Idea to Start-up – Deep Tech

In this course, you do not study entrepreneurship, you become an entrepreneur. Working in a team, you identify a business opportunity, test its validity, and build a viable business model a roadmap from an idea to a sustainable innovation-driven company. On this journey, you will be helped by guest lecturers from industry and the startup ecosystem. After this course, you will be able to proactively assess the merit of a technology venture, whether you want to build or join one. While the starting point is tackling the societal and market problems and unmet needs, the solution ideas must be based on substantial scientific advances and cutting-edge engineering that can be used to build competitive advantage in the market (via patent for example). Feel free to bring your own ideas and technologies, but you do not need one to enjoy this course. All you need is curiosity about building a business on solid technological foundations.

Fast-paced and interactive, the class consists of mostly coaching sessions and team exercises, therefore class attendance is very important. Online content and short in-class lectures provide you with general guidelines for each business model milestone. There will be weekly assignments, building blocks to a full-fledged business model. Final deliverables include: a logbook of primary market research (yes, you'll do interviews!), business model report, and a pitch presentation in front of a jury of startup professionals.

You start the course with forming teams around a market problem or unmet need. Then, you gradually build a business model, mainly by answering questions such as: Who are my customers and what value do I create for them? How big is this market? How should my minimum viable product look like? How do I build a competitive advantage in the market (e.g. by patenting)? How will I market and deliver this product to the customer? Can this be a profitable business? You seek answers through customer, stakeholder, and expert interviews, by developing step-by-step interview protocols and executing them.