Hello Dave,
Many thanks to you (and to all on the listserv) for such great feedback. You are spot on about one of the major issues I thought about when designing and teaching this class.
Specifically, as you note, there are couple different ways to teach this class. One is to focus on the supply side, that is, on where ideas come from. Some of the syllabi I reviewed, for example, covered issues like generating ideas and enhancing student creativity.
The other is on the demand side, such as focusing on social needs and pains. I also saw syllabi that had assignments similar to the ones you mentioned, where students were asked to find "pain points" or market gaps in society.
Although most of the readings I have in the class focus on the supply side, I actually included two assignments in the class where students examined pain points in our weekly discussion. I think as I continue to revise this class, though, I will probably structure it more along the lines you mentioned with a dual focus on supply and demand.
I also like your idea of focusing on pivoting. I cover this in the business plan writing course, where I use the book Getting to Plan B as one of the required texts. I think, based on your comments, though, I will push that discussion down to this class, too.
Thanks so much again for your great feedback.
Franz,
Thanks for sharing your syllabus. Giving it a quick review what I notice about it is that it is completely supply-side - focused on ideas. What's missing is demand - find the pain/need in the market. A simple exercise you could do have students observe complaints in their social networks, then sort through them to find potential opportunities. My intro entrepreneurship course is largely focused on opportunity and I begin with having them go out and do a lot of observation and interviews to uncover pains. Once they've identified pains, then they can focus on generating ideas.
I would also recommend that you incorporate changing ideas/pivoting. I have teams research one company that pivoted. I start with a series done in Fast Company (video, short articles) and give them one of the companies featured - most of which are quite familiar to them. They then go do more background research about the pivot(s). It helps them realize that ideas can and do change. I used to take an approach similar to yours, and also using Baron and Shane, and one thing I found was that students (and people in general) get stuck on the idea being fixed, when in reality it is the most amorphous part of a new business. When they see companies that they know and use started by doing something different (e.g. flickr started as an MMO, instagram was a check-in app), they realize that they too can allow their ideas to change/evolve/develop.
As for evaluating opportunities, I use the Meyer and Crane book. In chapter 7 there is a feasibility analysis, which is basically a market concept test. They go out, survey people and get some ballpark estimates on sales based on what people would pay, what percent is unhappy with current options, percent likely to buy, etc. The Meyer and Crane book has a decent guide for doing the initial market research too (chapter 3). As for an entire course on opportunity evaluation, I would say you can't/shouldn't separate it out - they need to be able to respond to feedback. It is/should be a dynamic, iterative process, rather than a fixed linear process. The mantra in Meyer and Crane (and the Business Model Generation book) is "create, test, refine." If you're interested I created a simple checklist for idea evaluation (attached). It's still a work in progress, so feedback is welcome. The idea here is that idea development and evaluation is an iterative process - they are working to get to "yes" for all 10 questions.
Regards,
Dave
David J. Hansen, PhD
Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship
College of Charleston
Hello All:
After years of teaching classes focused how to implement ideas (e.g., writing business plans), I realized that it might be a good idea to start students at the beginning of the entrepreneurial process. Thus, I developed and taught an on-line course this summer on opportunity recognition.
I'm curious about the experiences others have had teaching this course. In addition, I was wondering if anyone had recently taught an entire course focusing on the second step in the process, opportunity evaluation. If so, I (and probably others on the listserv) would be interested in your experiences.
The syllabus from my course is available at http://bit.ly/13SqENS . Thanks to those that contributed syllabi to the USASBE Syllabus Exchange and Larry Plummer for sharing his syllabi with me. All these examples were extremely helpful in my developing the course.
Best regards,
Franz Lohrke
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Franz T. Lohrke
Brock Family Chair in Entrepreneurship
Chair, Department of Entrepreneurship, Management & Marketing
Brock School of Business
Samford University
800 Lakeshore Drive
Birmingham, AL 35229
Office: (205) 726-2373
Fax: (205) 726-2464
Skype: franz.lohrke
www2.samford.edu/~ftlohrke
Secretary, Academy of Management Entrepreneurship Division
http://division.aomonline.org/ent/
http://www.facebook.com/ENTDivision
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