Summary
In the course New Technology Ventures: Business Planning you will be part of a team that develops a business plan for starting a new technology-based company. A guide and papers on business planning will enhance your understanding of the start-up process you are experiencing. Next to plenary course sessions, teams will have individual feedback and coaching sessions.
Schedule
The course sessions will take place, probably in Hubspot, otherwise it will be in the LUMC (next to Leiden Central Station), on Monday nights, 18.30-21.30 hrs in the period from January 30, 2017 until April 3, 2017.
In addition to participating in the course sessions, it is highly recommended that you attend events such as the Science meets Business Cafe, the Science meets Business Plan Competion, Gulliver, events organized by the student entrepreneur foundation LUGUS, and the Philips Innovation Award. Also there will be activities organized by Hubspot that offer good learning experiences.
Course contents
To ensure that the course provides a real-life learning experience in exploring and exploiting the commercial opportunities of science- and technology-based knowledge:
Participants have to write a fully developed business plan that can be presented to stakeholders such as scientists that invented the technology, the institutions that own the technology and investors that are invited to fund its commercialization.
The business plans are to be based on realistic, science- and technology- driven ideas or inventions. These may come from the participants themselves, from research staff of the Leiden University Faculty of Science or the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC), from companies on the Leiden BioScience Park, and form elsewhere if appropriater and duly motivated.
Participants will usually work in teams of 3-5 persons to be able to accommodate and to enhance the leaning experience, though, if circumstances so require, individual participation may be allowed.
Participants will interact with scientists or the inventors, i.e. the staff that has done the research on which the business idea is based. The role of these staff members may vary from that of scientific consultant to being actively involved as an academic entrepreneur.
Participants are encouraged to reach our to acquire the information on customer needs, marhet structure, distribution channels, product margins, etc. that is often essential for making a good business plan.
Participation in a business plan contest is strongly recommended
In the weekly plenary sessions, the progress with developing the various business plans is discussed and topics to be dealt with in the coming week will be introduced. In between the sessions, teams are required to work on the development of the business plan which will also include weekly group assignments to be handed in.
Final presentation, deadline for business plan and individual test:
March 27, 2017 (session 9): groups will present their plans to a jury of business professionals.
April 2, 2017: Deadline for submission of the business plan:
April 3, 2017 (session 10): wrap up, individual test, peer assessment and course evaluation.
Mandatory participation and preparation
The sessions are essentially practicals since they require participation in group discussions and feedback sessions. Participation is therefore mandatory. Preparation for sessions is likewise mandatory and will be tested where appropriate.
Literature
Book: Starting Up: Achieving success wth professional business planning.
Various handouts
Book and handouts will be made available at the beginning of the course. A contribution to the costs may be required which will not exceed Euro 40,-.
Grading
Grading will be based on assessment of the group deliverables: written business plan (40%) and the presentation of the business plan (20%), and on your individual performance (40%) based on class participation and preparation, peer assessment of your contribution to the group deliverables and on the individual test. All these elements need to be assessed as at least sufficient to get a final grade higher than 5.
Testimonials
By former participants Wouter Bruins and Oleg Guziy.
Enrollment
Intended for: MSc students, Ph.D. students, post-docs, university staff and others motivated for creating and working in research-based business.
Course fee:
No fee for university students, contribution of max Euro 40,- to cover costs of book and handouts;
Euro 200 for PhD students;
Euro 500 for non-students.
If applicable an invoice will be mailed at the beginning of the course.
Enrollment: For this course, it is not possible to register via USIS, instead register through our jot-form
Other New Technology Ventures (NTV) Courses
This course is part of a series of three courses with a course load of 5 EC each: NTV Entrepreneurial Opportunities, NTV Business Planning and NTV The Entrepreneurial Process. These courses arm students and (future) researchers with the basic knowledge of how to spot, assess and exploit an entrepreneurial opportunity based on science & technology, and have been desiged to lower the hurdles for students and researchers for getting involved in the process of starting high-tech ventures. This knowledge will be valuable for those who aspire to one day start their own company or who want to become involved in the process of company creation and development as tech transfer managers, business developers, business advisors, investment managers or serial entrepreneurs.
Organized by Science Based Business.