| Course | DDBA 8541 Seminar in Entrepreneurial Finance |
|---|---|
| Week | Week 2 |
| Paper type | Evidence note |
| Length | About 800 words, 5 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Walden University |
| Program | Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for DDBA 8541 Week 2
Will Clinic Owners Pay Monthly to Replace Their Scheduling Tools? An Evidence Note Sorting Eleven Pieces of Support for One Founder's Claim by Kind, Weighing Each and Placing the Founder's Own Experience Last
Student Name
Walden University
DDBA 8541: Seminar in Entrepreneurial Finance
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Will Clinic Owners Pay Monthly to Replace Their Scheduling Tools? An Evidence Note Sorting Eleven Pieces of Support for One Founder's Claim by Kind, Weighing Each and Placing the Founder's Own Experience Last
The Claim
The founder of PaceBook, a composite pre-revenue software venture serving independent physical therapy clinics, writes in her pitch materials: "Owners of independent physical therapy clinics will pay $189 a month to replace their current scheduling tools with PaceBook." The claim has three parts: a buyer (owners of independent clinics), a price ($189 a month) and a switch (replacing tools they already use). Support for any one part is not support for the claim. This note sorts every piece of support the founder offers and states what each shows and fails to show.
The Evidence by Kind
[after]
Eleven items appear in the table's four rows: two pilots, seven letters, one survey and the founder's experience.
Table 1
Support for the Claim, Sorted by Kind
| Kind | Item | What it would show if strong | What it shows here | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paid pilots | Two clinics paying $60 a month for six months | Clinics pay the stated price and keep paying | Clinics pay a third of the price; neither has dropped its old tool | |
| Letters of intent | Seven signed letters | Commitments to buy at a price | Interest in a demonstration; no price, no term, not binding | |
| Survey | 84 clinic owners; 41 percent say they would pay "about $150 to $200" | Stated willingness to pay | Stated, not revealed, preference from a convenience sample at a trade show | |
| Founder experience | Nine years managing a clinic | Insight into owners' problems | Knowledge of one clinic's problems, which she solved herself | |
Weighing Each Kind
The paid pilots are the strongest kind, because money changed hands. But they test a price about a third of the claimed one, and both clinics kept their old scheduling tool running alongside PaceBook. The pilots show willingness to try the product cheaply, not willingness to pay $189 to replace an existing tool.
The letters of intent show that seven owners agreed to sign something. None names a price or a date, and none binds the signer. They are weaker evidence of demand than one paying customer.
The survey asks the right question but in the weakest form. Answers to a hypothetical price question tend to run above what buyers later pay, and Kahneman and Lovallo (1993) cautioned that a planner absorbed in the specifics of one project, ignoring how comparable projects fared, usually expects too much. Owners attending a trade show session on practice software are not a representative sample of all independent clinic owners.
Comparison evidence from dental practices, where published adoption surveys show a large share of independent offices using cloud scheduling, is analogy rather than proof. Dental practices may differ in size, in billing complexity and in how much scheduling matters to revenue.
The Founder's Experience
The founder's nine years managing a clinic are real and relevant, but they are weighed last because they cannot distinguish her problem from the market's. She knows that her clinic lost revenue to no-shows; she does not know that other owners rank that problem high enough to pay $189 a month.
Two Studies on What Funders Should Weigh
Kaplan et al. (2009) followed firms from early business plans through to public companies and found that business lines, the "horse," remained largely stable while management teams, the "jockey," changed often, which suggests funders should weigh evidence about the business more than evidence about the founder. Gompers et al. (2010) reported that founders who had already taken a venture-backed company to success beat newcomers' odds on their next venture, which suggests founder characteristics do carry information. The two findings can be reconciled for this case: Gompers and colleagues' evidence concerns founders with a track record of building firms, which this founder lacks. Her clinic experience is domain knowledge, not entrepreneurial success, and Kaplan and colleagues' emphasis on the business is the better guide here.
What Would Strengthen the Claim
One clinic paying $189 a month and turning off its old tool would outweigh every letter of intent. The founder should convert one pilot to full price, and should rerun the survey with a price question tied to a purchase decision.
