The Minor in Entrepreneurship (MES) will give you a solid foundation starting “to think business minded”, understand products, services and market fit, marketing and sales and to start and run a company and understand corporate entities and their governance, contracts, intellectual property and human resources. A business is a complex construct, we will break it down in its elements and you learn how those elements work individually and how they are connected to each other. 

At the end of this program you will have the ability to participate and understand communications of business leaders. Have the foundation to start your own business or become a valuable partner in existing businesses, for profit or social, business principles are very similar.

The program is jointly offered by the School of Management (SOM) and the School of Engineering and Technology (SET). The minor is taught by Faculty from SOM and SET and several external experts. The AIT Entrepreneurship Center is facilitating the minor and helps in all organization issues.

If you are a SOM MBA student and you want to choose “Area of Specialization in Entrepreneurship”, please click here to see the required courses.

Curriculum

The Minor is a 12 credit program, organized in 4 Terms over a period of 8 weeks per term (includes exam). There are 3 required courses with a total of 9 credits and students can select an elective of 3 credits; making it a total of 12 credits.

The 3 required courses in brief are:

1) “SM80.1704 – Entrepreneurship and New Ventures” is a foundation course. At this course, the student groups each having a startup idea are formed. Offered in Term 1

3) “AT84.9001 and AT84.1001 – In the Mind of the Entrepreneur   –   Part A and B” equips students and the startup groups with the necessary tools to build and run a startup company. Offered in Terms 2 and 3

4) “AT84.1101 – Entrepreneur in Action” applies the knowledge, methods and tools of the previous two courses to actually create a startup company until the stage to receive first funding and sell the first product. Such startups are ready to be incubated in the future AIT Incubator. Offered in Term 4

The electives are:

SM80.1707 Managing Technology and Innovation; 3 credits; June

SM80.1709 Operation Management; 3 credits; October

SM80.1711 Strategic Management;  3 credits; October

SM94.06 Decision making, Risk and Opportunities: Creative, design and critical thinking in complex multi-parameter environments to derive strategies and decision making; 3 credits; October

The Terms and the respective courses with learning outcomes are as follows:

Term 1 – August

“SM80.1704 – Entrepreneurship and New Ventures” – 3 credits

Course Objective: The objective of this course is to provide an understanding of the interrelationships between the management of new ventures and entrepreneurship in an innovation-driven and knowledge-based economic development. In addition, this course will enable students to design and present to venture capitalists/professional investors both, a business model canvas and a complete business plan for a new business venture. This course helps students to understand typical success and failure factors most frequently encountered by new business ventures in knowledge intensive industries and provide future entrepreneurs with strategic tools of planning the operations for the new company. 

Course work: 

Days 1-2 

• Warm-up:  Experience, interest and questions “in the room”
• Micro overview: Who/what/why/how’s of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship
• Macro overview: Startup ecosystems and entrepreneurial infrastructure
• Entrepreneurial process: Triggers, diagnosis, challenge, options and plan
• Case analysis
• Skill 1: Design thinking
• Tool: Problem mapping
• Brainstorm triggers and team formation
• Guest speakers

Days 3-4

• Value propositions
• Tool: Journey mapping
• Skill 2: Blue Ocean Strategy (case and exercise)
• Fundamental strategies and business model canvas (case)
• Skill 3: Strategic pivots
• Presentations: Triggers  Diagnosis  Challenge  Options
• Stakeholders and 4-hurdle strategies
• Pitch basics
• Guest speakers

Day 5-6

• Execution:  Business model canvas and plan
• New venture nuts and bolts
• Incubators, accelerators and platforms
• Consolidate insights from interviews with founders and business owners
• Peer team feedback on draft pitch decks and supporting slides
• Financing:  Angel investing, venture capital
• Pitches
• Guest speakers

Learning Outcomes:  Entrepreneurship is fundamentally about identifying problems and opportunities, gaining insights into those problems and opportunities, generating proposals to address them, and ensuring that initiatives can be implemented successfully.  To this end, this course will contribute to your:

• analytic, entrepreneurial and creative problem-solving skills,
• communication skills and ability to engage with and gain buy-in from key stakeholders.

ASSESSMENT

• Participation (10%) Preparedness for sessions, active and valuable contribution to discussions, and attendance (if on Zoom, camera on).
• Memo: Entre- and/or intra-preneurial opportunity candidates (10%) 

Individually, you will prepare a memo in which you propose 6 problems or opportunities that you may want to use in exercises in sessions during this course and for your final project.  (These are not binding; i.e., you may change to another problem/opportunity later.)  These include (1) any problem or opportunity that you think is worth addressing but not related to any specific organization (i.e., could be the basis for a new venture), (2) a new technology that could be applied in different ways to different industries or problems, and (3) a problem or opportunity related to your current organization or another specific organization (i.e., potential intra-preneurial initiative).  Due on Day 2

• Interview with founder or business owner (20%)

