MM313A: Applied Entrepreneurship£A

Module code: MM313A

Module provider: Leadership, Organisations and Behaviour; Henley Business School

Credits: 40

Level: 6

When you'll be taught: Semester 1

Module convenor: Ms Janine Lewis, email: janine.lewis@henley.ac.uk

Pre-requisite module(s): Only for entrepreneurship pathway students (Open)

Co-requisite module(s):

Pre-requisite or Co-requisite module(s):

Module(s) excluded: IN TAKING THIS MODULE YOU CANNOT TAKE MM399 AND TAKE MM379 AND TAKE MM392 (Compulsory)

Placement information: NA

Academic year: 2024/5

Available to visiting students: No

Talis reading list: No

Last updated: 19 November 2024

Overview

Module aims and purpose

The aim of the module is for students to further develop and demonstrate the entrepreneurial skills developed through their degree in a significant capstone project.

Students will work on two projects:

Firstly, as Founders, students will work as solo-founder or in a small team on their own

1. Start-up project (Family business project)
2. UoR spinout project

Module learning outcomes

To apply key techniques in venture creation, such as:

1. New product/service development including validating business ideas through lean start-up experiments
2. Developing communication and marketing materials to communicate value proposition to potential customers and making (pre-)sales
3. Identifying suitable sources of resources and acquiring resources to start and scale the business (for example through building partnerships, securing incubator space, raising finance, applying for grants, applying to accelerator programmes, incentivising founding members with equity, etc)
4. Building and leading a team
5. Setting business milestones and measuring performance against the plan

Module content

This module is highly interactive and reliant upon personal initiative and self-direction. There are no lecture classes, but learning comes from the student’s experience of developing their entrepreneurial project, and reflecting on their experience. Students’ learning will include the following themes:

Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurship
Sources of opportunity
Creative problem-solving and idea generation
Lean start-up
Customer development
Achieving product-market fit
Marketing
Sales
Team-building and leadership
Business-model development
University spin-outs
Communicating (pitching) ideas 

Structure

Teaching and learning methods

Phase 1 – Project inception

At the start of the module, students will be presented with two options: They can either pursue…

1. their own start-up project, which will be based on their own business ideas, a business they are already operating, or a project from their family business background; or
2. develop a spinout/ commercial project based on IP developed through research at UoR – a list of available spin-out project ideas will be presented to them at the start of term.

Students can choose to work as solo-founders or in teams of up to 3.

In the first phase of the module, students will form teams, research their business project and develop a short project plan how they will test and develop their business ideas. They must set formal goals they aim to achieve by the end of term.

Phase 2 – Self-directed project development

In the second phase of the module, students will work continuously on their business project to iterate their idea towards product-market fit. This may involve completing validation experiments, acquiring resources, developing a prototype product or service, developing marketing and sales collateral to acquire early customers, and where appropriate, making first sales.

Progress meetings

The student cohort will meet fortnightly with the supervisory teams to discuss and report on the progress of their business (‘progress meeting’). Students have to prepare a sprint report that details progress and challenges during the past 2-week sprint period, and sets out milestones to be achieved for the next sprint period.

Founders & employees

Every student will spend ca two thirds of the module working on their (team) project, and the remaining third as an ‘employee’ of another project. As Founders, students may give their employees tasks that help them advance the business such as validating the business idea, and working on marketing and sales related tasks. Founders will rate employee’s performance, and employees will rate founder leadership capability.

Board-room presentations

At the end of the term, students will present their projects in a board-room style presentation to members of the Henley Centre for Entrepreneurship. Where appropriate, students may use this opportunity to present a case for continuing their project in Semester 2 through the module MM313-B Applied Entrepreneurship.

Study hours

At least 24 hours of scheduled teaching and learning activities will be delivered in person, with the remaining hours for scheduled and self-scheduled teaching and learning activities delivered either in person or online. You will receive further details about how these hours will be delivered before the start of the module.

Please note the independent study hours above are notional numbers of hours; each student will approach studying in different ways. We would advise you to reflect on your learning and the number of hours you are allocating to these tasks.

Semester 1 The hours in this column may include hours during the Christmas holiday period.

Semester 2 The hours in this column may include hours during the Easter holiday period.

Summer The hours in this column will take place during the summer holidays and may be at the start and/or end of the module.

Assessment

Requirements for a pass

Students need to achieve an overall module mark of 40% to pass this module.

Summative assessment

Penalties for late submission of summative assessment

The Support Centres will apply the following penalties for work submitted late:

Assessments with numerical marks

• where the piece of work is submitted after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline): 10% of the total marks available for that piece of work will be deducted from the mark for each working day (or part thereof) following the deadline up to a total of three working days;
• the mark awarded due to the imposition of the penalty shall not fall below the threshold pass mark, namely 40% in the case of modules at Levels 4-6 (i.e. undergraduate modules for Parts 1-3) and 50% in the case of Level 7 modules offered as part of an Integrated Masters or taught postgraduate degree programme;
• where the piece of work is awarded a mark below the threshold pass mark prior to any penalty being imposed, and is submitted up to three working days after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline), no penalty shall be imposed;
• where the piece of work is submitted more than three working days after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline): a mark of zero will be recorded.

Assessments marked Pass/Fail

• where the piece of work is submitted within three working days of the deadline (or any formally agreed extension of the deadline): no penalty will be applied;
• where the piece of work is submitted more than three working days after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension of the deadline): a grade of Fail will be awarded.

The University policy statement on penalties for late submission can be found at: https://www.reading.ac.uk/cqsd/-/media/project/functions/cqsd/documents/qap/penaltiesforlatesubmission.pdf

You are strongly advised to ensure that coursework is submitted by the relevant deadline. You should note that it is advisable to submit work in an unfinished state rather than to fail to submit any work.

Formative assessment

Formative assessment is any task or activity which creates feedback (or feedforward) for you about your learning, but which does not contribute towards your overall module mark.

Reassessment

Additional costs