What the Funder Should Ask
A funder reading this note should ask the founder three questions before investing: which pilot clinic would pay $189 next month, what the two pilot owners said when asked why they kept their old tools, and how many of the seven letter signers have seen a price. The answers would move the claim further than any additional letters.
Limits
The note relies on materials the founder supplied. It has not interviewed pilot clinics, whose views might differ from the founder's account.
References
Gompers, P., Kovner, A., Lerner, J., & Scharfstein, D. (2010). Performance persistence in entrepreneurship. Journal of Financial Economics, 96(1), 18-32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2009.11.001
Kahneman, D., & Lovallo, D. (1993). Timid choices and bold forecasts: A cognitive perspective on risk taking. Management Science, 39(1), 17-31. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.39.1.17
Kaplan, S. N., Sensoy, B. A., & Stromberg, P. (2009). Should investors bet on the jockey or the horse? Evidence from the evolution of firms from early business plans to public companies. Journal of Finance, 64(1), 75-115. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6261.2008.01429.x
DDBA 8541 Week 2 instructions, in plain terms
Week 2 asks you to test one claim a founder makes about demand. Quote the claim exactly and break it into its parts, such as buyer, price and behavior. Gather every piece of support offered and sort it by kind in a table, stating for each what it would show if strong and what it shows here. Weigh each kind, giving more space to what it fails to show. Place the founder's own experience last and explain why. Set two peer-reviewed studies against each other on what funders should weigh, keep your position distinct from both and say what single piece of evidence would most strengthen the claim.
How the DDBA 8541 Week 2 example is put together
The sample splits the claim into a buyer, a $189 monthly price and replacement of current tools. Its table sorts eleven items into pilots, letters, a survey and experience. The pilots pay a third of the price and both clinics kept their old tools; the letters carry no price, term or obligation; the survey reports stated rather than revealed preference from a convenience sample. The experience section notes that the founder knows one clinic's no-show problem, not the market's ranking of it. The studies section reconciles stable business lines in successful firms with persistence among founders who have prior venture-backed success. A closing passage lists three questions a funder should put to the founder before investing.
Where the marks sit in the DDBA 8541 Week 2 rubric
Fidelity to the claim comes first: support credited to a looser version of the founder's sentence earns nothing, and graders compare the quotation with what each row is said to prove. Sorting by kind does the heavy lifting, since a list that never says which kind is stronger leaves the funder's question open. Stating what each item fails to show earns more than stating what it shows. Doctoral credit follows the closing debate, where two studies are paraphrased accurately and the author's position is kept separate. Marks fall away for treating letters of intent as commitments or for weighing the founder's story first. A closing test the founder could run quickly shows the note's practical value to a funder.
Common DDBA 8541 Week 2 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Write the claim at the top of your page and keep checking each item against it. Ask, for every piece of support, whether money changed hands, whether a price was named and whether the buyer gave anything up. Those three questions rank most evidence quickly. Treat surveys carefully; note who answered and whether the price question was hypothetical. Analogies from other industries can help, but label them. When using research on founders, check what kind of founder experience the study measured. End with one test the founder could run in a month that would settle more than everything gathered so far. If the founder's materials are thin, say so; a note that finds the claim unsupported is still a useful note.
Get a DDBA 8541 Week 2 example written to your instructions
Share the founder claim your section is testing, or the venture you picked, along with the Week 2 prompt and rubric; the evidence note and its table arrive inside 24-48h, the first at no cost. Pitch decks or data from a real startup you work with are not needed; published sources and the case suffice.
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DDBA 8541 Week 2 questions, answered
Where can I find a free DDBA 8541 Week 2 sample paper?
PaceBook's evidence note, eleven items sorted by kind, is printed whole in the sample section and costs nothing.
What claim does the DDBA 8541 Week 2 note test?
That independent physical therapy clinic owners will pay $189 a month to replace their scheduling tools.
Why are the paid pilots not enough?
They pay about a third of the stated price, and both clinics kept their old scheduling tool running.
Why are the letters of intent weak?
None names a price, a date or a binding commitment.
What would strengthen the claim most?
One clinic paying $189 a month and switching off its old tool.