Lean Launchpad: Evidence Based Entrepreneurship

Module code: PA3244

The Physics Skills Electives are designed to help you improve your skills and enhance your career options in industry, education, research and/or business. In this skills elective, by working in small teams, you will take a potential business idea or hypothesis (either provided by an external commercial entity or developed by the team) from concept to a minimum value proposition or minimum viable product by testing it outside the classroom and iterating through customer engagement. During this module, you will work with a multidisciplinary support team containing members from both academia and industry.

Lean LaunchPad® has been taught at Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia, and Caltech. It is designed to introduce you to real world entrepreneurship – from proposing and testing hypotheses. You will talk to potential customers, partners and competitors, and encounter the challenge of commercialising innovations and creating new ventures.  To learn more about Lean LaunchPad® see LaunchPad. During this skills elective you will have the opportunity to gain experience in valuable transferable skills: entrepreneurship, communication, team work, and problem solving giving you a head start to your future careers and providing valuable evidence for your CV.

Topics covered

• Entrepreneurship
• Lean LaunchPad® methodology
• Challenges associated with creating start-up companies and how to search for a business model.
• Problem solving, data analysis, and oral and written communication
• Professional development
• Team working