Creating and Developing a Tech Startup

About this course: This course will allow you to identify and evaluate opportunities for creating a tech business, and to better understand its principal issues on a human, technical, commercial, environmental and financial level. As such, you will obtain solid foundations either for building your own tech business, or for joining one. Deciding to create or to join a tech business in these early years is an out-of-the-ordinary adventure, and it certainly won’t be straightforward: you need to be ready to accept that not all "good" ideas will lead to success, and that only a very small number of projects lead to great success. You must learn to overhaul your relationship with failure, which is a valuable source of experience and should be managed according to the logic of “acceptable loss”: the entrepreneur loves uncertainty, not excessive risk. The creation of tech businesses gives you a genuine opportunity to change the world, but requires you to adopt a particular state of mind and to be able to acquire knowledge, know-how and interpersonal skills. You will have the chance to work alongside passionate and exciting people from a whole multitude of backgrounds. From a technological point of view, these women and men have constructed numerous companies of a global scale. The development trajectory of a tech business is full of mishaps which require you to be both agile and greatly prepared to build on a strong idea, choose your market, develop your proposal, assemble a team worthy of the task in hand, and finding financing. The course is made up of methodological sessions as well as first-hand accounts from entrepreneurs and people who have succeeded in creating tech businesses themselves. You will thus be able to get to know the essential dilemmas with which high-tech business creators are confronted with, beginning with the initial decision to set up your very own structure, which itself represents a significant life decision. You will also see that the creation of a tech business is much more a collective adventure than an individual one. In the English version, all of the reading content, quizzes and assesments will be in English, whilst the videos will have French audio and English subtitles.

Created by:  École Polytechnique, HEC Paris

• Taught by:  Romain Beaume, Chargé Mission chaire MIX

  50% Ecole polytechnique + 50% ParisTech

• Taught by:  Etienne Krieger, Affiliate Professor

  Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Commitment 3-4 heures par semaine Language English, Subtitles: French How To Pass Pass all graded assignments to complete the course. User Ratings 4.4 stars Average User Rating 4.4See what learners said Coursework

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École Polytechnique L’École polytechnique associe recherche, enseignement et innovation au meilleur niveau scientifique et technologique mondial pour répondre aux défis du XXIe siècle. En tête des écoles d’ingénieur françaises depuis plus de 200 ans, sa formation promeut une culture d’excellence scientifique pluridisciplinaire, ouverte dans une forte tradition humaniste. HEC Paris HEC Paris, founded in 1881 by the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry, is one of France’s oldest elite higher education Grandes Ecoles. Throughout its 130-year history, HEC Paris has consistently attracted individuals highly capable and talented, innovative and entrepreneurial, ambitious and open-minded, capable of becoming architects of a responsible world. What makes HEC unique is its conviction shared by the HEC community: knowledge determines the freedom and entrepreneurship required for a better world.

Syllabus


WEEK 1


From laboratory invention to formulation of an innovative concept



Before any technical or financial consideration, the creation of a technology company is above all a human adventure that requires each associate to make personal choices. Besides your initial intuition that a new cutting-edge technology offer is marketable, we want to familiarize you with several development methods and practices. Mostly you will be asked to explore what the potential applications of your offer will be and the different ways to make it stand out from the existing offers.


5 videos, 2 readings expand

1. Reading: Syllabus
2. Video: 1.1 Introduction
3. Video: 1.2 From laboratory research to the decision to create an innovative company: the experience of a researcher-entrepreneur.
4. Video: 1.3 Innovative design, a mix of methods and practices stemming from “sciences of the artificial”.
5. Video: 1.4 Creating an innovative company with several associates: what are the selection criteria?
6. Video: 1.5 Methods and recommendations for defining and assessing an opportunity to create a tech company.
7. Reading: Biography Week 1

Graded: Week 1

WEEK 2


Fostering the development of your concept



This session will familiarize you with the principal steps for bringing an innovative project to fruition. Among other things, we will evoke the fundamentals of managing a project and the knowledge acquisition process that enables you to make crucial decisions for the company over time. We will also investigate the principal pillars of your strategic project and suggest some guidelines for the company strategy. You will be asked to understand the dynamics of the market that you are targeting and to identify what it takes to be leader in your segment. Your margin for maneuver will not be the same if your innovation creates a new market versus if it substitutes an existing offer. We will also invite you to analyze the customer-perceived utility value, in terms of benefits as well as sacrifices. Finally, we will tackle an essential aspect concerning the valorization of a technology and the development of a company – intellectual property – and give you several solutions in order to use it wisely.


