Disciplined Entrepreneurship training and consulting
DE Labs designs and delivers Disciplined Entrepreneurship programs for governments, universities, and accelerators. Every program is led by Marius Ursache, Bill Aulet's co-author, and taught by practitioners who use AI to speed up every step.
Why Disciplined Entrepreneurship, and why now
Disciplined Entrepreneurship, created by Bill Aulet at MIT, gives founders 24 steps to find a real customer and build a business around them. It works alongside Lean Startup and the Business Model Canvas, and goes further into the customer, the product, and the financials.
That discipline matters more now. AI lets a team ship a product in a weekend, and it gives every team the same average answer.
We teach Disciplined Entrepreneurship as the process that decides what to build, and AI as the engine that builds it faster.
Programs
Every engagement serves one of two goals: helping a cohort of startups make better decisions, or building the capacity of the people who run and teach your programs. Everything is delivered by practitioners, not academics.
Live online sessions, from a single DE step to all 24. A consistent method for large or distributed cohorts, on topics such as choosing a beachhead market, sizing the market, and defining the end user's problem.
MassChallenge and John Keells X.
Startup workshops take founders through the method on their own ventures. Train-the-trainer workshops teach your coaches, mentors, and staff to teach DE themselves.
Government of Serbia and Cámara de Comercio de Manizales.
Five full days for a cohort of companies. Trainers and mentors work with every team on its own business, and each team pitches its revised plan on the last day.
Enterprise Estonia.
Work that builds what surrounds the training: designing a program, developing an ecosystem, or consulting on how to use DE across an organization. For an accelerator, that can mean setting its goals, how it sources and selects startups, and the metrics it tracks.
Insper.
Case, Enterprise Estonia
Enterprise Estonia commissioned a national bootcamp in Tallinn for established deep-tech and science-based companies, several already with revenue and validated markets. These were not early-stage startups, so we adapted the method to their reality: partner readiness, licensing, and long sales cycles.
The week changed real strategies. One team opened civilian markets for a defense technology, one rebuilt its pricing model, one moved its market entry to a different region, and one set a phased path from a long-term technology vision to near-term revenue.
Team
DE Labs is led by Marius Ursache, a serial entrepreneur, experienced consultant, and co-author with Bill Aulet of Disciplined Entrepreneurship: Finance for Founders (Wiley, 2026). He co-founded MIT Bootcamps and has taught Disciplined Entrepreneurship alongside Bill for more than a decade.
He works with a bench of trainers who have taught the method for more than ten years at MIT Bootcamps and other programs, and who bring their own experience as founders, operators, and investors.
FAQ
Disciplined Entrepreneurship (DE) is a 24-step framework for building a startup, created by Bill Aulet at MIT. It takes founders from choosing a first market to scaling the business, and its teaching materials are used by more than 250 universities and are free under Creative Commons at d-eship.com.
There is no official certification for Disciplined Entrepreneurship trainers, so look for practitioners who have taught the method with its creator and run programs at scale. DE Labs is led by Marius Ursache, co-author with Bill Aulet of Disciplined Entrepreneurship: Finance for Founders and co-founder of MIT Bootcamps, and has delivered DE programs for Enterprise Estonia, the Government of Serbia, MassChallenge, and others.
Yes. For Enterprise Estonia, DE Labs adapted the 24 steps for established deep-tech companies, focusing on partner readiness, licensing, and long sales cycles.
We teach Disciplined Entrepreneurship as the process that decides what to build, and AI as the engine that does the research and first drafts for each step, so teams move faster without losing sight of the real customer.
No. DE Labs is an independent firm, a brand of Performikon SRL. Disciplined Entrepreneurship was created by Bill Aulet at MIT, and Marius Ursache co-authored Disciplined Entrepreneurship: Finance for Founders with him.
Contact
Tell us who your program serves and what it needs. Marius will come back with a first idea of format, scope, and timing.
New book, December 1, 2026
New from Bill Aulet and Marius Ursache: Disciplined Entrepreneurship: Finance for Founders. Out December 1, 2026, from Wiley.
Pre-order