Learning outcome:

• Understand the requirements of EPL683.
• Be familiar with the concepts of Technology, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship, and their interplay.
• Understand the main factors that led to the post-war innovation revolution in the US.
• Understand the key challenges of becoming an entrepreneur.

Videos:

• Overview of Disciplined Entrepreneurship by Bill Aulet.
• How and Why to Start A Startup by Sam Altman & Dustin Moskovitz, Y Combinator.
• Why Should I Start a Startup? by Michael Seibel, Y Combinator.

Learning outcome:

• Be familiar with online resources for entrepreneurship, start-ups and innovation.
• Learn some basic collaboration, communication, and ideation tools: Trello, Slack, SimpleMind.
• Understand the concepts of agile knowledge work with Scrum.
• Start forming your teams of 3-4 people and brainstorm on the idea each team will work on.
• Understand the value of mentorship and seek a mentor.
• Familiarity with the C4E Makerspace.

Videos:

• How to Find a Cofounder by Kat Manalac, Y Combinator.
• Technical co-founder by Adora Cheung, Y Combinator.
• How to Work Together by Kevin Hale, Y Combinator.
• Building applications with Heroku.

Learning outcome: Understand, describe and apply the key stages of turning an invention (or idea) into a commercial product (or company). In particular:

• Disclosure and confidentiality. Non-disclosure agreements.
• Novelty and prior art.
• Competition and market potential.
• Risk assessment.

Videos:

• Commercialization research:Why it matters,the impact and the MIT experience by Leon Sandler, MIT Deshpande Center, at the 3rd Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum of the Centre for Entrepreneurship (C4E), November 2017.

Learning outcome:

• Understand the exploitation routes that you can take with your idea.
• Understand the value of prototyping your idea.
• Identify, define, describe, design and assess ideas for your startup.
• Understand the Sprint methodology of how to solve problems and test new ideas in five days.

Videos:

• Short introduction to Sprint.
• Brief overview of the Sprint method.
• Before the Startup by Paul Graham, Y Combinator.
• How to succeed with a startup? by Sam Altman, Y Combinator.

How to evaluate ideas and brainstorm about them?

• The Idea (Startup Playbook) by Sam Altman, Y Combinator.
• How to evaluate Startup Ideas? by Kevin Hale, Startup School 2019, Y Combinator.
• Why are some designs better than others, and what can you do about it? Part I and Part II by Michael Hendrix from IDEO in the Series of Lectures in Innovation and Entrepreneurship of the Centre for Entrepreneurship (C4E), University of Cyprus, 15/12/2016.

Invited Speaker: Wael Al Masri, Product Developer, Innovator.

Learning outcome: Understand, describe and apply:

• Understand Intellectual Property (IP) issues.
• Identify how to record and protect your IP.
• The purpose of prototyping.
• Ways to protect your idea: Licensing, Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks, Design registration.
• Patenting strategies.

Videos:

• What Entrepreneurs need to know about Intellectual Property? by MIT Bootcamp.
• How to plan an MVP? by Michael Seibel, Y Combinator's Startup School 2019.
• Commercialization research:Why it matters,the impact and the MIT experience by Leon Sandler, MIT Deshpande Center, at the 3rd Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum of the Centre for Entrepreneurship (C4E), November 2017.
• IP law, practice and procedures Commercializing the IP by Nick Kounoupias at Centre for Entrepreneurship, University of Cyprus, 7/2/2018.

Learning outcome: Understand, Describe and Explain the key aspects of a Business Model.

Videos:

• From Business Ideas to Business Models by Strategyzer.
• Business Model Canvas by Strategyzer.

Invited Speaker: Philip Ammerman, Entrepreneur in Residence.

Learning outcome:

• Be able to present your idea and convince your audience about its validity.
• Seek and Identify mentors who can help you with key questions on your idea.

Videos: E-commerce and Gig Economy

• Is there any space for more e-commerce or gig-economy startups? An interesting presentation by James Mi, Founding Partner of Lightspeed China Partners (LCP), a leading China-focused early-stage venture capital firm (2018). Entrepreneurship and VC Investments in China, YouTube, 2018.
• What about platforms for matching students with tutors and delivery of tutoring over the Internet? Check the interview of Cindy Mi, founder and CEO of VIPKID, with the Y Combinator (2019).

Evaluating ideas

• Ideas, Products, Teams and Execution Part I by Dustin Moskowvitz, Sam Altman, Y Combinator.
• Ideas, Products, Teams and Execution Part II by Dustin Moskowvitz, Sam Altman, Y Combinator.
• How to Get Ideas and How to Measure? by Stewart Butterfield & Adam D'Angelo, Y Combinator.

