This course works much like an incubator program. It is aimed at students interested in learning the tools and skills required to succeed as entrepreneurs — and in applying these tools in a real-life project. You work in teams (expect a fair amount of group work!) on your own startup. You get hands-on experience tackling the challenges that all entrepreneurs face and you receive advice from experienced mentors as well as inspiration from visits to startups and scaleups. You assume an entrepreneurial and innovative mindset and use methods like Lean Startup, Business Model Canvas, Design Thinking, Value Proposition Design, and Customer Journey Mapping.
Initially, you identify a problem in need of a solution by looking at customer needs. Through an intensive process, you then build hypotheses about your customers and solution, and you validate these by doing interviews and creating explainer videos, websites, or other representations of your hypotheses. You work toward pitching your business idea to real investors and serial entrepreneurs who give you honest and constructive feedback. You are going to meet some of the main Danish, Swedish, and German players in entrepreneurship, including founders of leading startups.
The experience of this course is phenomenal and the relationships built in class are ones that last long after a our time at DIS. It is an excellent teaching tool for design thought that assists us in creating and marketing products – but also how to market ourselves to prospective employers. Additionally, it is an awesome networking opportunity to link up with the start-up community in Scandinavia. Overall, this core course choice came to be one of the best decisions that I personally made in relation to DIS and my overall abroad experience.
– Sean Kowalski, Gettysburg College
Related Discipline(s)
This course would also be of interest to the following discipline(s):Leadership Studies, Management
