The course provides an overview of the major elements of startup/entrepreneurial activity, including evaluation and planning of a new business, financing, team building, typical marketing and operational management issues, alternative models for revenue and growth, and exit strategies.
The course is fast-paced and covers a wide span of business subjects, with a strong focus on the key challenges in starting a venture and their practical solutions. Students with no business training are expected to read up on their own additional background materials, or consult and learn from their classmates, where necessary.
The course utilizes lectures, field trips, class discussions of weekly assignments and guest speakers. Every student will be assigned to a Self-Initiated Idea Business Plan team, a Lecture Idea Business Plan team or a Venture Capitalist Analysts team with the following arrangement:
- 4 Business Plan teams of 3 students each.
- Teams: Team #1 Biz; Team #2 Biz; Team#3 Biz, Team #4 Biz
- Expected deliverable: Completed business plan; Presentation of Business Plan
- Interim draft business plan must include: Industry Analysis, Business Model, and Competition
- Final Presentation of all 3 teams. 20 minutes presentation each.
- Presentations can be English, Chinese, or Bi-lingual. Business Plans must be in English.
- Venture Capital Analyst teams of 2-3 members assigned to teams VC#1, VC#2, VC#3, VC#4
- VC teams are assigned to analyze the counter part business plan.
- The VC teams must commit, prior to the final report submission, on whether to support or not support the funding requests of the assigned business case. The report must detail on the SWOT of the business model, and point out the risks and opportunities from the business plan.
- In addition to the VC analysis work on the business plan, students on the analyst teams also have to do assigned work and presentation on assigned topic.
- Assigned Work:
- VC Team #1: Legal Topic Assignment
- VC Team #2: Hi-tech startup in China Topic Assignment
- VC Team #3: E-Business in China (Globalization & Localization) Assignment
- VC Team #4: Open Assignment
- Business Plan Analysis Report must be in English.
The course will seek to bring in regular guest speakers from the Asia Pacific Region as well as from the PRC who are prominent actors in high tech start-ups, including successful high tech founders, VCs, lawyers, etc. Planned guest speakers will vary from year to year, but will typically include founders of high tech firms, senior partners of VC firms and experienced business angel investors, and other experienced venture support professionals like law firms specializing in working with start-ups.
FINAL VERSIONS OF ALL REPORTS, PRESENTATIONS, BUSINESS PLANS MUST BE UPLOADED BY DUE DATE TO IVLE TO BE GRADED!
Contacts:
Lecturer Contact: Virginia Cha, virginia@nus.edu.sg 13816883165
Teaching Assistants: Ally (张荃), allywithnvc@gmail.com 13916487009
Prior to the first class, students should already with this synopsis, and mentally chooses to be a member of the business plan team or a member of the venture capital analyst teams. Work load is the *same* in either team. All teams must be mixed. In other words, all teams must have at least 1 member from NUS and 1 member from Fudan. *No exceptions*. If due to drop outs and replacements, the lecturer reserves the right to make team member swaps to balance team makeup.