MIT Takes Its $3 Billion Startup Playbook to Middle Schoolers

Startups born in MIT's delta v accelerator have collectively raised more than $3 billion, with a 61 percent survival or acquisition rate. Now the framework behind that track record is being repackaged for 10-year-olds.

The Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship has launched Dear Dreamer, a free, AI-powered youth entrepreneurship platform open to all middle and high school students. The project adapts "Disciplined Entrepreneurship," the book by Bill Aulet, managing director of the Trust Center and Ethernet Inventors Professor of the Practice at the MIT Sloan School of Management. The platform was funded through a gift from the Frank and Eileen Foundation.

"Disciplined Entrepreneurship" has sold more than half a million copies and walks readers through 24 steps of starting a venture. Hundreds of colleges around the world teach the framework. But Aulet notes it was never designed for younger students, and Dear Dreamer is built to close that gap.

From edX emails to a founder's vision

The idea took shape after the framework became a course on the online learning platform edX, where hundreds of thousands of people enrolled. Aulet used to get emails from learners saying, "For the first time in my life, I see myself as an entrepreneur," or "I see economic security."

"At the Trust Center, we see our mission as, first, train people here at MIT, but also to create more entrepreneurs outside of MIT," Aulet told MIT News.

The platform draws its direction from Audrey McLoghlin, founder and CEO of apparel brand Frank and Eileen and president of the foundation that funded the project. In their first meeting, Aulet showed her Jetpack, MIT's generative AI tool trained on disciplined entrepreneurship that walks MIT students through the startup process.

"Her eyes lit up," Aulet recalls. "She said, 'This is how we create more entrepreneurs: We make the work that you guys are doing here accessible to young people.'"

McLoghlin said she wished she had a tool like this when she first started. She also told Aulet her daughter wants to be an entrepreneur, but students get little guidance on entrepreneurship at school.

Instagram-style pedagogy, MIT-grade content

Dear Dreamer turns the disciplined entrepreneurship curriculum into a self-paced digital experience with short educational videos, interactive exercises, and personalized feedback on each user's idea. Aulet says the Trust Center spent considerable time testing the material with younger students to make it digestible for 10-, 12- and 14-year-olds.

Each step of the framework carries its own case studies and examples. The user interface borrows from platforms students already use. "We've designed the user interface to make it more like Instagram or YouTube, with videos featuring people that students can relate to," Aulet says. "But ultimately the content follows the same path we know works; it's just presented differently from what you would present to an MIT MBA or PhD."

The Trust Center has set a concrete target: empower 50,000 young entrepreneurs by 2030.

A mindset, not just a career path

Aulet argues the payoff extends well beyond company formation. Entrepreneurship, he says, is "a mindset, a skillset, and a way of operating" that equips people to handle an accelerating rate of change.

"Someone once said, 'If you give a person a job, you give them dignity,'" Aulet says. "But if you make someone an entrepreneur, it's like giving them super dignity. They go from a job seeker to a job creator."

The platform trains students to take an idea, develop a solution in an ambiguous, uncertain environment, and iterate on it. Aulet frames the value for those who never found a company as well: "Everyone might not start a company, but even if they go to work at bigger companies, there are a lot of benefits to the entrepreneurial mindset."

He draws on his own position as proof. "I'm an entrepreneur now and I'm at MIT, which is not a startup. In a world that's moving faster and faster, everyone has to deal with change and ambiguity. Starting companies is just a great way to learn. It's kind of like learning to paint from a blank canvas."

If Dear Dreamer replicates even a fraction of the results the framework has produced at MIT, the platform could shift entrepreneurship education from a university elective to a default skill taught before students ever pick a major.