Entrepreneurship

Start up your own business! Many people dream about starting up their own company but few dare to do it.

Chase your dream and experiment with entrepreneurship. Guided by experts (academics, entrepreneurs, investors), you will start a company (going from idea to first achievements) in a team of students. The basis for this hands-on experience is “Effectuation”: principles that expert entrepreneurs use to deal with uncertainties in the market. The emphasis is not on planning, students should ‘get out of the building’ and test their ideas with stakeholders. During the final event, business ideas and achievements are presented to an expert jury.

We believe that entrepreneurship is not only reserved for exceptional visionary people such as Steve Jobs, Richard Branson and Elon Musk, but that everyone can be an entrepreneur, provided they are motivated and know where to start.

Students learn how entrepreneurs create business opportunities and develop them into successful start-ups and sustainable businesses. You experience what it takes to become an entrepreneur by building your own start-up team based on shared interests. With your team members you will develop your own business idea under the guidance of expert coaches. We provide students with a toolbox that helps them to get started. You will learn and practice an effectual and lean approach to creating new ventures. This approach is based on action-oriented principles that underlie the decision-making approach and behavior of expert entrepreneurs. The emphasis is not on writing a business plan but on testing ideas in the market with relevant stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, and investors.

The entrepreneurial adventure in this Minor concludes with a pitch event where student teams present their business idea and achievements to a panel of experts in two rounds, of which one round ‘Get-in-the-Ring’ style (see: https://getinthering.co).

• Understand and apply the principles of effectuation and value proposition design
• Mobilize resources to build a viable company with a long-term vision
• Effectively communicate and work together in a team
• Apply a series of tools and develop entrepreneurial skills. Specifically, you will learn to:
• Develop a realistic customer profile
• Evaluate the customer-problem fit
• Develop a viable value proposition
• Evaluate the problem-solution fit
• Set a suitable prize for your value proposition
• Create a (validated) business model
• Design and deliver a good pitch

This Minor is not only open to RSM students who want to put in practice what they learned in the Bachelor programme, it is also open to students from other faculties and universities, as well as exchange students. For more information on admission requirements please consult the admission matrix.

All RSM minors have mandatory attendance. Attendance is mandatory and will be checked. Being late will count as having missed 0,5 lecture.
For this, minor students are allowed to miss two compulsory lectures (with or without reason). Missing more than two lectures will result in failing the course

Teaching methods
This Minor applies experiential learning. It is very interactive, hands-on and requires quite some teamwork (outside of regular class hours).

• (guest) Lectures

• Break-out sessions

• Workshops

• Presentations

Teaching materials
The Minor builds on different entrepreneurial tools that are explained and practiced in class. Mandatory literature includes:

• Read, S., Sarasvathy, S., Dew, N. & R. Wiltbank, 2017, Effectual Entrepreneurship (2nd edition), Routledge (selected chapters)
• Osterwalder et al., 2010, Value Proposition Design, Hoboken NJ: John Wiley & Sons
• Osterwalder et al., 2010, Business Model Design, Hoboken NJ: John Wiley & Sons

Method of examination

• 1 team contract: mandatory
• 3 Mandatory progress reports (team): PASS/FAIL
• Final report (team): 40%*
• Final presentation (team): 20%*
• Written test (individual): 40% (minimum grade requirement = 4.5)

After completion of the course the lecturer will determine the grade for the final report and presentation, which determines 60% of the final grade 40% is team-based and 20% allows for individual differentiation.

Note that all partial grades are only valid for the current academic year. In order to pass the course a score of 5.5 is required for the final grade. In order to obtain a final grade you need to score at least 4.5 on the written test.
There is a re-sit opportunity for the written test but not for the assignments.