entrep-lab course outline · Entrepreneurial Mindset & Practice

Entrepreneurial Mindset & Practice

IE IMPACT · third pillar of the IE Impact learning journey (Humanities → Technology & Innovation → Entrepreneurship → IE Challenge). A required undergraduate course built on mindset, method, and action — for future founders and non-founders alike.

In a world marked by accelerating change, uncertainty, and interconnected global challenges, the capacity to navigate complexity and take initiative is essential. EMP is not a traditional business course: it is not about writing a business plan or even launching a startup. Through a learning-by-doing methodology with a reverse-engineering format, students take entrepreneurial action that helps them both experience and develop a different way of thinking — so that, eventually, they act differently.

Students learn innovation frameworks to identify problems worth solving, free their minds of naïve assumptions, anticipate the implications of their solutions, and build a sustainable motor (a business model or system) that delivers value on a recurring basis — working in diverse teams throughout. The course explores the value of entrepreneurship as a force for positive change.

Program
IE IMPACT
Course code
EMP-IE-IMPACT.2.S.G
Area
Entrepreneurship
Sessions
30
Credits
6.0 ECTS
Workload
150 h
Academic year
25–26
Degree course
Second
Semester
2º
Category
Compulsory
Language
English
Professor
Agustín Matías Sáenz Martínez

Professor — entrepreneur, mentor and advisor; founded and led 7 startups (blockchain to foodtech), International MBA, IE Business School. Office hours on request: agustins@faculty.ie.edu

Learning objectives

Through a combination of hands-on practice and analytical frameworks, by the end of the course students will be able to:

  1. Understand the entrepreneurial process — its impact and importance in the macro and micro context of individuals, economies and societies.
  2. Identify what it means to think entrepreneurially — and how to develop, practice and build an entrepreneurial mindset.
  3. Explain the key components of the entrepreneurial process — problem & opportunity discovery, value propositions, testing & experimentation, business models (desirability, feasibility, viability), accessing resources, and team formation.
  4. Value experimentation when validating an entrepreneurial idea.
  5. Conduct customer discovery & validation — to identify an opportunity with potential to launch in a market.
  6. Recognize the financing phases of an entrepreneurial project — and which may be most appropriate given the nature of the venture.

Methodology & assessment

IE's teaching method is collaborative, active and applied. Students build knowledge through lectures, discussion, in-class exercises, simulations, workshops and team project work. The professor expects extensive, responsible and ethical use of AI — but using AI to simulate customer research or interviews is prohibited and treated as academic misconduct.

Learning activity weighting · 150 h total

Individual studying
40%
Group work
30%
Exercises / async / field
14%
Lectures
8%
Discussions
8%

Estimated student time: studying 60 h · group work 45 h · exercises/field 21 h · lectures 12 h · discussions 12 h.

Assessment weighting

Process Portfolio & Story (team)
35%
Mindset Challenge (indiv)
20%
Final exam (indiv)
20%
Class participation
15%
Midterm exam (indiv)
10%

Individual work totals 50% (Mindset Challenge 20% · Final 20% · Midterm 10%). Team grades within a group may differ per member. Pass mark 5/10; re-sit capped at 8/10.

Assessment components — deliverable & evaluation

Entrepreneurial Process Portfolio35%team · LO 1,3,4,5

Deliverable — a single cumulative digital workspace (e.g. a Miro board) where the team archives its work through the entrepreneurial process: milestone activities and key deliverables, the Process Story presentation (S27–28) narrating the project's evolution, and a Team Review & Reflection where each member gives feedback on themselves and teammates. Evaluation — the professor monitors the process as it is built and may require interim deliverables to guide and re-direct teams; grades may differ per member even though the work is team-based.

