Business Plan - Basic Course (Business Idea and Market) (Geschäftsidee & Markt)

In a creative atmosphere, the participants learn to think through and present a business idea in the structured form of a business plan in order to solve a customer problem. For that purpose, fundamental chapters of a business plan are developed. Participants will network with people from the entrepreneurial environment of TUM.

The matter is developed in the following steps:
- The fundamentals of innovation
- Overview: Developing a business plan
- Consumer and consumer value
- Business model
- Assessment of business ideas
- Market & competition
- Pitching business ideas
- Presentation practice: customer, customer value, market USP
- Forming powerful business teams
- Protection of intellectual property

At the end of the seminar the students will be able to:
- understand the difference between idea, invention, and innovation;
- understand the use of an iterative approach in the development of business opportunities;
- evaluate opportunities for business ideas and apply business concepts by prototyping, e.g. with the help of a business plan;
- evaluate business ideas and identify business opportunities;
- segment markets and analyze potential niche markets;
- evaluate own business idea with the help of customer feedback, observations from stakeholders, and interviews;
- identify a real customer problem and create customer benefit with ideas for a solution.

- Knowledge: No special requirements, willingness to participate
- Abilities: Identifying opportunities; team work; communication; commitment; reliability
- Skills: openness; analytical thinking; visual thinking; self-motivation

Seminar-style: The lecturers are entrepreneurs, serial founders, coaches, and former managing directors.
- Interdisciplinarity: Participants form cross-disciplinary teams to ensure a balanced mix of expertise and skills in the team.
- Action-based learning: All participants are encouraged to be proactive and to learn through experience.
- Learning by doing: Each team develops a real business idea or one chosen for the seminar. Particular attention is paid to truly understanding the customer, for example, by interviews, observation, or expert discussion.
- Prototyping: Using simple prototypes, the teams develop their business idea and make them tangible.
- Online Networking: The work in the seminar is accompanied by online tools to support the team-building and generation of ideas.
- Elevator Pitch Training: Through the practice of elevator pitches, participants develop skills for short and effective presentation of their business ideas.
- Presentation Training: Each team presents and defends their business idea twice before an expert-jury and receives feedback on presentation style and content.

- Videos
- Slides
- Hand­outs (distributed online)
- Case studies
- Intranet
- Online Project Pool

- Münchener Business Plan Wettbewerb: Der optimale Businessplan, München
- UnternehmerTUM: Handbuch Schlüsselkompetenzen (erhält jeder Teilnehmer)
- Horowitz, Ben (2014): The Hard thing About Hard Things, HarperBusiness
- Kawasaki, Guy (2004): The Art of the Start, Penguin Publishing Group
- Moore, Geoffrey A. (2002).: Crossing the Chasm, HarperCollins
- Osterwalder, Alexander / Pigneur, Yves (2010): Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers, John Wiley & Sons
- Ries, Eric (2011): The Lean Startup, Penguin Books Limited
- Thiel, Peter (2014): Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future, Crown Business
- Timmons, Jeffry A. / Spinelli, Stephen (2009): New Venture Creation,7thedition, McGraw Hill Professional

The examination consists of a semester-long project work, which ends in the delivery of a business plan and in a presentation. The presentation includes a prototype-demo of the developed product or service. Through the project-work, it is assessed how well the participants can identify and implement business opportunities. In teams students recognize the needs and demands of the customers. Through customer feedback, field interviews and contextual observations they synthesize the identified needs to translate them into clear and significant customer benefits. Students develope business models to learn how to bring the idea to the market and position the business with respect to competition. They learn the systematic and iterativ approach of the Business Design for business model, team and technology development.

Specifically with the examination deliverables, the participants demonstrate to what extent they have developed the following competences:
- In their business plan participants formulate in a concise and structured way how they developed an understanding about the actual customers and markets for their business idea.
- In their pitch presentation participants present their business idea before a jury of experts. The presentation includes a demo of the prototype for the developed product or service.