Directed Study in Management and Information Technology, Lectures Lean Startups

In this course, students will become entrepreneurs and startuppers. They will work on their own idea or develop a new business idea jointly from scratch. The students can simulate the life of a startup as a course exercise or establish a real company. The core goal of the course is to gain an increased understanding of how emergent innovations translate into commercial reality and might transform society. We survey case examples of both successful and failed businesses and generally grapple with the difficulties of deploying and diffusing products. We explore a range of business models and opportunities. Students learn to work in a startup team, validate ideas, problems and solutions and scale their business. Students will work on a startup project that develops throughout the term with weekly deliverables culminating in a public presentation on the Lean Startup Riot event.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:
- understand the new venture creation process from opportunity recognition to the launch of a sustainable business
- know several tools to analyze business
- critically analyze business opportunities
- write a business model description
- develop their entrepreneurial and creative thinking and problem-solving skills
- improve their communication and presentation skills

Passing the course requires active participation, working on the exercises, delivering the results and presenting them. The course performance is evaluated by practical startup-project work using the following evaluation criteria: 1) startup readiness, 2) execution and business plausibility and 3) innovativeness.

This course assumes that you have already completed your bachelor’s studies and you are currently doing your master’s or doctoral studies.