Entrepreneurial Mindset Challenge20%individual · LO 1,2

Deliverable — a video or poster in which you identify mindset traits you want to build, set yourself a plan of comfort-zone-stretching actions, execute it, collect evidence (efforts and outcomes, failure included), and reflect on the process. Evaluation — assessed on the self-challenge's ambition, the evidence of action, and the depth of reflection; peer feedback is given in S24 before final submission.

Final exam20%individual · LO 1–6

Deliverable — an in-class exam (S29) assessing achievement of the course's learning objectives. Evaluation — tests command of the full set of concepts, frameworks and processes across all five modules.

Class participation15%individual · LO 1–6

Deliverable — active, prepared, respectful contribution to discussions, simulations and workshops. Evaluation — relevance and analysis (not mere recall), applying readings, building on peers ("yes, and…"), and arriving prepared. Impolite, disruptive or policy-violating conduct earns negative points; the professor may "warm-call" or cold-call to give everyone air time.

Midterm exam10%individual · LO 1,2,3,4,6

Deliverable — a brief in-class quiz (S15) on concepts and processes from readings, digital media and class up to that date. Evaluation — checks conceptual mastery before the build-and-validate phase.

Pass, re-sit & attendance rules

Program — full session structure

All 30 live in-person sessions, grouped into the five arcs of the entrepreneurial process the course walks through. Reading tags use the syllabus' HBP/case codes; accent tags link to the matching interactive demo on the home page.

M1 Mindset & the entrepreneurial method Sessions 1–6 · LO1 · LO2

The opening arc reframes entrepreneurship as a method and a way of thinking rather than a job title or a business plan. Before learning any tools, students surface — and then deliberately challenge — their own assumptions about what an entrepreneur is, and locate entrepreneurial action inside the wider ecosystems (markets, organizations, institutions, society) where it actually happens.

By the end of this module students can:

  • Articulate why entrepreneurship is a transferable mindset relevant to founders and non-founders alike (LO1).
  • Name the cognitive, affective and behavioral traits of an entrepreneurial profile and self-assess against them (LO2).
  • Describe effectual reasoning and practice deliberate habits — curiosity, reframing, productive failure — that build the mindset (LO2).
  • S1Course introduction & surfacing preconceived notionslive

    Explain the course, get to know each other, set expectations, and discuss why entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial mindset matter for you and society. The session deliberately surfaces each student's pre-existing (and often naïve) definition of "entrepreneur" so it can be questioned and rebuilt over the semester.

    • What is entrepreneurship? — write your own definition; the course will treat it as a mindset + method, not as "starting a company."
    • Are you "entrepreneurial" / innovative? — a baseline self-assessment you revisit in the Mindset Challenge and the S30 debrief.
    • Why is this required, what do you expect? — connect EMP to the IE Impact journey and to non-founder career paths.
    Key idea. Entrepreneurship is a learnable method: a repeatable practice of acting under uncertainty, not an innate trait you either have or lack.

    Readings

    • Everyone Should Learn the Entrepreneurial Method H008IA · article — argues the method (act–learn–build) is teachable and broadly useful, framing the whole course.
    • What Makes Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurial? UV1356 · technical note — Sarasvathy's contrast of causal (predict-then-act) vs. effectual (means-driven) reasoning.
    • Course Syllabus + IE Code of Ethics · required — ground rules, AI policy, and the learning agreement.
  • S2Entrepreneurial ecosystem, roles & responsibilitieslive

    Introduce the components, actors and systems in entrepreneurial "ecosystems" — within society and within organizations — and the roles and responsibilities in each. Entrepreneurship is framed as an opportunity to drive positive change by identifying problems worth solving, including inside failing public and civic systems.

    ecosystem thinking
    A venture never succeeds alone: founders, customers, capital, talent, regulators, universities and incumbents form an interdependent system. Reading the ecosystem tells you which roles you must play and which you must recruit.
    Key idea. A growth mindset (the belief that ability can improve with effort) is the psychological precondition for entrepreneurial behavior — it converts failure from a verdict into feedback.