7 videos, 1 reading expand

1. Video: 2.1 Introduction
2. Video: 2.2 The key steps to bringing an innovative project to fruition.
3. Video: 2.3 The fundamentals of the company’s strategy.
4. Video: 2.4 Innovative strategies: the typology and value perceived by the  customer.
5. Video: 2.5.1 The challenges of intellectual property to exploit an innovation 1/3
6. Video: 2.5.2 The challenges of intellectual property to exploit an innovation 2/3
7. Video: 2.5.3 The challenges of intellectual property to exploit an innovation 3/3
8. Reading: Biography Week 2

Graded: Week 2

WEEK 3


Identifying the actors of technological innovation



Young technology companies often spring out of research work conducted in public or private laboratories. The technology transfer of this work can take place directly by license agreements. But in certain cases, the creation ex-nihilo of a company is the option used to transform academic learning and outcomes into an innovative product or service. This session will familiarize you with the purpose of a technology transfer service at a top-tier university with respect to scientific production. You will learn about how a young researcher decided to create his own company to exploit his research work immediately after completing his thesis. We will return once again to the importance of the team and the manner in which tech startups are structured. We will notably examine the role of the leader and conflict management, commonplace in startups. Finally, you will hear about the experiences of two management sciences researchers who studied the emergence of several dozen cooperative scientific projects at the Ecole Polytechnique.


6 videos, 1 reading expand

1. Video: 3.1 Introduction
2. Video: 3.2 From science to industry: the purpose of a technology transfer service.
3. Video: 3.3 From PhD to a navigation startup: the case of Sysnav.
4. Video: 3.4 Building a team, the key to success for a startup.
5. Video: 3.5 The outlook in social sciences research for entrepreneurs.
6. Reading: Biography Week 3
7. Video: Teaser Sounds Good

Graded: Week 3
Graded: « Sounds Good » Project

WEEK 4


How to calculate your financing needs and to find funding



The development of an innovative technology is an exciting adventure that is often like an obstacle course when it comes to finding the first sources of financing. Though new technologies are fascinating, many investors are reluctant to finance them because there are real technical, sales and human risks at stake. Even so, many sources of financing exist and tech entrepreneurs demonstrate tremendous creativity to successfully move forward from the development stage of a breakthrough technology to the commercialization of an innovative and profitable offer. This session deals with the financing of the innovation and will show you how to assess your financing needs and how to find the corresponding resources. You will also gain insight into the reasoning of venture capitalists, who sometimes finance companies at a very early stage.


9 videos, 1 reading expand

1. Video: 4.1 Introduction
2. Video: 4.2.1 An overview of your financing needs and financial sources for innovation 1/4
3. Video: 4.2.2 An overview of your financing needs and financial sources for innovation 2/4
4. Video: 4.2.3 An overview of your financing needs and financial sources for innovation 3/4
5. Video: 4.2.4 An overview of your financing needs and financial sources for innovation 4/4
6. Video: 4.3.1 What leads an individual to fund a tech startup? 1/2
7. Video: 4.3.2 What leads an individual to fund a tech startup? 2/2
8. Video: 4.4 From wavelet theory to the “Let It Wave” startup: financing the launch.
9. Video: 4.5 How does a venture capital fund decide to finance a breakthrough technology?
10. Reading: Biography Week 4

Graded: Week 4

WEEK 5


Defining your business model



Developing a technology, building a team and financing the startup are not the only challenges that you and your colleagues will face. The elaboration of a credible value proposition and a scalable and profitable business model require a lot of back-and-forth discussions because the clients and sales terms and conditions of your offer will often be very different than originally planned. To win over financial partners, you will have to present the essentials of your project in a business plan and we will familiarize you with its main components in this session. Finally, you will view two case studies about entrepreneurs who created their companies on the basis of their research work. One of them sold his company and the other did several rounds of venture capital to speed up development before his IPO.


6 videos, 1 reading expand

1. Video: 5.1 Introduction
2. Video: 5.2 Making the leap from the academic to the business world: a researcher/entrepreneur explains.
3. Video: 5.3 From the technology to the value proposition and business model.
4. Video: 5.4 The business plan: its importance and limitations for the creators of an innovative company.
5. Video: 5.5.1 From the creation of a startup to the IPO: the example of Cellectis 1/2
6. Video: 5.5.2 From the creation of a startup to the IPO: the example of Cellectis 2/2
7. Reading: Biography Week 5

Graded: Week 5

WEEK 6


End of the course and final exam
These last two weeks do not include any new elements of the course. You can organize yourselves however you wish over this period to review lessons and take the final exam.

Graded: Final exam