Technology Venture Development

Description

This course is a leadership program intended to boost your technology entrepreneurship career, whether you want to build a startup or join one. It offers both theoretical and practical aspects of technology-based entrepreneurship. The course will stimulate you to innovate, and you are expected to be proactive, offer new and bold business initiatives, and exhibit a healthy level of free thinking.

The practical aspect is the centerpiece of the course, and it is a team project around developing a new venture idea. You will form a team of students of ideally four members from different study programmes. By design, the team composition is based on common interest in a particular market and aligns with the interdisciplinary character of the course.

You do not have to have your own business idea to participate in this course. All you need is an interest in the entrepreneurial journey and the curiosity about the creation process of new technology firms. In fact, we can provide ideas for you.

Aside from developing your business idea, you will learn to speak the language of an entrepreneur – understand all the important concepts in new business creation and familiarize yourself with theoretical fundamentals of entrepreneurship and technology innovation.

This course will resemble developing your business in a startup incubator with added flavors of business theory and history, case studies, and practicalities around starting a business (e.g. IP rights, startup financing, etc.).

What to expect?

Fast-paced and interactive, the class consists mainly of coaching sessions and workshops, therefore, class attendance is essential. In-class lectures and online content provide you with general guidelines to keep making progress. But most of the time spent in this course will be on talking to market experts and potential customers. You will seek information through customer, stakeholder, and expert interviews by developing step-by-step interview protocols and executing them. After this course, you will know much about your chosen market.

On this journey, you will be helped and inspired by guest lecturers from industry and the startup ecosystem.

Furthermore, in the course, you will analyze the entrepreneurial journeys of other founders (famous and not-so-famous) and key startup moments (market entry/ prototyping strategy/ funding strategy) and reflect on them using theoretical frameworks.

Also, you will reflect on the characteristics of startup teams and your own strengths and how you fit such a team.
Finally, the course helps you communicate your business idea and sharpen your presentational skills, especially in the business context. It will enable you to speak the language of an entrepreneur.

As it is a 15 ECTS course, we expect your full weekly commitment (like in a joint interdisciplinary project).

Enrolment / Application

MSc students from all faculties can apply. This course is intended to fulfil the "Q5" elective requirement. MAXIMUM CAPACITY is limited to 30 participants. Please apply for the course no later than June 15th. If you apply after June 15th, you may still join if space is available.

Apply by emailing dce@tudelft.nl with the "Application for Technology Venture Development" subject line.
In the application, please write (1) why you want to participate in this course, (2) what market you are interested in exploring, and (3) your educational background and the master's program you're in.

If more than 30 participants apply for the course, we will select based on your application.

Course Code / Size

TPM423 / 15 ECTS

Quarter(s)

1

Day (Class Hours)

Tue (7-8), Wed (5-8), Thu (1-2,7-8)

Your full weekly commitment is expected.