Venture Ideation And Validation

This subject is available under ICMS undergraduate degrees, please click the button below to find an undergraduate course for you.

Subject Code:

ENT102A

Subject Aim:

The aim of this subject is the brainstorming, researching, ideation and validation of business ideas. It must be both about the development of a viable business but also the market research, testing and feedback to validate and confirm its viability. There is a strong focus on market and customer research towards clarifying the merits of a strong value proposition and minimally viable product.

This subject will also strengthen the grasp of what the student’s business brand is based on their customer/target audience research findings and business purpose, goals and values.

Venture Ideation and Validation is designed to help students navigate the earliest stages of starting a new venture beginning with the identification of a problem in the market that is worth solving. The class teaches students tools and techniques to translate these problems into viable business concepts, with an emphasis on enabling an aspiring entrepreneur to get as far as possible, with as little as possible, as fast as possible.

Student teams begin the quarter with nothing more than a series of hypotheses about a new venture, then design and execute a series of in-market experiments that either validate these assumptions or force them to iterate aspects of their business model in real time. The objective of the course to guide students toward the achievement of “product-market fit” as a crucial first step in the creation of a start-up.

Here students will focus on how to structure a series of tests to gather ‘learnings’ around customer engagement. To accomplish this, students can develop a product/service (wireframe, landing page, video, physical prototype) that tests customer engagement or obtain a sale or commitment to purchase, broker an exchange or partnership, or anything else that indicates that customers value your business concept and mitigates the biggest near-term risks of the venture.

Continue to validate the value proposition, customer funnel, and key metrics of success. Research, define, prototype and implement an MV_ (products, tests, etc. (or a series of MV_s) that demonstrates customer engagement at each step of the funnel. Obtain experiential learning in the process of testing and refining a business concept.

Learning Outcomes:

a) Explain ideas for an entrepreneurial opportunity.

b) Estimate the feasibility of a new enterprise in terms of funding, the target market and growth.

c) Identify product/service value proposition opportunities through research.

d) Indicate how to assemble and lead multidisciplinary teams to operate in uncertain and unknown business and/or professional environments.

e) Summarise the value proposition associated with a creative idea based on data insights and other relevant evidence.

Student Assessment:

(G)* = Group Assessment