    Readings

    • How to Start an Entrepreneurial Revolution R1006A · article — Isenberg on the components of a functioning entrepreneurship ecosystem and why they must be built together.
    • Bringing an Entrepreneurial Mindset to the World's Failing Systems H01USV · article — applying the mindset to public goods, not just startups.
    • Entrepreneurial Intelligence · video — how entrepreneurs sense and act on opportunity.
    • The Power of Believing That You Can Improve · video — Carol Dweck on the growth mindset.
  • S3–4Foundations of an entrepreneurial mindsetlive

    Explore the cognitive (thinking), affective (emotions) and behavioral (action) traits core to an entrepreneurial profile, and reflect on your own profile across all three. This three-part lens recurs throughout the course and anchors the individual Mindset Challenge.

    • Cognitive — curiosity, associative thinking, questioning, opportunity recognition, tolerance for ambiguity.
    • Affective — comfort with risk and rejection, resilience, passion, optimism tempered by realism.
    • Behavioral — observing, networking, experimenting, bias to action; which of these already resemble you?
    Innovator's DNA — 5 discovery skills
    Associating, questioning, observing, networking and experimenting. Dyer, Gregersen & Christensen find these behaviors — not raw IQ — distinguish innovative entrepreneurs and can be practiced.
    Key idea. Failure is reframed as data. "Failing mindfully" (extracting the lesson) beats both fearing failure and the glib "fail fast" slogan.

    Readings

    • Why Curiosity Matters R1805B · article — curiosity improves decisions and reduces confirmation bias; how leaders cultivate it.
    • The Innovator's DNA R0912E · article — the five discovery skills above, with self-assessment.
    • What I Learned from 100 Days of Rejection · video — Jia Jiang desensitizing to rejection through deliberate exposure.
    • Don't Fail Fast — Fail Mindfully · video — learning systematically from failure rather than celebrating it.
    • The Unexpected Benefit of Celebrating Failure · video — Astro Teller (X) on rewarding intelligent failure.
  • S5–6Cultivating an entrepreneurial mindsetworkshop

    Hands-on workshops and activities to identify key entrepreneurial traits and deliberately build them — centred on effectual action and resourcefulness. Students practice acting from the means at hand rather than waiting for perfect plans or resources.

    Effectuation — the effectual ask
    Start from who you are, what you know and whom you know (bird-in-hand); take affordable-loss-sized steps; turn contingencies into opportunity; and grow by securing commitments from self-selected stakeholders. The "ask" is the core move that converts a network into resources.
    Key idea. Resourcefulness beats resources — entrepreneurs co-create the future with whoever they can get to commit, rather than predicting it.

    Readings

    • Art of the Effectual Ask UV8139 · technical note — how to make asks that secure stakeholder commitments and shrink uncertainty.
M2 Teams & human-centered problem discovery Sessions 7–11 · LO2 · LO3

With the mindset in place, teams form and turn outward to the customer. The arc installs the human-centered discipline of falling in love with the problem, not the solution: design thinking, qualitative primary research, and problem (re)framing. Teams pick the opportunity they will pursue all semester and build a Discovery Plan, then feel decision-making under uncertainty in a live simulation.

By the end of this module students can:

  • Set up a diverse team for trust, alignment and productive conflict (LO2).
  • Run the design-thinking process to find and frame a real, addressable user problem (LO3).
  • Plan and conduct qualitative discovery (interviews, ethnography) without leading the witness (LO3).
  • Make and revise decisions under uncertainty using fast feedback (LO3).
  • S7Project Workshop I — foundations for a high-performing teamworkshop

    Newly formed teams establish the foundations of a solid team and engage with one another, facilitated by the professor. Because diversity creates both friction and better decisions, teams set norms early — roles, communication, decision rules and a shared definition of success.

    • What makes a great team? — psychological safety and trust over raw talent.
    • Best practices for collaboration — explicit working agreements and conflict norms.
    • Aligning individual & team goals — surfacing motivations before they collide.
    Key idea. Trust (especially psychological safety) is the strongest predictor of team performance; diverse teams outperform only when that trust lets dissent surface.

