BSHE: Developing Entrepreneurial Skills for a Startup Founder

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Developing Entrepreneurial Skills for a Startup Founder

  • Course name: Developing Entrepreneurial Skills for a Startup Founder
  • Code discipline: R-01
  • Subject area:

Short Description

This course covers the following concepts: • A systematic and balanced approach to the development of entrepreneurial skills for the hi-tech startup founder; Entrepreneurial thinking as a unique phenomenon and the basic condition of successful entrepreneurship; Practice-oriented approach including real-life examples, work-based learning.; Startup founder as a “leader and follower”..

Prerequisites

Prerequisite subjects

Prerequisite topics

Course Topics

Course Sections and Topics
Section Topics within the section
Entrepreneurial thinking and hard-skills for a startup founder in hi-tech sphere
  1. • Entrepreneurial thinking as a key concept for the startup founder
  2. • Entrepreneurial Skills: Top-5 hard-skills for a startup founder in hi-tech sphere
Soft-skills of a startup founder
  1. • Presentation and communication skills to promote a startup. Networking.
  2. • Time management, stress management and personal efficiency: how to ensure balance and productivity for a founder
  3. • Innovative and flexible thinking, creativity
Entrepreneurial identity of a startup founder and facing challenges
  1. • Startups in VUCA and BANI Reality: How Entrepreneurial Thinking Can Help a Founder Be Efficient in the Face of Uncertainty
  2. • A startup as a “reflection” of the founder’s personality: how personal growth helps to increase efficiency and form a strong team

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

What is the main purpose of this course?

The main purpose of this course is to provide a startup founder with a holistic understanding of how various entrepreneurial skills can help ensure not only the potential success of a startup, but also their own personal effectiveness, as well as enjoyment of running a hi-tech business.

ILOs defined at three levels

Level 1: What concepts should a student know/remember/explain?

By the end of the course, the students should be able to ...

  • • the content and characteristics of the modern concept of "entrepreneurial thinking";
  • basic entrepreneurial skills and their features;
  • methods of self-assessment of readiness for entrepreneurial activity;
  • features of presentation, communication skills and networking, their importance for the promotion of a startup;
  • concepts and characteristics, the main tools of time management, stress management and personal effectiveness;
  • definition, features and characteristics of creativity, innovative and flexible thinking in the context of a startup;
  • basic investor requirements for founder skills;
  • the concept and characteristics of VUCA- / BANI-reality, special requirements for entrepreneurial skills of the founder in conditions of uncertainty;
  • concept and characteristics of a concept of a founder as a “leader and follower”.

Level 2: What basic practical skills should a student be able to perform?

By the end of the course, the students should be able to ...

  • • Entrepreneurial thinking and basic entrepreneurial skills for the potential effectiveness of a startup;
  • Innovational and flexible thinking, creativity
  • Time-management and stress management
  • Presentation and communcation skills
  • Dealing with uncertainty and facing the challenges
  • Teambuilding and leadership for startup founder

Level 3: What complex comprehensive skills should a student be able to apply in real-life scenarios?

By the end of the course, the students should be able to ...

  • Understanding of readiness to start business in hi-tech sphere
  • Effective communication with investor
  • Presenting startup and effective analyzation of feedback
  • Managing startup team
  • Facing the challenges in startup realities and leading the team
  • Organizing of constant self-delvelopment for the effectiveness of startup

Grading

Course grading range

Grade Range Description of performance
A. Excellent 90-100 -
B. Good 75-89 -
C. Satisfactory 60-74 -
D. Poor 0-59 -

Course activities and grading breakdown

Activity Type Percentage of the overall course grade
Labs/seminar classes 20
Interim performance assessment 30
Exams 50

Recommendations for students on how to succeed in the course

Resources, literature and reference materials

Open access resources

  • •. Kiyosaki, R. (2011) Rich Dad Poor Dad. What The Rich Teach Their Kids About Money - That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! Plata Publishing.
  • Willink, J. (2020) Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual. St. Martin’s Press.
  • Five Insightful TED Talks That Every Startup Founder Should Watch https://mindsea.com/startup-founder-ted-talks/

Closed access resources

Software and tools used within the course

Teaching Methodology: Methods, techniques, & activities

Activities and Teaching Methods

Activities within each section
Learning Activities Section 1 Section 2 Section 3
Homework and group projects 1 1 1
Midterm evaluation 1 1 1
Reports 1 1 1
Essays 1 1 1
Oral polls 1 1 1
Discussions 1 1 1
Testing (written or computer based) 0 1 0

