Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Startup (BØK385)

In this course, you will make a business plan in a small group. Making a business plan is a kind of summary of many of the other courses that a bachelor student has taken.

The "Disciplined Entrepreneurship Workbook" describe 24 steps which the student groups will utilize and present in class during the course. Topics are:

- Who is your customer

- What can you do for your customer

- How does your customer acquire your product

- How do you make money of your product

- How do you design and build your product

- How do you scale your business

The information from working with the 24 steps shall be collected into a business plan and is the basis for the oral presentation and defense.

Knowledge

Upon completion of the course, students will:

• have a theoretical and practical understanding of how research or knowledge-based businesses are created and how these ideas can form the basis for specific businesses based on the Disiplined Entrepreneurship method. This includes both new start-ups and growth for existing companies. Including:

- How ideas or research can become commercialized and turned into a business

- What characterizes a successful start-up company including Business Plan objectives and structure with a Business Model

- Methods and techniques for investigating market needs and potential demand

- Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) or "intellectual property" as a strategic tool for business development

- Valuation, financing strategy and sources.

Skills

Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:

• Prepare a business plan
• Evaluate the potential of different business ideas
• Clarify the product or the service function for customers/users, customer value and cost estimates
• Perform financial analysis, profitability analysis and risk analysis and identify resource requirements
• Prepare and perform a presentation for investors  

Fagperson(er)

Study Program Director:

Course coordinator:

Course teacher:

The workload is estimated to be 270 hours for the average student. (Approximately 30 hours of lectures, 5 hours of presentations, 200 hours reading material and writing on the 24 steps that develops into a business plan, 40 hours preparing for an oral exam with presentation and defence.) Instruction is provided through 3 hour sessions. A schedule will be available at course start.  Between sessions, participants must work on their business plan independently in their groups. Students will receive guidance from lecturers in class or by deliveries of presentations / business  plan in progress. Deliveries of work in progress is voluntary, but needed to get feedback, in addition to comments in class.

The sessions will be organized as a combination of lectures, group discussions and group presentations. During the course we will use guest speakers who are specialists within their fields.

It is a requirement that students work together in groups of 3-5, and we encourage interdisciplinary groups.

The final mark for the submitted business plan (and the defense) is determined on the basis of the formal quality of the business plan, i.e. how well it is documented, how well the choices made are argued for, and how the analyzes are conducted. Is the result feasible and trustworthy? Does it have a good connected "story" from introduction to budget and conclusion? It is the group's responsibility to find a project or idea for the business plan; however, the lecturer will be able to assist in finding appropriate projects.

Textbook

Aulet, B. (2017). Disciplined entrepreneurship workbook / (M. Ursache & C. Snyder, Red.). Wiley,.