LFU:online

Besides the academic career, the doctoral students will receive the skills for an entrepreneurial career. Setting up a plan how to build the own company, first steps of realization of the own company and building of real entrepreneurs will be the findings of the program.

This doctoral seminar intends to provide an application-oriented approach to starting and running a business for aspiring alumni and future entrepreneurs. It is not only addressed to business-students, but to alumni of all faculties; an interdisciplinary composition is expressively required.

The seminar program takes the alumni through each phase of founding a real new business venture. The seminar combines some theoretical background with “trial and error” learning taught by experienced entrepreneurs with some academic skills. That means that this seminar does not only teach entrepreneurship but give some practical guidelines how to build your own company considering the most important strategic issues involved in starting and maintaining a venture while providing students with the tools and mapped out process necessary to cultivate a new business venture. At the end of the seminar each alumni or group will present their business plan as well as their first hands-on experiences.

All participants of the seminar can contribute their own business-ideas; an arts scholar with an online business-model can concur with a computer scientist with the skills to program the idea and bring it to realization with a management-alumni.

Requirements:

Entrepreneurial spirit!

Desire to build your own company

Own business idea welcome but not obligatory

In the first part of the course relevant entrepreneurship topics will be treated. Part of the theory is prepared by students and presented in class.

Between the first and the second part of the course students are asked to register on a platform and upload a one-pager with a description of their research and a possible translation into a business idea. Afterwards students are invited to comment on and discuss each other’s ideas in order to prepare for the "Hackathon"

in the second part of the course.

Second part of the course

Students will be graded based on 5 different dimensions. Please be aware that you have to pass all parts of the course. Skipping one part will lead to failing the entire course. Presence at all classes is mandatory. Reasonable accommodations will be made in special circumstances.

 Theory presentation: 25% (group & individual)

 Active Participation during classes: 20% (individual)

 Online participation: 15% (individual)

 Development of business plan: 15% (group & individual)

 Presentation "Final business plan": 25% (group)

Kaplan, J.M. and Warren, A.C., 2009.

Patterns of Entrepreneurship. Wiley.com. Google link:

Timmons, J., Zacharakis, A. and Spinelli, S., 2004.

Business Plans that Work.

McGraw Hill Professional

Sarasvathy, S. D., 2008.

Effectuation – Elements of Entrepreneurial Expertise.

Edward Elgar Publishing Inc.

Baron, R. and Shane, S., 2008.

Entrepreneurship – A Process Perspective. Thomson South Western. Google link:

Osterwalder, A. and Pingeur, Y., 2010.

Business Model Generation. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. Google link:

Students will be informed on time via email regarding the location of the course. Groups and topics for the presentation will be assigned by the lecturer. Groups for the business plan are formed in the class or through the course platform (website address will be communicated shortly before the course starts)