(76m) “Should We Start This Company?”: the Theory and Practice of Starting a Business

 “Should we start this company?”: the Theory and Practice of Starting a Business is essentially a student-project centered course in entrepreneurship, generating new business ideas, and technological product or service design and development through business planning. During the course students develop a Business Strategy including Business Plan, Business Model, and Feasibility Evaluation, for both their own business idea and a local “client”. Students also have to identify a customer base and do market research, including surveying if appropriate. Stretch goals for student-driven projects include proposals for expanding capabilities of the product or service, optimizing production or delivery, and identification of new market share. The culmination of the course is to present the groups’ business ideas to investors and judges (business pitch competition), and use feedback and knowledge gained from these presentations to make a final report including an analysis of the businesses’ potential for success. Other activities include (but are not limited to) connections with students in other courses, guest lectures, and interactions with the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) located at Bucknell University.

 Students enroll from all disciplines of engineering, from the School of Management, and from across the university. This course was supported in part by the KEEN (Kern Entrepreneurship Education Network) and thus the course outcomes are tied to that program. The outcomes reflect that students completing the course should recognize that successful entrepreneurs are able to do things that successful engineers should also be skilled at: effectively collaborating in a team, thinking critically and creatively about ambiguous (ill-defined, open-ended) problems, being able to construct and effectively communicate a customer appropriate value proposition, persist through and learn from failure, effectively manage projects through appropriate commercialization or final delivery process, and demonstrate voluntary social responsibility.

 There are high expectations in this course, somewhat comparable to senior design. Students are expected to spend 8-10 hours per week outside of class being productive to meet the deliverables deadlines. There is also a focus on personal accountability; for example, students are explicitly told that not all of their outside class hours will be spent with their group because it is important to learn when time is best spent together and when it is more efficient to delegate tasks to individuals. I also have the explicit expectation that although different members of each group will take on different roles in the projects, all members are expected to be able to answer any reasonable question regarding progress, justification of choices, etc. In this way each member is personally accountable for understanding the larger scope of the projects, so even though it is a team-based course, no one can “coast” in an otherwise strong group. Groups present on their progress on a regular basis in addition to the formal presentations scheduled during the course so that each team member can be actively involved in the discussion of their team’s progress.

 Another important focus of the course is professionalism. Students are expected to conduct themselves individually and in their groups as they would if the course were a job situation. Unacceptable behavior includes being disrespectful to others in class, inappropriate speech or gestures, being late to class, and not pulling their weight in a group situation. While this may seem like a small detail, it is essential to have this be emphasized in order for the course to function smoothly.

 The projects in the course generally fall into three categories, and can represent for-profit or non-profit entities:

a)       Development of a novel physical product or process, from concept to commercialization

b)       Development of a new service (e.g. website or business or home delivery of service), from concept to launch

c)       Other: by approval, may combine elements of various businesses, integrated format (e.g., optimizing/enhancing an existing operation)

 The course is organized into five phases: Idea Generation, Initial Project Planning, Intermediate Developments, “The Pitch”, and Reflection. During Idea Generation each group is given direction in highly energetic and productive forms of ideation (brainstorming) and critical selection. From there, each team selects several (2-3) ideas to pitch to the whole class. Selection of which project to pursue from that point involves some form of basic market research using their classmates as focus group. Groups then move to Initial Project Planning where the main deliverable is a seven minute explanation of the project plan and scope, including refinement from initial ideas, and a brief outline of planning. This point is critical because it is treated as an oral defense of the business idea the group has chosen to pursue. The students must provide specific details about the expectations of the final product or service and outcomes of the business planning process. For client-initiated ideas the students must provide a refined explanation of the initially proposed business concept. After initial project planning some ideas may fail and groups may re-form. This is also treated in a professional manner – students on teams whose ideas failed must apply to be hired by another business. To help with this step we have a session on how to best characterize your own skills, so each student is better able to manage their own hiring process. Once new new groups have been formed they delegate tasks to complete the Intermediate Developments and Preliminary Business Pitch for their own business idea. The main deliverable for this stage is a ten minute presentation about what your group has learned through literature and market research, culminating in a single product or service that will be pursued. This presentation must include a description of potential customers, applications, and a “reach” market. The presentation is evaluated by their peers and their feedback is used to help formulate the “pitch”. The Pitch is actually done during the Bucknell Business Pitch Competition. The students are not graded on whether or not they advance to the finals – they are graded on their preparation, professionalism, and self-reported feedback from the judges. The Business Pitch Competition occurs when only 2-3 weeks of class are left, so the final deliverable for the course is for the teams to take everything they have learned from the course, their peers, and the judges, and any assistance they have received from the consultants at the SBDC and complete the final business plan and video pitch. There are also final presentations that would be comparable to a Venture Plan Competition.

 One of the methods used to keep the teams moving forward each week is extensive, directed blogging about each phase of the process using prompt questions. These blogs allow everyone on the team and the instructor to track the progress of each business idea.

 In order for students to be successful in this course they not only must possess the technical knowledge of how their product or service would be launched, they need to demonstrate an understanding of the business sense that would be needed to ‘get it off the ground’. Overall, it is a great complement to the typical engineering senior design course.