Learning outcome: Understand, Describe and Explain the key aspects of the Business Model Canvas.

Videos:

• From Business Ideas to Business Models by Strategyzer.
• Business Model Canvas by Strategyzer.
• Business Model Canvas explained, by Strategyzer.
• The Business Model Canvas - 9 Steps to Creating a Successful Business Model by Business Channel, YouTube.
• The Business Model Canvas course at Coursera.

Learning outcome:

• Be able to create your company's Mission Statement.
• One-to-one mentoring about your idea.

Learning outcome:

• Understand and explain the 24 steps of the Disciplined Entrepreneurship concept.
• Understand the importance of customer understanding in the entrepreneurial pursuit.
• Understand, explain and implement market analysis.
• Know how to do market segmentation.

Videos:

• How to Do Market Segmentation by Bill Aulet, MIT Open Courseware.
• Building Product, Talking to Users, and Growing by Adora Cheung, Startup School, Y Combinator.
• Ideas, Products, Teams and Execution Part II by Dustin Moskowvitz, Sam Altman, Y Combinator.
• How to Get Ideas and How to Measure? by Stewart Butterfield & Adam D'Angelo, Y Combinator.

Invited Speaker: Daina Nikolaou, Dept. of Business and Public Administration, University of Cyprus.

Learning outcome:

• Review and discuss the readings.
• Apply the market segmentation step to your problem and report your findings.

Learning outcome: :

• Understand the concept of and identify your beachhead market.
• Understand the concept of the Total Addressable Market (TAM) and calculate the TAM size of your beachhead market.
• Build and analyze an end-user profile.
• Create the persona for your Beachhead Market.

Videos:

• What is a Beachhead Market by Bill Aulet, MIT Open Courseware.
• How to Run a User Interview? by Emmett Shear, Y Combinator (2014).
• How to talk to users? by Eric Migikowski, Y Combinator (2019).
• How to do a user interview? by Konstantinos Kazakos, Google Ventures (2016).

Learning outcome:

• Review the Lean Product Methodology
• Understand the concept of Value Proposition and learn how Lean Methodology addresses Market Segmentation and identifies underserved customer needs.
• Get ready to define your Persona.

Videos:

• How To Find Product Market Fit by David Rusenko, Y Combinator (2018).

Learning outcome:

• Be able to develop a full life cycle use case for your product.
• Produce a high-level product specification.
• Quantify your value proposition.
• Apply the process to find your next 10 customers and understand what you get out of this.
• Define the Core of your value proposition.

Videos:

• High Level Product Specification Explained by Bill Aulet, MIT.
• Quantified Value Proposition Explained by Bill Aulet, MIT.
• Overview of the Value Proposition Canvas by Strategyzer.
• Value Composition Canvas explained by Alex Osterwalder.
• Define your Core, Part I by Bill Aulet, MIT.
• Define your Core, Part II by Bill Aulet, MIT.

Learning outcome:

• Chart your competitive position.
• Understand and apply methodologies for exploring customer needs.
• Understand and apply Lean methodologies for defining your value proposition.
• Re-work on your idea applying the Lean Startup principles explored earlier.
• One-to-one mentoring about your idea.

Videos:

• How To Chart Your Competitive Position, Part I by Bill Aulet, MIT.
• How To Chart Your Competitive Position, Part II by Bill Aulet, MIT.
• Competition by Sam Altman, Y Combinator.
• Introduction to the Customer Empathy Map.

Learning outcome: :

• Be able to determine the Customer's Decision-Making Unit (DMU) (Step 12).
• Be able to design and perform the process to acquire a paying customer (Step 13).
• Undertake the sales process (Step 18).
• Identify follow-up markets and estimate their size (Step 14).
• Understand how to reach customers and build your brand.

Videos:

Learning outcome:

• Review experiences regarding sales and marketing for startups.
• Understand the concept of up-selling and analyze how to expand from the beachhead to adjacent markets.

Videos:

• How to Sell? by Tyler Bosmeny, Y Combinator.
• How to Get Users and Grow? by Gustaf Alströmer, Y Combinator.
• Content Marketing Tips by Camille Ricketts, First Round Capital, and Sonal Chokshi, Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator.
• Content Marketing Tips by Camille Ricketts, First Round Capital, and Sonal Chokshi, Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator.
• The Counter-Intuitive Pricing of Enterprise Sales by Yuri Sagalov, Y Combinator.

