Launching Technology Startup Ventures
Apply the processes and skills needed to launch and manage a new venture in this capstone experience that brings all of the courses' key learning together.
Delivery
Online
Duration
12 Weeks
Commitment
8-10 Hours per Week
In this capstone experience, learners apply best practices for planning, launching, and leading a startup company or corporate venture. The course examines a wide range of issues of importance and concern to entrepreneurs and innovators.
What You'll Learn
- Learn how to plan, launch, and manage a new technology venture in an independent or corporate setting
- Build confidence in your personal talents, and develop your entrepreneurial skill sets, to transform your entrepreneurial ideas into action
- Develop specific skills, competencies, and research and analysis methods for new venture success
- Equip yourself with the skills for identifying and analyzing entrepreneurial opportunities throughout your career
Who Will Benefit
- Aspiring entrepreneurs working to identify a viable new business idea from which to develop their own company.
- Active entrepreneurs seeing to validate and enhance their existing business idea and accelerate their company’s success.
- Corporate professionals interested in understanding how business and technology shape the creation of new products and services by established companies.
- Educators, consultants, and organizational leads desiring to improve their capacity to teach, advise, or empower their constituencies to succeed in startup entrepreneurship or corporate innovation.
Course Topics
Module 1: Defining the Opportunity
What are entrepreneurial opportunities? How do you evaluate a winning innovation idea when you see one? What factors influence the feasibility of an innovation? Which innovation strategy: technology-push or market-pull? What complementary assets are critical to develop?
Module 2: The Business Model
How do you develop a business model? Customer segments and business models. Developing the Business Model Canvas.
Module 3: The Problem
What do customers want to know? Customer segments, value propositions, and product features. How to map your value? What existing factors can we eliminate? Which factors can raise you above competitors? What new factors can you create? Is competition for losers?
Module 4: The Solution
The value of storytelling. The minimum viable product. Customer value. The DNA of customer-centricity. Planning for prototyping.
Module 5: Market Opportunity
What is the lifecycle stage of your industry? What demographic changes are creating new market needs? What psychographic changes are opportunistic? What technical advancements are emerging? What societal changes are presenting new opportunities? What political and regulatory forces will influence the market? Crossing the chasm. Qualitative and quantitative marketing research.
Module 6: Competition
Are you trying to enter a concentrated market? Importance and methods of market segmentation. Focusing on the target market. Beyond the chasm. Strategic implications of beyond the chasm.
Module 7: Prototyping
Why and how to prototype. Rapid prototyping and development. Lean startup MVPs. Choosing wireframing and UX prototyping tools. Anatomy of an experience map. What you'll learn from user testing.
Module 8: Go-To-Market
Troubleshooting your customer discovery. Role and meaning of price. Pricing strategies. Levels of a product/service. Distribution. eCommerce.
Module 9: Financials
Are you ready to raise capital? How to raise capital from friends and family. Income statement. Balance sheet. Statement of cash flows.
Module 10: Team
Can you build the right team at the right time? Recruiting people to your cause. Hiring employees. Platforms for finding talent. Cross pollination and team configuration.
Module 11: The Business Plan
Why create a business plan? Defining the business plan. Authoring the business plan.
Module 12: Pitching
What venture capitalists look for. How to create a pitch deck. The do's and don'ts of the pitch.
Learning Experience
Asynchronous Lectures
Coaching and Mentoring
Live Office Hours
Peer Interactions and Networking
Project-Based Learning
Real-World Assignments
Take a Peek at Launching Technology Startup Ventures
PRE-APPLY TODAYOur no-cost pre-application is the first step to the formal application, and allows our admissions team to give you a preliminary assessment of the strength of your application.
