Entrepreneurship - Does Your Startup Idea Make Sense?

Find out how to build the right it, before you build it right.

My intention is simple: to teach you quick, easy and actionable tools to validate your startup idea. This course is NOT about how to build a startup - rather, it's about whether or not you should continue with your idea BEFORE you start your startup. This course will teach you quick tools and frameworks to apply immediately. I can say with confidence that if you spend just 1 hour applying the tools, that you will save yourself many hours, money and human resources down the line.

Many teams take the plunge into building only to waste resources on products/services that are not desirable, or business models that are not viable. I don't want you to just learn how to use the tools and frameworks - I care about your understanding in interpreting the data through using the tools, and thereby helping you to drive your decision making and probability of startup success.

Unique in this course is that it covers both Hardware (technology/products) and Digital (apps/website) solutions, and is applicable to both startup and corporate entrepreneurship environments. Most courses focus primarily on the tools for digital products (apps/websites) but I want to give you a broader toolbag. Hardware requires a different approach than digital due to longer time commitments, larger resources required and especially patience required on part of the investor.

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Requirements

The course has no requirements for prior prerequisites. Anyone can enroll.

Teaching Style

I live by the Dutch saying, “Act normal, that’s crazy enough.” Therefore don't expect flashy videos and sales-talk - expect to the point tips, tricks, methodologies and tools that help validate your next idea.

All the content – frameworks, process, experiments – are tried and tested by your trainer with a wide variety of global teams (Europe, US, Asia), ranging from undergraduate/graduate students to corporate professionals. They are designed to get you to start, progress and succeed.

Sections and Outcomes

• Team: The team determines the success - not the idea. Most courses ignore the team formation and dynamics - I will cover it first to ensure that you have setup your team dynamics right before you start.

• Customer Exploration: We will deepdive into the practical steps to source and interview real customers from a “problem finding” perspective and mindset - thereby ensuring that the idea is based on customer feedback and not bias, hearsay or secondary reports.

• Customer Experiments: You will learn how to apply a simple framework to Recognize, Design, Test, and Evaluate the critical assumptions about your customer and idea through quick and inexpensive experiments. Based on the real customer feedback generated through the experiments you can start to build your Minimum Viable Product and ensure your financial resources are spent purposefully

• Business Viability: In this section you will learn how investors evaluate your startup based on Market Sizing and 7-year profitability. You will build a simple financial model and learn how to interpret the "story" behind the numbers and how to communicate it with other team members and investors.

Together, these 4 elements ensure that you will be able to answer questions about the Desirability, Feasibility and Viability of your idea with real customer evidence, and in a simple manner for everyone to understand and support.

What do I require of you?

• Get out of your comfort zone, actively engage with the content and activities – experiment!

What will you take away from this course?

• Acquire skills, tools, techniques and mindsets to validate the idea that are applicable in both startup and corporate environments.

• Real, experiential learning in team formation and dynamics, customer discovery, experimentation and business viability.

• Quick and inexpensive customer validation techniques that you can implement with your potential customers.

• Simple financial modelling for startups and the investor intuition behind the numbers to tell a compelling story.

• Get you started on your discovery of a value proposition!

Who should take this course?

• Aspiring and first-time entrepreneurs of all ages – It’s never too late to start!

• Experienced entrepreneurs engaging with a new product/service than their previous businesses regardless of success or failure.

• Staff of corporate innovation labs, accelerators, incubators and venture building organizations.

• Learning & Development teams within Corporations and Government institutions who want to teach a new way of thinking and doing.

Who should not?

I like to compare entrepreneurship to a very physical teamsport – it requires you to interact in the flesh with real customers and work with a wide variety of individuals. If you are not willing to go beyond market reports and internet searches then this course is not for you. I invite you to actively step out of your comfort zone, and out of the building to apply the materials. Be at W.A.R. - Willing, Able, Ready!

Come join the FUNtastic world of entrepreneurship!

I am confident that this course, based on the theory and highly practical experience, will improve your potential value and probability of success.