Developing an Entrepreneurial Business: Understanding the Process and Key Elements

Knowledge Outcome

1. Knowledge outcome- You will be able to develop in-depth Understanding of the entrepreneurial process of finding valuable Opportunities and developing a business to pursue them.

2. Intellectual / Transferable skills outcome- You will be able to develop an advanced business development plan which demonstrates creativity, independent thinking and use of leadingScholarly literature.

You will be able to present your ideas in business level presentation and written formats.

The main Value Creation e.g. Value Proposition Canvas and the Value Capture e.g. Business Model Canvas parts and other elements of the taught syllabus (which includes the readings) should be correctly understood and applied.  A superficial understanding (i.e. not at QAA level 6) will not pass.

The syllabus contains many techniques to find and access new/innovative business opportunities that would be attractive to investors.

Opportunities must be a) feasible (not based on fanciful ideas and assumptions) and b) financial viable i.e. clearly profitable based on evidence and c) have the potential in future to scale.

Marking Criteria  1. Creative application of accurately referenced academic principles, theories and ideas and from the module syllabus. (30%)  

Students must demonstrate engagement and study of the content of the taught syllabus and its core texts (Ries, Osterwalder and Pigneur, and readings e.g. Blank, etc. and other learning materials at a detailed level. The concepts used in this module are not self-explanatory and referenced definitions are expected at university level 

Use of primary and secondary data to support your decisions (30%)

You must engage with customers, suppliers and other partners using the VPC and MVP. Your decisions must be supported by primary and/or secondary data e.g. marketing research. Many students lose marks here by not providing evidence to support their plan.  The university provides access to several up to date professional secondary market research databases e.g. Mintel, Market Line, etc.   

Critical entrepreneurial/business evaluation (30%)

Use of feedback and expert opinion. You must reflect upon (think about) and assess your choices e.g. different options and their strengths and weaknesses in terms of robust entrepreneurial judgement/business acumen. Show evidence of working with and sharing information with other C levels in your group as a C-level team, using experts, and tools e.g. Simventure (You can request a free evaluation license at:

Logical structure, clear use of English (visual, spoken, written), font, referencing, and use of word limit.  (10%)   

Communication skills in English are a key learning outcome.  Reference your secondary data sources carefully not just ‘cut and pasted’ browser web links. Academic references will be checked and those not clearly from or connected to the taught syllabus, or are of low quality e.g. (tutor2u) will lose marks.  

Intellectual / Transferable Skills Outcome

Part A Compulsory Group PowerPoint slide Presentation to Panel of Experts via Zoom

This compulsory assessment is essential preparation and foundation using the feedback for the Part B assessment.  

Groups will be made up of five (5) persons either a voluntary association or selected by the tutor.  The tutor will under no circumstances get involved in group C level management.  Approval  

The first step is to have your tutor approve by email your business idea.  This must be done before the seminar of Week 4.   

Format: PowerPoint slides must be converted to a PDF file (to reduce file size) submitted to Turnitin.   

Word Limit: Ten (10) slides. It is a visual presentation use diagrams, tables, etc not words.

PowerPoint slides full of text will received a low mark and will have to be re-submitted, annotated detailed notes must be provided at the bottom of each slide.

Clear presentation of content on the slides helps the understanding of your ideas.  

Students must regard the reader for Parts A and B as potential investors/financiers. e.g. for Part A angel investors and banks screening new lean start-ups before allowing a detailed Part B to be prepared  Structure:   

For Part A students must  

1.Full name and student id plus a photo of the students (all must be present i.e. on-line). Name of Product/ Service with a (one) diagram to describe it. 1 slide. Date of approval by tutor by email.  

2.Explain why this is a profitable, competition beating, value creating ‘lean’, investable entrepreneurial opportunity. Complete this sentence: If your lean start-up never existed, the world would be worse off because… 1 slide

3.Details of your creative cognitive work that applied elements of the taught syllabus to develop and validate the new opportunity. 1 slide.

4.4/5. Present and explain Value Creation using a Value Proposition Canvas (with extensions and detailing as per the taught syllabus) 2 slides e.g. a) Customer Profile b) Value Map. Note: Begin with Customer Jobs (the part of their life where you create value).

6. Mock-up/role play/demo of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). – Not applicable

6. Present and explain the Business Model (means to ends transformation process) and an outline Business Model Canvas (Value Capture) (with extensions and detailing as per the taught syllabus) 2 slides.

7. Business Research and Data Gathering Plan i.e. The Part B hypotheses to be researched (see Ries Chapter 4 alchemy to science) 1 slide.

Value Creation and Value Capture

8. Principal Harvard style references listing a) scholarly works and b) secondary data sources. 1 slide. Note simple cut and pasted web references URLs (uniform resource locator) are unacceptable at level 6 1 slide.

Prerequisites for Part B:

The individual report must reference the tutor’s prior approval, presentation of Part A and the feedback received.  Any reports not meeting these criteria will not be read, not given feedback, and will receive a mark of zero.  

Task:  

As this is individual work students take one C level perspective from:  CMO, COO, CTO, CHRO, CFO (Note: there is no CEO role).

Perspective from CFO

Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) – value proposition, advertising, customer engagement, sales, etc.

Chief Operating Officer (COO) – doing the business, making product, delivering service, shipping, orders, suppliers, partners, etc.

Chief Technology/Information Officer (CTO/CIO) – Core technical solution (if there is one) also key IT systems and data processing, etc.    

Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) – deciding the organisational structure, the balance between employed and contract staff, specifying, hiring and developing people to be employed in the business, etc.

Chief Finance Officer (CFO) - costing, pricing, cash management, need for finance, raising finance, etc.

There is no CEO role (strategic decision making is shared).  Groups will hold Board meetings on Zoom or similar and collectively agree strategic decisions.  

Each perspective must be different from other members of the group. Students can collaborate but not collude beyond Part A. If there are elements of a student’s submitted plan that are plagiarised those parts will receive zero marks regardless of the original author and will likely result in an investigation of suspected misconduct.  

Lean Start-Up Business Plan Components.   Structure Note: Common Group components are highlighted in blue.    

Cover page. A photo or diagram of the product/service that conveys its creativity.  

1.Introduction to the Lean Start-Up. (250 words). The C level perspective being taken, the Part A process including feedback. Profit, creativity, lean characteristics.  

2.Business Objectives.  Profit, sales revenue and profit margin objectives for the first three years of operation (250 words).    

3.Value Creation: Customer Value Proposition Canvas (Diagram) Minimum Viable Product

Individual student explanation, extensions and details as per the taught syllabus. (500 words)

4.Value Capture: ‘Lean’ Business Model Canvas (Diagram)  

Individual student explanation, extensions and details as decided by the individual student) of the Business model (means-ends transformation process. (500 words)

5.Detailed Development Plan (1000 words) with references to Appendix I  One of :  

The CMO Marketing Plan  

The COO Operational Plan  

The CTO Technical Solution and Information Technology Plan  

The CHRO Human Resources and Organisation Plan  

The CFO Financial Plan (Note: All students must explain why the start-up is financially viable and profitable)

6.Critical evaluation of the plan and any possible future developments, competitor moves, changes in customer needs that need to be accounted for (e.g. Pivots see Ries Chapter 8). (250 words)

7.Summary: Why is a profitable, competition beating, value creating ‘lean’, investable entrepreneurial opportunity? Why should someone invest in and/or provide loan finance to this Lean Start-Up?  Complete this sentence: If your start-up never existed, the world would be worse off because…  (250 words)