Teams of science, engineering, and management students participate actively one day a week with top management of high-tech startups. The students gain hands-on experience about starting and running new ventures. The companies gain assistance with an urgent aspect of their businesses: examples are choices of initial markets, approaches to initial customers, communicating the value of the product.

The E-Lab process begins well before the start of the semester. Companies register candidate E-Lab projects at this web site. (The course teaching assistants, or TAs, work with the companies to identify projects that will fit well in the course and bring substantial value to the host companies.) Students also register at the web site (in addition to registering in the normal MIT process).

Once a company's registration is complete, the TAs give their managers access to information about registered students. We encourage those managers to reach out to students they believe would fit especially well on their project. The TAs give students who have completed the registration access to information about both companies and other students. We encourage students to begin the process of selecting companies and forming teams before the first class.

Then, in the first class and the day that follows it, students finalize their teams and their preferences among the projects. If exactly one team selects a project as its first choice, that team is assigned the project. If multiple teams have the same first choice, managers at the company are asked to select one of those teams. We complete this matching process the first Monday of the semester and the teams then meet with their host companies the next day (Tuesday).

The first task is for the team and the host company CEO to agree on and sign a brief project plan. For the remainder of the semester, the students work on that plan, with frequent interaction with senior management from the company. Classes held at Sloan for just over half the semester cover skills relevant to the projects.

At the end of the semester, each team presents its findings in a confidential session with the course faculty. The team then presents to the senior management of the host company.