INTD 318 · Creating a Design Startup
Course outline
Twelve weeks in which you take one venture from a problem worth solving to a public showcase. Emily Carr University, Fall 2026, co-taught by Colby May and Ryan Smith.
What this course is
Most design education stops at the artifact. This one carries on past it, into whether anyone wants the thing, what it would cost to make, who would pay, and how you would tell them. You leave with a venture that has been tested rather than a concept that has been rendered.
Twelve weeks is not enough time to build a company. It is exactly enough time to find out whether one is there.
You work solo, on your own idea, from week one. That is deliberate: the point is to own every decision, including the uncomfortable ones.
The shape of the term
Find something worth solving. Weeks one to five. Interviews, market work, competitor sets, and the discipline of separating what you found from what you assumed.
Ends when you can state an opportunity in one sentence and point at the evidence behind it.
Build the thing. Weeks six to nine. A design system small enough to hold in your head, then a prototype real enough to put in front of someone who has never seen it.
This is where AI moves fastest and where it is most likely to hand you something plausible and wrong.
Prove it, then show it. Weeks ten to twelve. Unit economics, go-to-market, and a five-minute showcase in front of a panel.
The showcase is not a fourth phase. It is the first three, cut down.
Learning outcomes
The 2025 outcomes no longer describe what this course does. The weekly deliverables were rewritten over the summer and the outcomes have to follow. The revised set is being finalised with Ryan and will be published here before the term opens.
Rather than leave stale text standing, this section is empty on purpose.
How it runs
| Solo | Every student runs their own venture. No teams. |
| 170 minutes | Mondays 3:25–6:15, twelve sessions, two Mondays off. |
| Guest speakers | Six blocks across the term, from founders and operators. |
| AI throughout | Agents are a working tool here, not a topic. The guides below are how you set that up. |
The twelve sessions
Fourteen Mondays, twelve of them teaching. The two gaps are Thanksgiving and Reading Week, and they are shown where they fall.
| Week | Session | Date | Led by |
|---|---|---|---|
| W01 | Entrepreneurial mindset and ideation | Mon 14 Sep 2026 | Both |
| W02 | Agentic research | Mon 21 Sep 2026 | RS |
| W03 | Design methodologies | Mon 28 Sep 2026 | CM |
| W04 | Customer discovery | Mon 5 Oct 2026 | RS |
| Mon 12 Oct 2026 · Thanksgiving, no class | |||
| W05 | Opportunity, risk and unit economics | Mon 19 Oct 2026 | RS |
| W06 | Rapid prototyping | Mon 26 Oct 2026 | RS |
| W07 | Art direction | Mon 2 Nov 2026 | CM |
| Mon 9 Nov 2026 · Reading Week, no class | |||
| W08 | Design build | Mon 16 Nov 2026 | CM |
| W09 | Build and live user testing | Mon 23 Nov 2026 | Both |
| W10 | Go-to-market and business model | Mon 30 Nov 2026 | RS |
| W11 | Brand, package, pitch | Mon 7 Dec 2026 | RS |
| W12 | Final showcase | Mon 14 Dec 2026 | Both |
CM is Colby May, RS is Ryan Smith. Three sessions are taught jointly (the opening, live user testing, and the showcase) because those are the ones where the design side and the business side have to be in the room at the same time.
What you hand in
Seven instruments, adding to one hundred. Nothing here is written from scratch at the end. Each one is an edit of work you have already been doing.
| Deliverable | Weight | Due |
|---|---|---|
| Value Proposition Canvas | 10% | W03 |
| Market Research & Business Model Canvas | 10% | W04 |
| Project Proposal | 10% | W05 |
| Design System & Prototyped Solution | 20% | W08 |
| Business Validation Report | 20% | W11 |
| Showcase & Process Book | 20% | W12 |
| Participation | 10% | Continuous |
Weights are provisional until the outline is signed off. The full rubrics, with the criteria each deliverable is marked against, are on the rubrics page.
The process book
The final submission is a process book, not a report. It is the long form of your showcase presentation, carrying the whole term of work. Interviews, dead ends, the decisions you reversed and why.
It is the single most under-estimated deliverable in the course. Students who keep it as they go spend December editing. Students who do not spend December reconstructing, which is both harder and more obvious to a reader.
Before week one
Two guides, read in order. The rest of the term assumes the first one is set up.
Setting up a project for an agentRead first · ~15 min · set up in week 1MCP, and getting Figma into your directoryRead second · ~15 min · set up before week 6INTD 318 Creating a Design Startup · Emily Carr University of Art + Design
Colby May & Ryan Smith · Fall 2026
Set in Space Grotesk and Archivo · The Overpunch System