Each student will interview a founder or business owner to gain insights into how they started their business, challenges they faced and their “journey”, and related management and strategic issues they must deal with.  Guidelines will be distributed. Due on Day 5 

• Pitch project (60%): Main pitch deck and supporting back-up slides

Instead of a final exam, you (individually or in a team of up to 3 people) will develop an entrepreneurial proposal, either for a new firm, a major new revenue stream in an existing firm, or a major new initiative in a not-for-profit organization (government agency, non-profit, etc). If you choose to focus on a not-for-profit organization, then “value creation” need not be in pursuit of revenue/profit, but must deliver some kind of new value to a focal stakeholder.  The pitch deck will be evaluated on how attractive, clear and convincing is your proposal and should be designed for a 10-minute pitch presentation.  Additional, more detailed content should be appended in back-up slides. Detailed guidelines will be distributed separately.  Full draft version due and will be presented on final day of course.

Term 2 – October

“AT84.9001 – In the Mind of the Entrepreneur   –   Part A” – 1.5 credits

Course Objective: This course is designed for students aiming at launching or joining a very early-stage company, students willing to pursue a career in early-stage investment, or those curious to understand how startups works. The objective of this course is to explain the key milestones a startup needs to achieve in order to successfully reach growth stage (series B). In parallel, students will get to apply the concepts taught on their own business idea and should be prepared to launch their company with a viable product.

Course Design: This course is the second course that makes up the Minor in Entrepreneurship. The course is divided into 2 parts, Part A and Part B. Each part carries 3 credits and is accessed and graded individually. Students will continue to work in groups formed in the previous course “Entrepreneurship and New Ventures”.  

Learning Outcomes:  Students on completion of this course would be able to:

After Part A of the course:

• Define a customer profile
• Create a prototype of product or service
• Estimate the best price and pricing model for their business idea
• Prepare a sales pitch
• Oversee the development of a lead automation tool

Learning Outcomes – Progression towards a startup company:  At the end of Part A of this course, students have a full validation, segmentation, and consumer evidence of the market for the product and startup idea of the group.

Term 3 – January

“AT84.1001 – In the Mind of the Entrepreneur   –   Part B” – 1.5 credits

Course Objective: This course is designed for students aiming at launching or joining a very early-stage company, students willing to pursue a career in early-stage investment, or those curious to understand how startups works. The objective of this course is to explain the key milestones a startup needs to achieve in order to successfully reach growth stage (series B). In parallel, students will get to apply the concepts taught on their own business idea and should be prepared to launch their company with a viable product.

Course Design: This course is the second course that makes up the Minor in Entrepreneurship. Students will continue to work in groups formed previously. 

Learning Outcomes:  Students on completion of this course would be able to:

After Part B of the course:

• Understanding company leadership and legal structures
• Prepare basic documents such as cap tables, terms sheets, resolutions
• Apply management and leadership skills
• Convince investors to deploy capital in their business idea
• Negotiate the main contract of small startup

Learning Outcomes – Progression towards a startup company:   At the end of Part B of this course, students fully understand the management structure and legal structure of a startup and can prepare documents to receive funding for the startup idea of the group.

Term 4 – March

“AT84.1101 – Entrepreneur in Action” – 3 credits

Course Objective:  The main objective of this course is to confront the student to the real life of an entrepreneur with the benevolent support of mentors, academics and alumni. Students are expected to be able to identify and reach out to key stakeholders for their business idea and influence or convince them to purchase their product or service or to invest in their company. At the end of this course, students (and the start-up group) can confidently pitch their ideas to investors and have prepared all due diligence materials. The proposed start-up is ready to receive funding and make first sales and could be incubated for growth.

Course Design: This course is the last course that makes up the Minor in Entrepreneurship. Students will continue to work in groups formed in the first course “Entrepreneurship and New Ventures” and will build on the knowledge and management skills learned in the previous course “In the Mind of the Entrepreneur“. This course is mainly practical, and students and student groups are working with their mentor.

Learning Outcomes – Progression towards a startup company:  At the end of this course, students and the startup idea group are ready to confidently pitch their ideas to investors and have prepared all due diligence materials. The proposed start-up is ready to receive funding.

For SOM’s MBA student with “Area of Specialization in Entrepreneurship”

Students must complete 12 credits of the courses listed below:

1) “SM80.1704 – Entrepreneurship and New Ventures” is a foundation course. At this course, the student groups each having a startup idea are formed. Offered in Term 1

2) “AT84.9001 and AT84.1001 – In the Mind of the Entrepreneur   –   Part A and B” equips students and the startup groups with the necessary tools to build and run a startup company. Offered in Terms 2 and 3

3) “AT84.1101 – Entrepreneur in Action” applies the knowledge, methods and tools of the previous two courses to actually create a startup company until the stage to receive first funding and sell the first product. Such startups are ready to be incubated in the future AIT Incubator. Offered in Term 4

4) SM94.03 Risk and Decision-making: Critical Thinking and Problem Solving; 3 credits; October

Contacts
AIT Entrepreneurship Center secretary
[email protected]