    Readings

    • How High-Performing Teams Build Trust H07YWJ · article — the behaviors that create trust and psychological safety.
    • Assembling the Startup Team 812122 · technical note — composing complementary skills and managing founder relationships.
  • S8Introduction to human-centered innovationlive

    Introduce Design Thinking — the human-centered framework for identifying clear, addressable user problems and ideating solutions that resolve them. Innovation starts with deep empathy for the user, not with the technology or the product idea.

    Design Thinking — 5 stages
    Empathize → Define → Ideate → Prototype → Test. A non-linear, human-centered loop: understand real users, sharpen the problem into a point-of-view, generate many options, build cheap prototypes, and learn from feedback.
    Key idea. Design thinking works because it makes uncertainty cheap — you discover what people actually need before committing resources to a solution.

    Readings

    • Design Thinking R0806E · article — Tim Brown's foundational HBR piece defining the discipline.
    • Why Design Thinking Works R1805D · article — Liedtka on how its structure counters human cognitive biases.
    • ▶ design thinking demo
  • S9–10Project Workshop II — understanding problems through qualitative researchworkshop

    Each team chooses the opportunity for its class-long project and learns design exploration via qualitative primary research, aiming to select an opportunity and build a Discovery Plan. The emphasis is on framing the problem worth solving before any solution exists.

    • Individual pre-work — each student arrives with a customer need/want/problem worth exploring (problem-first, not product-first).
    • Discovery Plan — who to talk to, what to learn, and how to avoid leading questions.
    Problem framing & reframing
    The problem you first state is rarely the right one. Reframing — restating the problem from new angles and stakeholders — often reveals a more solvable, higher-value version. "Insight" lives in anomalies, frustrations and workarounds, not averages.
    Key idea. A well-framed problem is half-solved; teams that rush to solutions optimize the wrong thing.

    Readings

    • Are You Solving the Right Problems? R1701D · article — Wedell-Wedellsborg's reframing method.
    • Where to Look for Insight R1411H · article — sources of customer insight beyond surveys.
    • Framing & Re-framing: Core Skills for a Problem-Filled World ROT256 · article — framing as a core entrepreneurial skill.
    • ▶ opportunity scoring demo
  • S11Simulation — The Food Truck Challengesimulation

    Making decisions and learning under uncertainty. As owner of a mobile frozen-treat startup, students choose location, menu and pricing across rounds, face the tradeoffs entrepreneurs make, and learn to use each round's results as feedback to maximize revenue. Register and explore the platform beforehand.

    Key idea. You can't reason your way to the right answer up front — you act, measure the result, and adjust. This is the experiential bridge into lean startup (M3).

    Materials

    • New Venture Simulation: The Food Truck Challenge 7201-HTM · simulation — iterative decision-making under demand uncertainty.
    • ▶ build-measure-learn demo
M3 Lean startup, experimentation & validation Sessions 12–18 · LO3 · LO4

This arc turns discovery into disciplined experimentation. Students learn the lean-startup logic — treat the venture as a set of untested hypotheses and validate the riskiest ones cheaply before building. The Gametime case models it in a real tech startup; the workshop applies it to the teams' own ideas; and the midterm checks conceptual mastery before the build phase.

By the end of this module students can:

  • Explain build–measure–learn and validated learning as an alternative to the business plan (LO3, LO4).
  • Convert an idea into testable hypotheses and identify the riskiest assumption first (LO4).
  • Analyze qualitative data into insights and generate solution ideas without prematurely converging (LO3).
  • S12What is lean startup? — Case: Gametimecase

    Learn the lean-startup methodology and how it applies to launching and growing a mobile application. The Gametime case highlights testing and validating assumptions about a tech startup on the path to product/market fit.

