Programme Overview

This 8 week- programme is designed with a single intention in mind, to support participants’ transition from an idea to a brand. It constitutes a compilation of materials on entrepreneurship, enterprise, leadership, and business development and management drawing from the concepts of leadership, and self-determination with theories from diverse fields, which is equivalent to two years of studying for an MBA at a business school.

Module Overview

This course is designed to provide students with a hands-on entrepreneurial experience to develop confidence and competencies to cultivate the mindsets, methodologies, and tools to conceive, validate, and launch new ventures or products. Through an experiential learning outlook, students will immerse themselves in the chaos and uncertainty of startup development and execution. Throughout the course, the key entrepreneurial skills students would need to develop include opportunity identification, business model development, customer validation, venture funding, and growth strategies. At the end of the course, every student will pitch an original business idea and provide a working document demonstrating the launch plan and how they would work with a team to launch a real startup.

Course Aim

This course aims to enable students

Develop entrepreneurial mindsets like creativity, opportunity recognition, initiative-taking, problem-solving, and resilience.
Build core enterprising development skills such as business model development, customer research, product design, fundraising, and growth hacking.
Provide hands-on experiential learning through real-world projects, case studies, and simulations.
Encourage an experimental, trial-and-error approach to validating ideas in dynamic startup environments.
Teach methodologies like design thinking, lean startup, agile development, and effective business planning.
Strengthen soft skills including communication, collaboration, influencing, and relationship building.
Instill financial and business acumen through understanding startup financing, legal issues, operations, and marketing.
Inspire the creation of innovative new products, services, and ventures that provide value.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this module, learners should be able to:

Attitudes

LO1 Appreciate enterprise concepts and reflect on personal entrepreneurial strengths, weaknesses, and leadership style.

Core Knowledge

LO2 Recognize and assess opportunities for new ventures that create value, with an ability to analyze business models and industry dynamics to evaluate the feasibility and viability of a startup.

LO3 Conduct customer discovery research to validate product-market fit.

LO4 Apply methods like design thinking, lean startup, and agile development.

Core Competencies

LO5 Develop and pitch a business plan to potential investors with effective communication skills to promote a vision and persuade stakeholders.

LO7 Make data-driven decisions under uncertainty and fast-changing conditions with an ability to function effectively as part of a founding team to launch a new venture.