Technological Entrepreneurship Laboratory

Code:

M.EGI020

Acronym:

LET

Keywords
Classification	Keyword
OFICIAL	Economics and Management

Instance: 2023/2024 - 1S

Active?	Yes
Responsible unit:	Department of Industrial Engineering and Management
Course/CS Responsible:	Master in Industrial Engineering and Management

Cycles of Study/Courses

Acronym	No. of Students	Study Plan	Curricular Years	Credits UCN	Credits ECTS	Contact hours	Total Time
M.EGI	54	Syllabus	2	-	6	39	162

Teaching language

English

Objectives

At the end of the curricular unit, the students should:
1) Have an understanding of what it takes to work with engineers, scientists, and other professionals to build companies.
2) Have an understanding of the pressures and demands of work in an early-stage startup.
3) Be able to carry out contacts with customers, partners and competitors, in the typical chaos and uncertainty of startup environments.
4) Be able to use a business model to brainstorm each part of a company, taking into account the associated environmental and social issues.
5) Be able to use customer development to get out of the classroom, iterate on a “minimum viable product” (MVP) and identify a repeatable and scalable business model for it, based on external feedback.
6) Be able to develop an operating plan, cost projections, and a revenue model, and integrate them into a financial model.
7) Be able to use LLM tools appropriately throughout the customer development process, including validating the results obtained and acknowledging their use.

Learning outcomes and competences

The student will participate in lectures, and sessions with practitioners, and will be participating in teams that will develop projects with solution/problem(s) combinations. The teaching-learning process will be focused on the student (autonomous and mentored work), who will be monitored for evolution and knowledge acquisition as well as professional competence development, with a focus on the development of enabling competences, specialized and specific, for a competent professional activity, for social participation and for research at the student’s transition to the labor market.

Working method

Presencial

Program

1. Customer Development and Business Model.
2. Value Proposition.
3. Customers, Distribution Channels, Customer Relationships, and Revenue Model.
4. Partners, Resources, Activities and Cost Structure.
5. Operating Plan and Financial Model.

Mandatory literature

Steve Blank, Bob Dorf; The startup owner.s manual. ISBN: 978-0-9849993-0-9
written by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur; Business model generation. ISBN: 978-0-470-87641-1
ed. Stefanos Zenios, Josh Makower, Paul Yock; Biodesign. ISBN: 978-0-521-51742-3
Ethan R. Mollick; “ChatGPT is my co-founder” (Webpage), 2022 (https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/chatgtp-is-my-co-founder)
Ethan R. Mollick and Lilach Mollick; Assigning AI: Seven Approaches for Students, with Prompts, 2023 (http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4475995)

Teaching methods and learning activities

The classes are organized around:
- A lecture on methodologies, building blocks of a business model, and/or operating and financial planning, with specific topics being complemented by the experience of entrepreneurs with relevant background in the respective block of the business model;
- Team presentations on “lessons learned” from getting out of the building and iterating or pivoting the business model, followed by discussion with colleagues from the other teams and the faculty team;
- Team capture of their progression in Customer Discovery in online records, including a detailed record of the use of LLM tools in accordance with the guidelines provided in the course materials.

keywords

Social sciences > Economics > Management studies > Innovation management

Evaluation Type

Distributed evaluation without final exam

Assessment Components

Designation	Weight (%)
Participação presencial	10,00
Prova oral	37,00
Trabalho de campo	42,00
Trabalho escrito	11,00
Total:	100,00

Amount of time allocated to each course unit

Designation	Time (hours)
Elaboração de projeto	36,00
Estudo autónomo	28,00
Frequência das aulas	42,00
Trabalho de campo	28,00
Trabalho escrito	28,00
Total:	162,00

Eligibility for exams

Presence in classes according to the school's regulations.

Calculation formula of final grade

The evaluation considers:
- Presentations of the building blocks of the business model – 5 presentations, with identical weights, in a total of 5.4 points;
- Participation in classes – 2 points;
- On-line records of progress – 2.4 points;
- Final report and presentation – 4.2 points;
- Contribution to teamwork – 6.0 points.

Classification improvement

Being a curricular unit with distributed evaluation without final exam, the classification may be improved by developing a new project/assignment in the following academic year.