    • Evaluate Griffith's method for testing viability and reaching product/market fit — what would you do differently?
    • Founder traits & assets that got Gametime where it is at the time of the case.
    • Does the data suggest Gametime can succeed as a business?
    Lean Startup — Build–Measure–Learn
    Turn assumptions into a Minimum Viable Product, measure real behavior, and learn whether to persevere or pivot. The goal is validated learning per unit of time, not flawless execution of a fixed plan. Product/market fit is the milestone where the market pulls the product out of you.
    Key idea. A startup is a temporary organization searching for a repeatable, scalable business model — not a small version of a big company.

    Readings

    • Gametime E496 · practical case — lean principles applied to scaling a mobile app.
    • Why the Lean Start-up Changes Everything R1305C · article — Blank's articulation of search-vs-execution and the lean method.
    • ▶ build-measure-learn demo
  • S13–14Project Workshop III — from problem to solution: articulating problems & generating ideasworkshop

    Analyze the qualitative research data from interviews and ethnographies to uncover key user insights, then use ideation techniques to begin developing solutions that address real needs. Ideas are then stress-tested through rapid experimentation and the riskiest-assumption test.

    Riskiest Assumption Test (RAT)
    Before building an MVP, isolate the single assumption that would kill the idea if false, and design the cheapest possible test of it. The RAT often replaces a costly MVP with a landing page, a fake door or five conversations.
    Key idea. "Dumb"-sounding ideas can be the most valuable because they are non-consensus; the job of ideation is to defer judgment, then test, not to filter on plausibility.

    Materials

    • The Dumb Idea Paradox · video — why great ideas often start out sounding dumb.
    • Why Your RAT Is The Real MVP · video — testing the riskiest assumption before committing to a build.
    • ▶ riskiest assumption demo
  • S15Midterm examassessment

    Brief quiz on concepts and processes discussed in class and in the assigned readings, videos and podcasts up to this date. 10% of the final grade — assesses LO 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6.

  • S16Guest speakerlive

    Practitioner session bringing a real founder's or operator's perspective to the frameworks studied so far. Specific speaker and focus shared during the semester.

  • S17–18Project coachingcoaching

    Each team presents its process to date and receives feedback for refinement — showcasing the path from research insights to a proposed solution. The focus is on the process, not a polished pitch; every member must be ready to discuss the approach and the evidence behind it in detail.

    Key idea. Coaching mirrors how investors and mentors actually engage founders — they probe the reasoning and the evidence, not the slides.
M4 Market, value proposition & building the MVP Sessions 19–23 · LO3 · LO5

Validated problems now meet the market. Teams size and segment a market, sharpen a value proposition, and build a real MVP to run customer discovery and validation. The arc closes by zooming out to the whole venture as a system — a business model whose blocks must be mutually consistent to be desirable, feasible and viable.

By the end of this module students can:

  • Distinguish market from industry and pick a beachhead; estimate TAM/SAM/SOM (LO3, LO5).
  • Build a value proposition that maps to customer pains, gains and jobs-to-be-done (LO3).
  • Prototype an MVP and run customer discovery & validation to test it (LO5).
  • Model the venture as an aligned system using the Business Model Canvas (LO3).
  • S19Understanding your market, industry & competitors; reaching your first customerslive

    Calculate the potential beachhead market, analyze competitors, and learn to reach the target audience through acquisition channels — including the first handful of customers who validate that anyone wants this at all.

    • Market vs. industry — a market is a set of customers with a shared need; an industry is a set of suppliers. You sell to the former.
    • Beachhead market — the smallest viable segment you can dominate first, then expand from (the bowling-pin model of follow-on markets).
    • First 5–10 customers — concrete acquisition channels and the unscalable hustle that gets the first users.
    TAM · SAM · SOM
    Total Addressable Market (everyone who could ever buy) → Serviceable Addressable Market (those your model can actually reach) → Serviceable Obtainable Market (the share you can realistically win near-term, i.e. the beachhead). Sizing top-down sanity-checks ambition; bottom-up grounds it in real customers.
    Key idea. "Niche to win" — dominating a narrow beachhead beats spreading thin across a huge TAM; focus is how small ventures defeat large incumbents.

