The entrepreneurship & Innovation course explores how innovation and entrepreneurship are intertwined in the creation of value. The main part (Entrepreneurship) is about people and the processes related to launching and building new ventures and transforming them into viable, sustainable and valuable enterprises. In addition, this course addresses the questions of entrepreneurship as a different management style and how entrepreneurial firms can be organized in order to realize substantial growth in the context of liability of smallness and newness. A secondary part (Innovation) focuses more on the problem-solution side of any entrepreneurial initiative providing the students with a few methodological approaches that can facilitate the exploration of the problem and the possible solutions This course is not about entrepreneurship but an entrepreneurship course. Entrepreneurship requires reflection and action. So a strong focus of this course is work in teams on a project. This course offers the opportunity to practice entrepreneurial skills. It follows the logic of setting up a startup from the idea to the investor pitch and gives you the possibility to practice entrepreneurial practices and skills. The way you practice, is the way you play !

Knowledge and understanding: Sufficient insight into entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial processes in order to: • Understand the role and challenges of an entrepreneur • Understand the difference between established firms and new ventures • Understand how to evaluate opportunities • Understand the strategies of new venture management • Understand the organizational challenges in launching a potentially fast-growing firm • Understand the financing process Applying knowledge and understanding: • Identifying and evaluating opportunities for start-ups • Perform customer validation • Developing a business model for start-ups • Developing entry strategies for new ventures • Developing requirements for an appropriate new venture team • Develop a concept for establishing a financing package Making judgments: Students will acquire experience in making judgments about business opportunities and their feasibility Communication skills - students will develop communication skills for presenting project work Learning skills - Dealing with uncertain outcomes, students will learn how to approach and validate their projects

What is entrepreneurship? Idea Generation, problem verification and validation Solution validation, crafting the value proposition and solution development Systematic Innovation Entry strategies and market discovery Business Model Development Access to finance and funding

Neck, H, Neck, C, and Murray, E., (2018). Entrepreneurship – Mindset and Practice, Sage Publications; - Smith & Smith 2019: Entrepreneurial Finance - Venture Capital, Deal Structure & Valuation, 2nd Edition, Standford University Press. Additional Literature - Reis, E. (2011), The lean startup New York: Crown Business. The lean startup approach was the guiding principle of the project work and is an essential part of the entrepreneurial process. Compared to the book, more advanced techniques and tools had been used but the knowledge of the book is the minimum requirement for anyone who has been in entrepreneurship course. - Osterwalder, A., & Pigneur, Y. (2010). Business model generation: a handbook for visionaries, game changers, and challengers (Vol. 1). John Wiley & Sons. Business modelling was one of the tasks to perform. The first three chapters are obviously an obligatory read. - Viki, T., Toma, D., & Gons, E. (2017). The corporate startup. How established companies can develop successful innovation ecosystems. This book adapts the lean startup approach to the corporate world. This is so far the only additional reading effort for non-attending students (as attending students need to cover the topics of the first three books). The book is an easy and fast read and interesting especially for non-attending students less interested in startups. - D. Mann, Hands on Systematic Innovation: For Business and Management : Mann, Darrell. This book explains how to move from an haphazard, chaotic, convoluted, purely intuitive approach to innovation to a structured, systematic one without losing space for creativity. Non attending students will be assigned selected chapters of this seminal book. Additional Articles will be added in due course

We will be experimenting with Challenge Based Learning, working on a flipped-classroom approach encouraging students to search and to critically review existing knowledge, and at the same time to apply generated learnings. At the core is the team project work. Case studies will be used to explore in more depth certain aspects. We will class discussions, case studies and videos. Attention and learning will be, additionally, stimulated through the use of interactive platforms like Mentimeter.

Throughout the course, there will be continuous verifications through the progress reports, case study discussion. Active participation is not a choice but a requirement. For the final grade, the Project-work (in teams) counts for 70%, the written exam for 30%. There are no bonus points. There will be no midterm exam but a continuous assessment with inter-mediate project work presentations

At least 27/30 on the exam