Bachelor 2023/2024

Internet Entrepreneurship

Type: Elective course (Business Administration)

Area of studies: Management

Delivered by: Department of Strategic and International Management

Where: Graduate School of Business

When: 4 year, 3 module

Mode of studies: offline

Open to: students of all HSE University campuses

Instructors: Zeljko Tekic

Language: English

ECTS credits: 4

Contact hours: 40

Course Syllabus

Abstract

The Internet and changes brought by it have profound effects on entrepreneurship. Through easier and faster access to information, the Internet reduces information asymmetry, influences the development and utilization of entrepreneurial opportunities, enables experimentation with business models, and reduces risk. The Internet also makes easier to get exposed to knowledge spillovers from established companies, universities, and the entrepreneurship clusters. Cutting distances and connecting millions of people, enabling easier exchange of ideas, good and money, the Internet made us less restricted by physical distance and direct access to market, people or other resources. Finally, the Internet is general purpose technology that changed every industry over the last 30 years, contributing to our move into digital world. The internet, digital technologies based on it, and novel business models every day enable new infrastructure, platforms, products and services, applications, and media content to be created, fertilizing the environment for the growth of startups. These new and fragile global companies – have been started by teams of two to five talented persons from anywhere in the world. Focusing on the emerging needs of the digital native population, using new low-cost methodologies and limited financial resources, startups are growing from zero to one, creating new value, and then from one to one billion, scaling globally in just a couple of years. This course lays the foundation to participate in this new business reality – to undertake a robust analysis, design and exploration of digitally born opportunities. It introduces tools and frameworks that help isolate and control the factors shaping the identification, evaluation and development of commercial opportunities in digital environment.

Learning Objectives

• The course is designed to help students develop the ability to find, evaluate, and develop digitaly-born opportunities into commercially viable product and process concepts, and build those concepts into viable business propositions. The material covered is research and theory-based but the course is practice-oriented with much of the time spent on shaping technology-based (digital/Internet) opportunities in order to inspire and enable students to start a company. A central objective of this subject is to equip students with an understanding of the main issues involved in the commercialization of tech advances at both strategic and operational levels. Throughout the course, we use real-life problems (identified by students) to allow students to simulate undertaking an entrepreneurial journey. The entrepreneurial journey is structured along the problem identification, ideation, creation and capture of value with an emphasis on technology as a pivotal component of the venture. This, in return, should help to develop skills necessary to understand product/service development process and to connect technology and impact.

Expected Learning Outcomes

• • Understand entrepreneurship and the essential characteristics of digital ventures • Understand and apply innovation theories and concepts to the rigorous identification and development of new opportunities for societal and commercial impact. • Develop problem statement and communicate problem that has to be solved • Actively use customer development methodology • Analyze viable business models, develop an initial business model and test its feasibility
• • Co-create a minimum viable product (MVP) in a group • Shape technology-based ideas into workable business concepts and learn how to test them in the marketplace. • Critically assess and evaluate the resource assembly junctures in the development of new ventures (whether they be within established corporations or startups). • Effectively communicate entrepreneurial initiatives in oral and in written form • Productively work in groups

Course Contents

• Intro to the course and the topic
• Entrepreneurial Ideas and Opportunities
• Lean Startup
• How to Talk to Customers
• Problem Statement Canvas
• Business Model
• MVP and Hypothesis testing
• Entrepreneurial Ecosystems
• Intellectual Property (IP) Rights
• Money for startups
• Entrepreneurs and Negotiation

Assessment Elements

• 3 Problems You Love and Hate (New Venture Project)
  Based on the problems students individually collected, each team should discuss and select the top three problems. One of these problems will serve as a starting point for your project work.
• Problem Statement (New Venture Project)
  Teams will present well digested problems (including customer interviews) in the form of a problem statement canvas in their seminar group. Full task description will be provided in the LMS at least a week before the assignment
• Business model (New Venture Project)
  Teams will present the first iteration of a business model canvas for their projects, in their seminar group. Full task description will be provided in the LMS at least a week before the assignment.
• Final presentation (New venture project)
  Final project presentations (including all key elements of developed startup project) will be given in front of a class and instructor. The instructor will provide feedback during the presentations. To be submitted: presentation with 10 – 12 slides; Time available for presentation: 8 minutes per team (to be confirmed based on the final number of teams)
• In-Class Discussion and Engagement
  This is not simply lecture attendance, it is ENGAGEMENT and PARTICIPATION in the lectures, with timely and relevant comments and discussion, comments linked to the previous lectures, assigned readings (including videos), personal experience, or other courses; opinion based on evidence, thinking, responding to the lecturer’s questions.
• Exam
  The exam is taken in a written format based on a selection of open-ended questions with asynchronous proctoring.

Interim Assessment

• 2023/2024 3rd module
  0.05 * 3 Problems You Love and Hate (New Venture Project) + 0.05 * Business model (New Venture Project) + 0.4 * Exam + 0.29 * Final presentation (New venture project) + 0.16 * In-Class Discussion and Engagement + 0.05 * Problem Statement (New Venture Project)

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• David J. Bland, & Alexander Osterwalder. (2020). Testing Business Ideas : A Field Guide for Rapid Experimentation. Wiley.
• Osterwalder, A., Clark, T., & Pigneur, Y. (2010). Business Model Generation : A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=335366
• Ries, E. (2011). The Lean Startup : How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. New York: Currency. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=733896

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Sahlman, W. A., Hoffman, R., Andreessen, M., & Blank, S. G. (2018). HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Entrepreneurship and Startups (featuring Bonus Article “Why the Lean Startup Changes Everything” by Steve Blank). Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1798805

Authors

• Tekich Zhelko