    Materials

    • What is a Beachhead Market / How to Select a Beachhead Market · videos — defining and choosing the first segment.
    • Niche to Win, Baby · video — focus as competitive strategy.
    • How to Identify Follow-on Markets · video — the bowling-pin expansion analogy.
    • How to Get Your First Customers · video — early, unscalable acquisition.
    • ▶ TAM/SAM/SOM demo · ▶ customer discovery demo
  • S20Project Workshop IV — crafting a compelling value propositionworkshop

    Define a clear, compelling value proposition: identify the customer needs addressed, articulate unique value vs. competitors, and communicate it so it resonates. Hands-on activities and examples of strong propositions push teams toward clarity.

    Value Proposition Canvas
    Two halves that must "fit": the customer profile (jobs, pains, gains) and the value map (products/services, pain relievers, gain creators). A proposition works only when your relievers and creators map onto the customer's most important, unsatisfied pains and gains.
    Key idea. A value proposition is a hypothesis about fit, not a slogan — it must be testable against real customers.

    Materials

  • S21–22Project Workshop V — prototyping an MVP for testingworkshop

    Learn the purpose of prototyping, transform ideas into tangible prototypes, test assumptions, and gather user feedback — grounded in hypothesis-driven entrepreneurship and customer discovery & validation.

    Customer Discovery & Validation
    Blank's Customer Development front end: Discovery turns founder guesses into customer-tested hypotheses about the problem; Validation confirms there's a repeatable sales/usage model before scaling. Get out of the building — and (per the AI policy) never simulate this research with AI.
    Key idea. An MVP isn't a small product — it's the smallest thing that produces a real learning signal about a specific hypothesis.

    Readings

    • Hypothesis-Driven Entrepreneurship: The Lean Startup 812095 · technical note — running the venture as a series of tested hypotheses.
    • Customer Discovery & Validation for Entrepreneurs 812097 · technical note — the discovery/validation process step by step.
    • How to Build an MVP · video — choosing the right minimal test artifact.
    • ▶ customer discovery demo · ▶ riskiest assumption demo
  • S23A systems approach to building enduring entrepreneurial initiativescase

    Use the Business Model Canvas as a dynamic tool to track hypotheses; understand how each block of the system affects every other (interconnectedness and alignment) and thus the desirability, feasibility and viability of the venture. Systems Thinking and Stakeholder Management are introduced to consider both the venture's implications and its need for partnerships.

    Business Model Canvas — 9 blocks
    Customer segments, value propositions, channels, customer relationships, revenue streams, key resources, key activities, key partnerships, cost structure. Change one block and the others must re-align — the canvas is a living map of interdependent hypotheses, not a static plan.
    Desirability · Feasibility · Viability
    A durable model needs all three: customers want it (desirable), you can build and deliver it (feasible), and the economics sustain it (viable). Systems thinking checks that the model holds together and that stakeholders/partners are accounted for.
    Key idea. Enduring ventures are coherent systems — local optimization of one block (e.g. growth) can break the whole (e.g. unit economics or trust).

    Readings

    • Systems Thinking 322030 · technical note — interconnectedness, feedback loops and unintended consequences.
    • Solome Tibebu: Evaluating Possible Business Models NA0552 · practical case — choosing among viable models for an impact venture.
    • Business Model Canvas Explained in 2 min & Osterwalder explains the BMC in 6 min · videos — the canvas and how to use it.
    • ▶ impact & SROI demo
M5 Financing, founders & the process story Sessions 24–30 · LO1 · LO6

The final arc addresses what it takes to sustain a venture and a founder. Students match financing phases to venture type, confront the human side of founding through the Terracycle role-play, then tell the story of their own semester-long process. The course ends where it began — with the mindset — assessing how each student's thinking has changed.