Invited Speaker: Marios Loucaides.

Invited Speaker: Marilena Maroudia, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Cyprus.

Learning outcome:

• Present your company idea in a clear and convicing manner, based on the work reported in your midterm report.

Videos:

• How to package up your idea and communicate it to an investor? by Kavin Hale, Y Combinator (September 2019).

Learning outcome: :

• Understand and explain the Business Model Canvas methodology.
• Understand innovative Business Model Patterns and apply them to your idea.
• Appraise techniques to help you design Business Models.

Videos:

• Nine Business Models and the Metrics Investors Want by Anu Hariharan, Y Combinator (August 2019) (a transcript of Janu's talk is also available online.

Learning outcome:

• Receive feedback for your midterm reports and presentations.
• One-to-one mentoring about your idea.

Videos:

• A Video Can Make or Break Your Startup. Here are 5 Tips From Silicon Valley’s Most Recognized Video Maker by Dave Schools, Entrepreneur's Handbook.
• Jessica Livingston’s Pretty Complete List on How Not to Fail by Y Combinator.
• How to Think about PR? by Sharon Pop, Y Combinator.
• A Video Can Make or Break Your Startup. Here are 5 Tips From Silicon Valley’s Most Recognized Video Maker by Dave Schools, Entrepreneur's Handbook.

Learning outcome: :

• Understand the significance of Business Models.
• Understand, analyse and apply Freemium, Bait & Hook and Open Business Models.

Learning outcome: :

• Understand the significance of Business Models.
• Explore and develop Pricing Frameworks.
• Evaluate the Lifetime Value of an Acquired Customer.
• Calculate the Cost of Customer Acquisition (COCA).

Invited Speaker: Marton Belik, International Education Lead at EIT Digital.

Learning outcome: :

• Understand the cost of acquiring new customers.
• Calculate the Cost of Customer Acquisition (COCA).

Videos:

• Concrete Steps to Calculate COCA by Bill Aulet, MIT.

Learning outcome:

• Prepare and deliver pitches to investors.

Readings:

• Pitch Advice for Entrepreneurs by Reid Hoffman.
• The YC Seed Deck Template by Aaron Harris, Y Combinator (2018).
• How to Design a Better Pitch Deck by Kevin Hale, Y Combinator (2015).
• How to Effectively Pitch Business Ideas to Investors by Sarath CP.
• It's time to Rethink the Startup Pitch Deck (Here's a Start) by Rob Go (2015).
• 10 Things to Include in Your Startup Pitch Presentation by Bill Clark, Mashable.
• 10 questions for a perfect pitch by Linda Plano, MITEF Greece.
• How to Create an Enchanting Pitch by Guy Kawasaki.

Resources:

• YC seed deck template.

Videos:

• How to package up your idea and communicate it to an investor? by Kavin Hale, Y Combinator (September 2019).
• Fundraising and Meeting with Investors with Aaron Harris, Y Combinator.
• How to Talk to Investors by Tyler Bosmeny, Y Combinator Partners.

Invited Speaker: Michalis Stavrides, Partner, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Cyprus.

Learning outcome: :

• Identify and test key assumptions driving your product design.
• Understand and explain the key concepts of the Lean Startup Methodology.
• Produce specifications of your Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
• Plan the development of your Minimum Viable Product (MVP) prototype.

Videos:

• How to build products users love? by Kevin Hale, Y Combinator.
• Validate your business idea: THE LEAN STARTUP by Eric Ries.
• The Lean Startup by Eric Ries at Google Talks.
• Application Prototyping by Alexis Piperides, Co-founder and CEO of Proto.io in the Series of Lectures in Innovation and Entrepreneurship of the Centre for Entrepreneurship (C4E), University of Cyprus, July 2016.
• Prototyping by Strategyzer.

Learning outcome: :

• Describe and explain the different types of funding for a new company.
• Understand the terminology of funding and the series of funding.
• Identify sources of funding for your startup.

Videos:

• Fundraising by Sam Altman, Startup Playbook.
• Modern Startup Financing by Carolynn Levy, Y Combinator (2019).
• Fundraising fundamentals by Geoff Ralston, Y Combinator (2018).
• The Why and How of Angel Investing by Sam Altman, Y Combinator (2018).
• How to Talk to Investors by Tyler Bosmeny, Y Combinator Partners.
• Fundraising and Meeting with Investors with Aaron Harris, Y Combinator.

Invited Speaker: Dr. Anastasia Constantinou, Innovation Management Unit, University of Cyprus.