Essentie van Technology Based Entrepreneurship

Summary

In this course we focus on essential elements when starting a technology-based startup. The aim is to understand the commercial potential of implementing new technology and how to organize a startup to bring the product, process or service into the market. You will learn about technology-based innovations and business model innovations to bring new products and services to the market.

During the course, we touch on various items, considered to be essential for technology-based entrepreneurship such as intellectual property rights, technology development, strategic market and value chain positioning and the role of entrepreneurial ecosystems to support the growth of newly founded startups.

You will learn about the process of opportunity identification and the dynamics of early growth of new firms. Entrepreneurs of starting companies are highly dependent on the information they acquire among potential customers and external stakeholders such as venture capitalists, banks, suppliers and partner firms. We will discuss how entrepreneurs operate in these networks, take benefit from these networks and how they make decisions in such networks. In particular, start-up firms are likely to collaborate with larger incumbent firms which have a very different approach to the management of their business as compared to start-ups. Knowing the difference and how to operate in such instances makes the entrepreneur more resilient and successful. Finally, you will learn about the internal organization of the firm and team development during stages of growth.

Important element of the course is critical thinking. Entrepreneurship is very diverse, manifests in various forms and situations. The variety of entrepreneurship is impossible to capture in a single model, concept or tool. These models, concepts and tools have great benefits for certain forms and situations of entrepreneurship but lack usefulness in other. To be successful as an entrepreneur, it is key to understand when models, concepts and tools make sense.