Entrepreneurship: Ideation and Validation

Catalog description

This course is a practical introduction to the problems, practices, and opportunities that exist for early stage startups which are examined from conception of the opportunity through customer discovery and customer validation utilizing an experiential learning approach. Participants will explore business model possibilities for a venture of their own devising. Emphasis will be placed on clear statement of hypotheses, effective testing of the problem the venture aims to address, and appropriate testing of the product/service developed to address the problem in order to develop suitable product-market fit. Student teams will assess and iterate upon business model elements including value propositions, customer segments and customer relationships, in addition to channels that may be used to interact with or deliver products/services to customers. Although the course will not cover the launch of a scalable business, student teams will undertake real-world investigation and testing to discover customer wants and needs and to validate their conception of the problems and product/service solutions that their ventures would use to address those problems. Students will also gain experience with crafting business pitches and delivering those pitches via regular in-class presentations as they hone their ventures’ business models.