Tags
SB&E
Admissions requirements
Entrepreneurial Thinking
Description
This course helps you to understand financial and legal dimensions of your start up. A business of one or more people needs to have proper accounting, appropriate financing, a clearly settled legal status, and an organization of tasks so that everyone can contribute and support the development of the product. In this class, you will learn how to start with minimal structures and expand on a planned path as the business develops. We will also discuss (and experiment) with different choices for funding, legal status.
Course objectives
- Design and negotiate an agreement, particularly a founder agreement
- Account and report for revenues, costs, cash flows, taxes and investments
- Design and explain debt and equity financing
- Create realistic financial projections
- Identify, assign and collaborate with team members, in other words design a management and governance structure
- Identify your intellectual property and protect via copyright, patenting or business practices
- Predict your product’s business life cycle
Timetable
Once available, timetables will be published here.
Mode of instruction
This is a course is taught using lectures, workgroups, and presentations.
The topics per week are listed below.
- Introduction to organizing your business; theory and application
- Agreements, particularly those at the founding of a company. What will be the legal status of
our business entity, and what will be the equity split? - Accounting and finance. What is (financial) success? How to create predictions and budgets?
- Debt and equity financing. What is crowdfunding in this respect? What are the funding
opportunities to finance possible growth of the business? - Management and governance
- Intellectual property of businesses. How to protect your idea (or is it better to create a
competitive advantage?) - Business life cycle and business failure. What are the early warning signals for failure?
- Agreements, particularly those at the founding of a company. What will be the legal status of
Assessment
Individual written assignments – case study analyses (30%)
Group presentation on organizational issues (15%)
Group report on organizational issues (20%)
Individual final exam (20%)
Participation (15%)
Blackboard
There will be a Blackboard site available for this course. Students will be enrolled at least one week before the start of classes.
Reading list
Acton, Sep 16, 2012, Forbes Entrepreneurs, _The Only Three Reasons Entrepreneurs Need
Accounting and Finance_
Adyen (2015), The secret behind successful companies
Adyen (2015), Financial Reporting Manual
Brealey, R.A., Myers, S.A. & Marcus, A.J. (2012), Fundamentals of Corporate Finance, chapters
1-4, 7th international edition, New York: McGraw-Hill, pp. 2-111
Brooks, John (2014/1969). _Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall
Street_. Open Road Media
Connecticut Innovations (July 2014), Revenue Recognition – Why Is It So Important?
Herdrich, N. (2015). Great Balancing Act: Limiting Trademark Risks for Early-Stage Businesses
in a Limited Capital Environment, The. J. Pat. & Trademark Off. Soc’y, 97, 144
Jensen, M. C., & Meckling, W. H. (1976). Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs
and ownership structure. Journal of financial economics, 3(4), 305-360
Likierman, A. (2009). The five traps of performance measurement. Harvard business review,
87(10), 96-101
Oliver, N., & Holweg, M. (2011). _WHO KILLED SAAB AUTOMOBILE?: Obituary of an
Automotive Icon. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh_
Pharming Group (2015), Annual report
SBA (2015), Introduction to Accounting
Startup Commons (1215), Founders Shareholder Agreement
Registration
This course is open to LUC students and LUC exchange students. Registration is coordinated by the Curriculum Coordinator. Interested non-LUC students should contact course.administration@luc.leidenuniv.nl.
Contact
r.p.orij@law.leidenuniv.nl