By Eigen Escario
Michael Burcham
Taught by Professor Michael Burcham, Faculty Director, Center for Entrepreneurship and Professor of the Practice of Management with Vanderbilt Business, Creating and Launching the Venture is a hallmark of the Vanderbilt Executive MBA program, providing students with a structured path from ideation to investor presentations. Supported by Nashville’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, students receive real-world feedback from business leaders and investors.
Translating Pain Points to Viable Solutions
Each team begins the class project with a blank slate and is tasked with identifying a market pain point and building a scalable solution.
The most recent team to earn accolades through this course is SurgiTrace, which consisted of Pete Morone, Kiley Hicks, Andrew Wise, Sean Mullins, and DJ Mott. The group, voted #1 by both their peers and investors, sought to address inefficiencies in surgical instrument tracking, emphasizing surgical efficiency and patient safety.
Dr. Morone, a Vanderbilt University Medical Center neurosurgeon, explains, “Surgical teams waste time tracking instruments, and errors can have serious consequences. Our goal was to create a technology-driven solution that improves accuracy, reduces costs, and enhances efficiency.”
Drawing on expertise in medical technology, operations, and software development, the team designed SurgiTrace, a tracking system leveraging computer vision and AI to provide real-time monitoring of surgical instruments.
“We knew we had an idea that could make a real impact, but translating it into a viable business was an entirely different challenge,” Hicks said. “The course structure forced us to think critically, refine our pitch, and validate our assumptions with real stakeholders.”
The Stepping Stones to Success
At the start of the Creating and Launching the Venture course, students weren’t just expected to brainstorm ideas—they were required to follow a structured process that helped them transform an initial concept into a viable, investor-ready business model.
“You don’t just get to have a great idea and run with it,” Morone said. “The course forces you to break it down into steps: identifying the problem, defining the target customer, building a solution, testing it in the market, and finally, creating a strategy to launch.”
Each phase of the course involved deliverables due every two weeks, requiring teams to demonstrate continuous progress. These assignments included market pain point identification, customer interviews & validation, competitive analysis & financial modeling, and pitch development.
“The first task was to clearly define the problem we were solving,” Mullins said. “Dr. Burcham drilled into us that if you can’t articulate the pain point in one or two sentences, you don’t have a business.”
Hicks explained that one of the most intricate elements of the project was interviewing potential customers, “We couldn’t just assume people wanted our solution—we had to get out there and talk to real decision-makers.”
Steven Henry, a student from a different group in the class, weighed in on the challenges of the project, “Dr. Burcham made it clear that investors don’t just want a cool idea; they want to see numbers. We had to create detailed revenue projections, cost structures, and pricing models—things I had never done before.”
One of the most challenging elements of the project for the group was building the investor pitch, which required them to condense months of research and work into a 10-minute presentation.
“The last few weeks were brutal,” Morone said. “We completely scrapped and rebuilt our pitch three days before the final presentation based on investor feedback. But that’s real entrepreneurship—you keep iterating until you get it right.”
These structured tasks ensured that every team went beyond just an idea—by the end of the semester, they had a business model that could attract real funding and launch into the market.
Leveraging Diversity of Expertise
One of the defining aspects of Creating and Launching the Venture is the diversity of professional backgrounds that each team member brings to the table. The combination of business, healthcare, tech, and operations backgrounds creates well-rounded, highly functional teams.
“I’ve spent over a decade in medical device sales, so I focused on the go-to-market strategy,” Hicks said. “Hospitals don’t just buy new tech because it’s innovative; we had to prove ROI and ease of integration.”
Meanwhile, other members focused on the more logistical side of the project, leveraging their specialized competencies from their professional experiences.
“I approached this from an operational and execution standpoint,” Mullins said. “How do we actually build this product? What partnerships do we need? What’s the supply chain strategy?”
By leveraging each member’s domain expertise, the SurgiTrace team developed not just a concept, but a commercially viable product—one that investors saw as immediately promising.
“Having teammates from different industries meant we constantly challenged each other’s assumptions,” Morone said. “It forced us to think more critically and refine our business model.”
What’s Next?
After being voted #1 in the class, the SurgiTrace team is actively working on refining their prototype based on feedback from investors and potential users, ensuring that their product is both marketable and effective in real-world hospital environments.
“We’re taking the investor panel input and refining our approach—adjusting our messaging, ensuring compliance with hospital systems, and testing how SurgiTrace would integrate into surgical workflows,” Hicks said. “On top of that, we have to prove ROI and demonstrate that our product can improve efficiency while reducing costs. That’s where we’re focusing now.”
The SurgiTrace team is also continuing its momentum into the next phase of development, leveraging Vanderbilt’s network and exploring funding opportunities.
“This isn’t just a class project anymore,” Mullins said. “We’re treating it like a real venture, and Vanderbilt has given us the tools and connections to make it happen.”
“We have meetings lined up with investors and healthcare executives,” Morone said. “It’s exciting, but also a reminder that the real work starts now.”
By equipping Executive MBA students with the tools, networks, and resilience to succeed, the Creating and Launching the Venture course helps them grow into entrepreneurial thinkers and business leaders with a cultivated instinct to create value in whatever setting they find themselves in.
To learn more about the Vanderbilt Executive MBA program, student experience, outcomes, and career paths, click here.