USF Course Code: ENT 4014

Course Description

This course is an introduction to the startup journey. Students will propose, pick and work on their own startup ideas, therefore it is highly recommended that students think about the business projects they would like to develop prior to the beginning of the course. All theoretical input will be applied to their own project. Even though the course will cover stages from idea to financing our main focus will be on value creation.

Learning Objectives:

· Understand what makes startups different from other business

· Continuous use of iterative learning process for startup development

· Taking ideas from hypothesis to facts

· Economics in startups: market, costs, revenue streams, finance, scalability, raising capital

· Learning from competitors

· Work frame based on standard startup Canvas

· Sketching and adapting Minimum Viable Products (MVP´s)

· Stress the importance of the human factor: goals, culture, teamwork, etc.

· Articulate an effective pitch based on startup´s progress

Course content

1. Introduction to Entrepreneurship and Startups

- Course presentation

- What is and what isn't a startup

- Startup key principles

- How did the first days look in different startups

- Students bring startups ideas for day two

2. Validation

- Propose your startup ideas, selection and team building

- Validation do's and don'ts:

- Key concepts

- Best candidates

- How to structure validation based on your business model

- Group vs one on one

- Interviews

- Interviews done by different startups

3. Market study

- How different actors affect your model

- Market size

- How to do your own MS:

- Who are you competing against?

- In depth competitor analysis: product, marketing, users, finance, mistakes, business models.

- Do your own MS:

- Marketing

- Finance

- Roadmap

4. Product market fit canvas

- Theory behind PMF canvas

- Creating a value proposition

- Examples of PMF canvas in my startups

- Structure questionnaire for tomorrow´s interview

- Create your startup´s Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

5. Interview day

- Interviewing prospects at class

- How does new information affect our model

6. Budget

- Scalability

- Revenue: models, lifetime value, churn, spinoffs

- Cost:

- Staff

- Marketing

- Production

- Technology

- Middlemen

7. Continuation of Budget and miscellaneous

- Capital raising and basic terminology

- Soft topics

- Teamwork

- Intro to agile methodology

- Culture

8. Business model canvas:

- Value proposition

- Clients

- Relationship

- Channel

- Cost

- Revenue

- Alliances

- Strategic resources

- Strategic actions

- Middlemen

Bibliography:

· The Lean Startup - Eric Ries. Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10

· Masters of scale (podcast) - Reid Hoffman. Episode 1 · Value proposition design - A Osterwalder, Y Pigneur, G Bernarda, A Smith. Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4

· Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days - Jake Knapp. Chapters: 9, 16 · Lean analytics - Benjamin Yoskovitz, Alistair Croll. Chapter: 1, 2 · The startup owner's manual - Steve Blank. Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

*Course content subject to change