Entrepeneurship

Code

1210

Academic unit

null

Department

null

Credits

7,5

Teacher in charge

Miguel Muñoz Duarte

Teaching language

English

Objectives

This course is an introduction to the diversified nature of entrepreneurship. This course unit aims to be a hand-on experimental learning opportunuty about how founders/entrepreneurs build startups/companies.

Besides that, through lectures, case-studies, presentations by guests, and discussions, the course focuses on the entrepreneur´s point of view during the process of starting a new business.

Prerequisites

N/A

Subject matter

This course provides insight and methodologies into entrepreneurship, both as creating your own business as well as proactively starting a new venture inside a corporate (enterpreneurship).

We will be covering the key steps needed to build a successful business and it fosters real hands-on learning on what it´s like to actually start a company. The goal, within the constrains of a classroom and a limited amount of time, is to create an entrepreneurial experience for students with all of the pressures and demands of the real world in a early stage startup.

The class is designed to give students the experience of how to work as a team and turn an idea into a company.

This course takes participants down the pathway to building an idea into a volture. It is not about writing a business plan or doing library research. Students will be teaming-up to build a project from scratch and will be talking to actual customers and partners for their idea and learning the chaos and uncertainty of how a startup actually works. They´ll learn how to use a business model to brainstorm each part of a company and Customer Development to get out of the classroom and interact with real prospects to see if anyone other than themselves would actually want/use their product.

Bibliography

The Startup Owner?s Manual, Steve Blank & Dorf
Business Model Generation, Alexander Osterwalder

Teaching method

Prerequisites
?Interest in Entrepreneurship and motivation to at least evaluate launching their own business
?Passion, curiosity, resilience and agility. Interest in discovering how an idea can become a real company.
?Each participant must commit to class time plus 5 additional hours a week for Market Validation.

Class Dynamic
This class is team-based. Working and studying will be done in teams. Students will form team and they must submit a proposal for a project to be worked during the entire course.

The teams will self-organize and establish individual roles on their own. There are no formal CEO/VP?s, just the constant parsing and allocating of the tasks that need to be done.

Teams will be learning how to turn their ideas, research and technology into a product, service or process that benefits society. They?ll learn how to use a business model to brainstorm each part of an enterprise and customer development to get out of the building to see whether anyone other than they would want/use their product.

Each week will be a new adventure as they design experiments and run hypotheses tests on each part of their business model and customers. Finally, they?ll see how agile development can help them rapidly iterate their product to build something potential customers will use and buy.

Weekly, in a short presentation they?ll share the hard earned knowledge with the rest of the class. Working with their team they will encounter issues on how to build and work with a team and we will help them understand how to build and manage the startup team.

In addition to the instructors, and depending on the feasibility and availability, each team could be assigned a mentor (an experienced entrepreneur, service provider, consultant, or investor) to provide assistance and support.

Amount of Work
Teams will be spending a significant amount of time in between each of the classes outside the university, talking to customers and testing hypotheses. Getting out of the building is what the effort is about. If students can?t commit the time, then this elective class is not for them.

Class Culture
Entrepreneurs/Startups communicate much differently than the university culture most of students are familiar with. At times it can feel brusque and impersonal, but in reality is focused and oriented to create immediate action in time- and cash-constrained environments. We have limited time and we push, challenge, and question teams in the hope they will quickly learn. We will be direct, open, and tough ? just like the real world. Of course, these comments aren?t personal, but part of the process.

We also expect students to question us, challenge our point of view if they disagree, and engage in a real dialog with the teaching team. This approach may seem harsh or abrupt, but it is all part of our wanting teams to learn to challenge themselves quickly and objectively, and to appreciate that as entrepreneurs they need to learn and evolve faster than they ever imagined possible.

Evaluation method

Students will be graded by 30% on your weekly lessons learned presentations/report, 30% on your final presentation and 40% on your final exam.
Does everyone in the team get the same grade?
No. Individual participation and contribution is also considered. You get to grade your team members on their contribution.
What kind of feedback can I expect?
Continual feedback weekly, substandard quality work will be immediately brought to your attention.
To pass the course, students must get at least 9.5 (over 20) in the final exam.

Courses

• Bachelor in Management
• Bachelor in Economics