Formative Assessment and Course Activities

Ongoing performance assessment

Section 1

Activity Type Content Is Graded?
Question 1. What are the key features of entrepreneurial thinking? 1
Question 2. What are the top-5 hard skills for a startup founder? 1
Question 3. What are the characteristics of startup readiness? How can you understand that someone is ready to start a business? 1
Question 4. Why is self-assessment so important for starting a business? 1
Question 5. What is a personal brand? What does it consist of? 1
Question 1. Do you think a startup founder can/should be excellent in all top-5 hard-skills? Why? 0
Question 2. Which skills can you add to this list? Why? 0
Question 3. Do you think that most successful entrepreneurs were having their entrepreneurial skills already well developed or were developing them to be a success? Find 2-3 examples. 0
Question 4. Do you think startup founder should always be a manager? Find 2-3 examples. 0
Question 5. Do you know any examples of startup founders without a proper background and knowledge in the sphere of his/her business? Is it possible in IT-sphere? 0
Question Questions for exam preparation within this section 0
Question 1. What is the vision of hard-skills of a startup founder? Find 3-5 examples on internet. 0
Question 2. How do typical hard-skills of a startup founder differ in IT-sphere? Why do you think so? 0
Question 3. What is your motivation of becoming a startup founder? 0
Question 4. Do you think it is possible to understand if a startup will be successful or not? Find 2-3 examples of real stories of success and failure in the predictions. 0
Question 5. Do you have an entrepreneurial thinking? How others can see it? Do you want to develop it? How do you think to do it? 0

Section 2

Activity Type Content Is Graded?
Question 1. What is a pitch deck? What is an elevator pitch? 1
Question 2. What are the main principles of time-management? Startups are all about deadlines, would you agree or not? 1
Question 3. Is stress always harmful and negative? Why? When stress is very harmful? 1
Question 4. What is networking? What are the main differences between networking and “useful” connections? 1
Question 5. What is creativity / innovational thinking/ flexible thinking? 1
Question 1. What are the best stress management techniques you know? (use different kind of sources for your search) 0
Question 2. What are the best startup pitches in your opinion? Find 2-3 best inspirational examples. 0
Question 3. What can your startup community look like? Which values will you share? Who will join you and why? 0
Question 4. Why is it difficult to listen and hear others? Why is this so important in startup/investors relationship? 0
Question 5. What are the most important psychological aspects of investor/founder relationship? 0
Question Test questions for exam preparation within this section 0
Question 1. What are the crucial parts of the pitch deck? 0
Question 2. What is a work/life balance for a startup founder? 0
Question 3. How does stress management can be used by a startup founder? 0
Question 4. Create your own time-management rules 0
Question 5. What are the innovative technologies that you are going to use in your startup? 0

Section 3

Activity Type Content Is Graded?
Question 1. What is VUCA and BANI reality for entrepreneurs? 1
Question 2. What is a professional identity of entrepreneur? 1
Question 3. What is a critical incident in entrepreneurship? 1
Question 4. What are the main strategies of facing critical incidents by startup founders? What are their features? 1
Question 5. What is a concept of “leader and follower”? Why is it important for founders in hi-tech sphere? 1
Question 1. What are the best examples of the actions of entrepreneurs for facing the challenges? Find 2-3 interesting examples. 0
Question 2. What is for you to be a startup founder? How does it reflect on your identity? 0
Question 3. Create the identity profile of a famous entrepreneur that inspires you. How does it look? Why all these roles help person to be a success? 0
Question 4. What does uncertainty provide for the startup? How to use the uncertainty for achieving new goals? 0
Question 5. Who are you – a leader or follower? Why? How can a founder combine both these roles? 0
Question Test questions for exam preparation within this section 0
Question 1. Is uncertainty good or bad for a startup founder? Why? 0
Question 2. What are your main strategies of facing critical incidents in entrepreneurship? What are the strong and weak sides of those? 0
Question 3. Do you think being entrepreneur is easy or hard? Why? When do you think it is easier – in the beginning or in some years of practice? 0
Question 4. What are the psychological factor of failure of major of startups within the first year in your opinion? 0
Question 5. What are the main critical incidents that a startup founder must face? 0

Final assessment

Section 1

  1. 1. Create your hard-skills map and show what is a potential of the development of these skills.
  2. 2. What will you do for the development of these skills in future?
  3. 3. Evaluate your own startup readiness using the tools of the course
  4. 4. Evaluate the readiness of your pair companion and give some recommendations that you suppose will be useful for him/her.

Section 2

  1. 1. Present your startup (elevator pitch + standard investors’ 3 minutes pitch)
  2. 2. Present the innovative technologies that you are going to use in your startup? Why are they innovative?
  3. 3. Present your concept of life/work balance of entrepreneur. Which tools of time management and stress management will you use?
  4. 4. Present you networking concept. What are your values? Which values can you propose to others?

Section 3

  1. 1. Present your type of entrepreneurial identity and describe which strategies you will use for facing critical incidents
  2. 2. Create your identity profile. How will different identities create cooperation effect for your future effectiveness?
  3. 3. Find the example when you managed to face the challenge or situation of uncertainty effectively. Why did you manage?

The retake exam

Section 1

Section 2

Section 3