through it; cutting it off would meaningfully damage the business. *(b) Spotify:* **Aspirin** — eases the pain of finding and curating music; for most users, life continues without it. *(c) Rolex:* **Jewelry** — pure luxury and emotional signalling; not vital to any functional need.20 m
  20. 20.** A **long-tail customer market** is one where each customer purchases a product in low individual volume, but the *aggregate* demand across a very large number of such customers rivals or exceeds the volume of bestsellers. Eventbrite's strategy depended on this: each small event organizer (a yoga teacher, a cooking-class chef, a neighbourhood meetup host) generated small revenue, but the millions of such organizers globally formed a massive total market — one that incumbents like Ticketmaster ignored. The self-service product model was uniquely suited to this distribution shape: low CAC, no per-customer hand-holding, word-of-mouth growth.20 m
  21. 21.** **Customer Segments** is a BMC block that *describes* the archetypes of customers a venture currently serves or plans to serve (Sams, Marys, fleet operators, etc.) — used in Phase 4 to anchor the business model. **Market Segmentation** is the *first step of STP* — it's an analytical exercise that identifies *bases* for grouping customers (demographics, behaviour, willingness to pay) and characteristics that matter. **Timeline:** Segmentation (the verb, STP) happens *before* you can sensibly fill in Customer Segments (the noun, BMC); STP is the analysis, BMC is the resulting documentation.20 m
  22. 22.** Apple TV did not sell as anticipated, so Rolocule's bet on it as the *sole platform* meant Dance Party (built only for Apple TV) suffered from a thin addressable market. Combined with high music-royalty costs that limited the playlist, the game flopped despite USD 117K of investment. For **Bowling Central** and **Dead Among Us**, Rolocule changed the strategy: built the games to work on **tablets and smartphones** as well as Apple TV. Bowling Central was first paid (Jan 2015) then re-launched as F2P (mid-2015); Dead Among Us followed with similar changes. The lesson: avoid single-platform dependence; the platform owner's success is correlated with yours.20 m
  23. 23.** *(Sample variants.)* 1. **Generalize:** rural education → rural *skilling* (rural healthcare workers, plumbing, electrical) — same delivery model, different content domain. 2. **Fusion:** rural education + satellite internet (Starlink-class) → offline-first lessons that sync when satellite link is available. 3. **Find the Nails:** the same offline-first content platform → also delivers government scheme awareness, agricultural advisory, and PHC training. 4. **Find the Hammers:** how else to educate rural kids? Travelling teacher vans, radio-based learning, asynchronous voice-tutoring on cheap feature phones, AR/VR pods at panchayat centres. 5. **Add an Adjective:** *vernacular* + *AI-powered* + *gamified* rural education — generate dialect-specific content automatically. 6. **Do the Opposite:** instead of pushing curriculum from cities to villages, *collect* indigenous knowledge from villages and turn rural students into content creators paid in scholarship credits.20 m
  24. 24.** *AI medical imaging startup — full walk-through.* **Hypotheses to test:** Product (AI detects condition X with >95% sensitivity), Customer & Problem (radiologists are overwhelmed), Distribution & Pricing (per-scan SaaS), Demand Creation (KOL endorsements), Market Type (new market — AI-assisted screening), Competitive (vs Google's offering / Indian competitors). **Test Problem Hypothesis:** **First Contacts** with 30 radiologists → **Problem Presentation** (do you spend >40% of your day on routine X scans?) → **Customer Understanding** (validate they want this triaged) → **Market Knowledge** (size + buying centre). **Test Product Hypothesis:** **First Reality Check** (do they trust an AI's read?) → **Product Presentation** (demo) → **More Customer Visits** (test in their workflow) → **Second Reality Check** (do they pay?). **Likely earlyvangelist:** a radiologist running a high-volume tier-2 city diagnostic chain who actively shares the tool's value with peer chains. **Pivot might fire if:** after 30 First Contacts, no radiologist agrees the problem is in their top 5 — at which point the hypothesis "radiologists are the customer" is invalidated; perhaps the *hospital procurement office* is the actual buyer. Pivot back to Discovery. **Verify:** **Verify the Product** (clinical trial / validation study) → **Verify the Problem** (signed LOIs from buyers) → **Verify the Business Model** (a repeatable inside-sales motion). Then **Iterate or Exit** — at this point either expand or pivot.20 m
