Unrealistic Pricing Strategy

What Happened: With our Business Executive Fellowship that was launched in fall 2025, there was inadequate research done into market rate pricing for our program. This led to launching the program with a price that was too high for almost anyone to apply. After several weeks of intensive outreach efforts, we had very few applications and little sustained interest.

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Action and Learning: We reduced the price by more than half and offered additional scholarships of up to 50%, which quickly increased application numbers. In the future, we will conduct more rigorous market research through prospective applicant surveys. We learned that even in a startup environment, it is important not to bypass getting meaningful feedback on program design.