Entrepreneurship: A New Venture
94-807
Units: 6
Description
Entrepreneurship: A New Venture provides real world, experience-based learning on what it is like to identify, start and develop a new venture, either within an existing organization or as a new startup company. The purpose of the course is to explore the many dimensions of new venture development, working through issues of problem-assessment, market analysis, viability assessment, competitive positioning, team-building, product life-cycle planning, marketing and sales channel analysis, financial and business modeling and negotiation. We will explore opportunity mapping and the practical steps of building organizational structure associated with forming a brand-new venture. We will address strategic considerations for creating organizations that can quickly define and seize (commercial) opportunity within new categories, with principles that also apply to entrepreneurship in corporate settings and to non-profit entrepreneurship.
Learning Outcomes
Specific learning objectives are as follows:
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Directly experience the earliest phases of an entrepreneurial venture process, with a focus on identifying, assessing, building, and testing the viability of a novel business idea. Students will be asked to confront and navigate the uncertainty of how a real new venture actually emerges from the entrepreneurs’ efforts.
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Learn to take an Innovation Type (idea, technology, business model, other) through the Innovation Studio Process framework, wherein students will learn to Discover, Develop and Launch a venture through a series of idea and opportunity mapping, analyses, concept development, and business planning.
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Learn to apply decision-making frameworks to help students successfully ideate and assess market viability of concepts early on in the new venture process.
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Develop a step-by-step guide to develop a credible value proposition, plan a go-to-market strategy and practice using proven techniques from product development.
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Learn to build a comprehensive business plan including unit economics, a full proforma, financial model and the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and use the business plan to attract the attention and contributions of potential partners, customers, investors and team members.
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Learn to experience working alongside co-founders and in agile teams to attract the attention and contributions of potential partners, customers and team members.
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Learn to transform founders’ vision into operational startup excellence through startup business modeling, concept and team design, and a go-to-market strategy.
Prerequisites Description
This course is open to all interested students. No specific prerequisite is required for enrollment, however a strong desire and passion for entrepreneurship and team collaboration is required.