  25. 25.** *Eventbrite (2013):* Question = *"Are we a social media company, a ticketing company, or a high-growth transactional tech business?"* (and consequently, do we IPO or raise Series F at $650M?). Key data: gross ticket sales, social-media-driven sales lift ($12 per social share), TAM proxy via gross tickets / GDP in metros, multiples of comparable companies (Facebook vs Ticketmaster vs Airbnb/Uber/Etsy). Choice consequences: identity choice determines valuation multiple, investor expectations, exit timeline, and disclosure trade-offs. The founders chose *transactional tech* (Airbnb/Uber peer group) and accepted Series F over IPO. *HubSpot/SparkPlace (2012):* Question = *"Do we serve small Sams, medium Marys, or both?"* Key data: $1K vs $5K acquisition cost; $10K vs $50K LTV; $5 vs $2 marketing ROI; 1.3M vs 0.5M market size; differing stickiness and cancellation rates. Choice consequences: product features (depth vs simplicity), pricing tier design, sales motion (inside vs field), software architecture, adjacent product roadmap. HubSpot's real-world answer was Marys-first, then resell to Sams via indirect channels. *Common thread:* both companies were forced to define their *strategic identity*, and the choice cascaded into product, pricing, sales, and capital decisions — exactly the cross-functional consequence the TPE course emphasises.20 m
  26. 26.** *(Sample full pitch.)* **Problem framing (Phase 2):** *Magnitude* — global green-hydrogen demand projected at 200 million tonnes/year by 2050; current grey-hydrogen production emits 830 Mt CO₂/year. *Frequency* — every industrial-fertilizer plant and refinery uses hydrogen daily. *Trend* — EU/India green-hydrogen mandates accelerate adoption. **Oxygen-level problem** for fertilizer producers under decarbonisation pressure. **Customer & stakeholder map:** *End user* — plant operator; *Buyer* — head of operations; *Influencer* — sustainability officer; *Decision maker* — CFO/Board; *Evaluator* — third-party engineering firm. **VPC:** *Customer Jobs* — produce hydrogen at lowest LCOH, meet ESG mandates. *Pains* — high electricity OPEX, capital lock-in of electrolyzers, carbon penalty risk. *Gains* — predictable LCOH, ESG compliance, optionality on carbon credits. *Pain Relievers* — 30% lower energy cost via patented process; *Gain Creators* — modular deployment + carbon-credit-ready measurement. **BMC highlights:** *Customer Segments* — large industrial hydrogen consumers (fertilizer, refining, steel). *Value Prop* — patented 30%-cheaper green-H₂. *Channels* — direct enterprise sales + EPC partnerships. *Revenue Streams* — long-term offtake contracts + technology licensing. *Cost Structure* — R&D, regulatory approvals, manufacturing scale-up. **STP + Aha! Grid:** Beachhead segment = Indian fertilizer producers under Mandatory Green Hydrogen Consumption Obligation. Plot competitors (NTPC, Reliance, Adani) — most are *Leaders* in scale but *Challengers* on LCOH; the startup occupies the **whitespace** at "high benefits (low LCOH) + moderate price" — i.e., a strong **Contender** position. **USP defensibility:** *Patent on the production technique* (Tier 1 — cannot be imitated) + proprietary operational data from the pilot (Tier 1–2). Plus EPC partnerships create switching costs (Tier 2). **Lifecycle stage:** Early (Series A) — MVP/pilot live, customer base forming, monthly revenue beginning. **The Ask:** "We are raising **₹50 Crore for 24 months** to commission two industrial-scale units at our pilot customer site, secure two additional offtake contracts with tier-1 fertilizer producers, and achieve ₹15 Cr ARR by month 18 — establishing the first patented, cost-leading green-H₂ platform in India." --- ---20 m

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