MIT Launches Dear Dreamer, a Free AI Platform for Young Entrepreneurs

Bringing a proven framework to younger students

Dear Dreamer is built on the disciplined entrepreneurship framework developed by Bill Aulet, managing director of the Martin Trust Center and the Ethernet Inventors Professor of the Practice at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His book "Disciplined Entrepreneurship" walks readers through 24 steps of starting a venture and has sold more than half a million copies, according to MIT News.

MIT reports that students who use the framework in the delta v startup accelerator program have a 61 percent survival/acquisition rate and have collectively raised over $3 billion. The framework is taught at hundreds of colleges around the world, but it was not designed for younger learners. Dear Dreamer was created to fill that gap, and it was made possible through a gift from the Frank and Eileen Foundation.

The platform is open to all students in middle and high school.

How the platform works

Dear Dreamer adapts the framework into a digital, self-paced learning experience. According to MIT News, it includes short educational videos, interactive exercises, and personalized feedback on the user's idea.

Aulet says the team worked with younger students to make the material more digestible for children aged 10, 12 and 14. Each step of the framework has its own case studies and examples. The user interface was designed to feel more like Instagram or YouTube, with videos featuring people that students can relate to. The content, he says, follows the same path that the Trust Center knows works, but is presented differently from how it would be for an MIT MBA or PhD student.

The idea grew out of a conversation with Audrey McLoghlin, founder and CEO of the apparel brand Frank and Eileen and president of the Frank and Eileen Foundation. Aulet showed her Jetpack, MIT's generative AI tool trained on disciplined entrepreneurship, which guides MIT students through the entrepreneurial process. He says she responded that the way to create more entrepreneurs is to make the work done at MIT accessible to young people.

Why entrepreneurship matters for students

Aulet argues that the benefits reach beyond founding companies. He describes entrepreneurship as "a mindset, a skillset, and a way of operating" that helps people deal with change. The Trust Center trains students to take an idea and systematically develop a solution in an ambiguous, uncertain environment, then iterate on it.

He notes that not everyone will start a company, but those who go on to work at larger organizations can still benefit from the entrepreneurial mindset. In his view, starting a company is a good way to learn that mindset.

The Trust Center previously made the disciplined entrepreneurship course available on the online learning platform edX, where Aulet says hundreds of thousands of people took the class. He describes receiving emails from learners who saw themselves as entrepreneurs for the first time. Dear Dreamer extends that outreach to a much younger audience, in line with the center's stated mission to train people at MIT and also create more entrepreneurs outside it.