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Description

This course is the second in a series of courses to develop one's entrepreneurial mindset and be on a path to building a startup. This course creates an entrepreneurial experience with all of the pressures and demands of the real world in an early-stage startup. It exposes students to “build-test-learn” cycles to build a business idea. The class is designed to give students an evidence-based methodology to progress from a preliminary idea to a product or service needed by customers. 

Outline

The course is hands-on, immersing students in experiential learning by engaging with prospective users outside of the classroom to test a product or service idea and uncover their expectations from it. Students can work in teams, conduct market tests with increasing complexity, refining their product or service to better align with customers' expectations. The result is a minimum viable product tested for a product-market fit. The course is self-paced with the opportunity to meet with the instructors and peers virtually every two weeks for an hour.  The course is organized into the following four modules.

  1. Generating a virtual prototype
  2. Conducting a market test
  3. Using market test results to validate or falsify assumptions
  4. Repeat market tests until a satisfactory product-market fit has been developed

Objectives

  1. Conduct market tests using an evidence-based methodology
  2. Assembling resources to conduct market tests
  3. Shaping an opportunity to launch as an enterprise
  4. Build the habit of taking actions under uncertain circumstances

Key Benefits

At the end of this course, you will have a start-up idea that has undergone cycles of testing for improving the fit between your idea and customers' needs. The course will leave you with a repeatable method to plan and conduct market tests. Repeated cycles of plan-act-reflect will help in developing your entrepreneurial mindset.   

Competencies

  • Developing your entrepreneurial mindset
  • Increasing your comfort level in ambiguous and uncertain situations
  • Being open to and learning from failures
  • Improving your self-directed learning capabilities
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For further information, contact Dr. Aparna Katre at aukatre@d.umn.edu.
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