By the end of this module students can:

  • Recognize the financing phases (bootstrapping, FFF, angel, VC, debt, grants) and match them to a venture's nature and stage (LO6).
  • Analyze founder goals, motivations and the dilemmas of partners, equity and control (LO1).
  • Synthesize a coherent Process Story from evidence accumulated across the semester (LO1, LO3–5).
  • S24Peer-to-peer feedback on the Mindset Challengeworkshop

    Structured peer-to-peer feedback on individual Mindset Challenge projects (videos or posters), before final submission. Students give and receive feedback on the comfort-zone experiments they ran and what they learned about their own thinking.

    Key idea. Reflecting on a peer's growth attempt sharpens your own — the session models the give/receive-feedback loop the Team Review will require.
  • S25Financial considerations for entrepreneurial venturescase

    Different types of financing for different types of entrepreneurial ventures, and their implications — recognizing which financing phase fits a given venture and moment, and the strings attached to each kind of capital.

    Financing phases
    Bootstrapping & friends/family/fools → grants & non-dilutive → angels & pre-seed → seed/VC → growth/debt. Equity funding buys speed but costs ownership and control; the right source depends on the venture's risk, capital intensity and goals.
    Burn, runway & unit economics
    Runway = cash ÷ monthly burn; it sets how long you have to hit the next milestone. Unit economics (e.g. contribution margin, LTV vs. CAC) test whether each customer is profitable — the precondition for any fundable model.
    Key idea. Not every venture should raise venture capital — VC suits a narrow class of high-growth, scalable bets; many great ventures are better bootstrapped or grant-funded.

    Readings

  • S26Case Terracycle — founder goals, motivations & relationshipscase

    A role-play in which students interpret the different stakeholders of the case (a role-play supplement is distributed a few days before class) to explore the founder's dilemma between control, wealth and mission.

    • Goals & motivation — how they shape an entrepreneur's decisions.
    • Partners & teams — the dilemmas of choosing co-founders and dividing equity.
    • Before raising funds — what founders should weigh first.
    The Founder's Dilemma — "rich vs. king"
    Wasserman: founders repeatedly trade off wealth against control. Taking money, partners and professional managers usually grows the pie (rich) but dilutes the founder's control (king) — you rarely get both.
    Key idea. Most startups fail for "people" reasons (co-founder conflict, equity, control) more than for technical or market ones.

    Readings

    • Terracycle (A): Getting the Cycle Going? ENT010033-A · practical case — founder decisions in an early upcycling venture.
    • The Founder's Dilemma R0802G · article — the wealth-vs-control trade-off.
  • S27–28Process-story presentationspresentation

    Teams present their Process Story — narrating the evolution of their project from the start of the semester: the problem, the discovery, the pivots, and what the evidence showed. A core component of the Entrepreneurial Process Portfolio (35%).

    Key idea. The grade rewards the process — honest learning, evidence and adaptation — over how impressive the final solution looks.
  • S29Final examassessment

    In-class exam assessing achievement of the course's learning objectives across all five modules. 20% of the final grade — assesses LO 1–6.

  • S30Entrepreneurial mindset assessment & course debriefassessment

    Final mindset assessment and debrief of course learning — revisiting the S1 baseline to see how each student's thinking and self-perception have shifted. Details shared by the professor prior to class.

    Key idea. The real deliverable of EMP is a changed way of thinking and acting — the debrief makes that growth visible.

Key concepts

A working glossary of the frameworks, definitions and terms used across the program — the shared vocabulary of the entrepreneurial method.

