For the past seven years, Martina Lauchengco has taught the Berkeley Master of Engineering’s Marketing & Product Management boot camp course. In this course, students gain exposure to a wide variety of product and marketing approaches, technologies, and business models. This year’s class immersed themselves in the business mindset by examining three real-life companies: Lucid, Springboard, and Quizlet.

Over the course of ten days, they analyzed, brainstormed, diagnosed, and offered recommendations of each business’s product marketing efforts to date. In their collective research, the class directly interviewed, surveyed, and tested 4,747 people and reached over 15,000 people via advertisements in less than a week! Below is a summary of the most interesting market test results:

• Tested price points, feature ideas, usability and reached out through every major platform, including LinkedIn, WeChat, Instagram, Facebook, Quora, Google, Reddit — everywhere the market is.
• Prospective target personas or experts in over 18 countries were contacted.
• Learned the qualitative difference in the value of information gathered face-to-face versus that which comes via a survey as well as the value of adapting tests and hypothesis based on what you’re learning.

The most inventive groups used brainstorming techniques to find novel ways to approach the market or met their market directly before bringing shape to their approach. Han Jin, MEng ’12 (IEOR), even visited the class in-person to hear market research results. “It’s always good to be back at @ucberkeley and seeing the next generation of engineering talents studying @lucid_cam #givingback #startup #students @funginstitute,” he shared via Instagram. At the conclusion of the course, Martina shared these collective insights and more with the three companies to consider in their respective strategies. Martina Lauchengco is an Operating Partner at Costanoa VC, SVPG partner, and a UC Berkeley lecturer. She has spent over 20 years as a marketing & product executive at Microsoft, Netscape, and Loudcloud. Connect with Martina.

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MEng students test the market with LucidVR, Springboard, and Quizlet was originally published in Berkeley Master of Engineering on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.