Entrepreneurial method
A learnable, repeatable practice of taking action under uncertainty — act, learn, build — rather than an innate trait or a single business plan.
Entrepreneurial mindset
The cognitive, affective and behavioral dispositions (curiosity, comfort with risk, bias to action) that incline a person to spot and pursue opportunity.
Growth mindset
Dweck's belief that ability improves with effort; it reframes failure as feedback and underpins entrepreneurial resilience.
Effectuation
Sarasvathy's means-driven logic: start from who you are, what you know and whom you know; act within affordable loss; leverage contingency.
Causal vs. effectual reasoning
Causal: pick a goal, then find means to reach it. Effectual: start from available means and let goals emerge — the entrepreneur's default under uncertainty.
Affordable loss
Deciding what you can afford to lose on a step, rather than forecasting expected returns — caps downside while preserving optionality.
Innovator's DNA
Five practiced discovery skills — associating, questioning, observing, networking, experimenting — that distinguish innovative entrepreneurs.
Design thinking
Human-centered innovation loop: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test — to find and solve problems real users actually have.
Problem framing / reframing
Restating a problem from new angles or stakeholders to reach a more solvable, higher-value version before generating solutions.
Customer discovery & validation
Blank's front-end of Customer Development: turn guesses into customer-tested problem hypotheses, then confirm a repeatable model exists.
Lean startup
Ries/Blank approach treating a venture as hypotheses to be validated via Build–Measure–Learn rather than executed from a fixed plan.
Build–Measure–Learn
The core lean loop: build the smallest test, measure real behavior, learn whether to persevere or pivot — maximizing validated learning.
MVP
Minimum Viable Product — the smallest artifact that generates a real learning signal about a specific assumption, not a small finished product.
Riskiest Assumption Test (RAT)
Isolating and cheaply testing the single assumption that would sink the idea if false — often before building any MVP.
Pivot
A structured change of strategy (segment, problem, channel, model) made in response to validated learning, while keeping one foot grounded.
Product/market fit
The point at which a product satisfies a strong market need so well that demand pulls the product forward.
Value Proposition Canvas
Strategyzer tool aligning a customer profile (jobs, pains, gains) with a value map (products, pain relievers, gain creators) to achieve "fit."
Jobs to be done
The progress a customer is "hiring" a product to make — focuses design on the underlying job rather than the product category.
Beachhead market
The smallest viable segment you can dominate first and expand from, per the bowling-pin model of follow-on markets.
Market vs. industry
A market is customers sharing a need; an industry is the suppliers serving it. Ventures are built around markets.
TAM / SAM / SOM
Total Addressable, Serviceable Addressable and Serviceable Obtainable markets — nested sizing from the whole demand to the near-term winnable share.
Business Model Canvas
Nine interdependent blocks (segments, value props, channels, relationships, revenue, resources, activities, partners, costs) describing how a venture creates and captures value.
Desirability · feasibility · viability
The three tests a durable model must pass: customers want it, you can deliver it, and the economics sustain it.
Systems thinking
Seeing the venture as interconnected parts with feedback loops, so local changes are judged by their effect on the whole system.
Unit economics
The profit (or loss) per unit/customer — e.g. contribution margin and LTV vs. CAC — that determines whether scaling helps or hurts.
Burn rate & runway
Burn is net monthly cash outflow; runway is cash ÷ burn — the time left to reach the next milestone before raising again.
Cap table & dilution
The record of who owns what; each financing round issues new equity, diluting existing owners' percentages.
Founder's dilemma
Wasserman's recurring "rich vs. king" trade-off — growth via money and partners usually costs the founder control.
SROI
Social Return on Investment — a ratio monetizing social/environmental value created per unit invested, used to assess impact ventures.
Stakeholder management
Identifying and aligning the parties affected by or needed for a venture, and forming partnerships within the wider ecosystem.

Annotated bibliography

Every assigned article, technical note, case and simulation in the syllabus — one line on what it is and where it lands in the program. Codes follow the syllabus' HBP/case references.

Codes are Harvard Business Publishing / case-house references as listed in the syllabus; some multimedia items are referenced by title where the syllabus gives only an asset ID.