Interview of Julien Ulrich, Co-founder of ITEKUBE

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From the course by HEC Paris

Entrepreneurship Strategy: From Ideation to Exit

145 ratings

HEC Paris

Entrepreneurship Strategy: From Ideation to Exit

145 ratings

This course covers in the chronological order each defining step of an entrepreneurial project. It begins with very personal considerations related to getting to better know yourself better so as to decide if you are ready for the multiple challenges of entrepreneurship. It then deals with creativity in order to provide the right set of tools to find an idea with the right potential to disrupt an existing business. We then discuss how to gather a founding team, how to raise money to initiate the project, and how to deal with day to day cash management. Later in the course, we discuss the art of selling, focusing on business to business sales, and how to measure the product launch phase using cohort analysis. Later on, we discuss the challenges of HR in an entrepreneurial environment, and of recruiting at a point where nobody knows your company. We then describe very practical techniques to initiate the international development of a small company. Last, we cover the exit strategy topic.

From the lesson

Securing the first key steps of your entrepreneurial project

Welcome to the module 2- this week, you will learn about some creativity techniques designed for entrepreneurship. You will also learn a step by step strategy to gather a founding team. Finally, you will be able to learn about the analysis of your financial strategy, so as to decide if you should raise money…or not…and how.

The key questions to ask when looking for an idea for your project4:38

Interview: Stories of finding an idea of a project6:11

Design thinking methodology to refine your product or service4:33

Interview of Julien Ulrich, Co-founder of ITEKUBE3:46

Meet the Instructors

Ambroise Huret
Partner at Eleven Strategy & Management
strategy and management

[MUSIC]

I don't know if I could call that a methodology.

The first product was designed by my brother entirely,

and that's when we decided, after he designed it, to start the company.

I think what we do is we spend a lot of time talking to our customers,

talking and reading, to more and more tech people, reading blogs,

and it's a permanent and very iterative process,

and all of a sudden, some ideas come up,

I can't tell you why they come up at that very moment in time.

So, in terms of process, I guess it's the ongoing gathering of information

and with a bit of experience it's the crystallization

of that knowledge that comes together at a point in time.

Not really but at the same time I know the concept, I'm very familiar with it,

and so, you have it in mind when you are designing and launching your company.

So, I knew our business model for instance was very easy,

we were going to sell or rent the equipment we were making,

so there weren't any specific difficulties in there.

So I would say, in the background, on my mind it was there,

but I didn't specifically use it.

I don't know if some of my clients would love to be called extreme users,

but we had actually a very random encounter

with a Ferrari engineer about three years ago,

and we weren't exactly sure where we were going

because initially we sold a few of our devices to museums and public spaces.

And then one day,

we meet that Ferrari guy who simply asks us whether our devices will run CATIA.

CATIA is a very specific 3D design software,

and that very question just changed the scope of what we were doing.

All of a sudden,

there was someone who had a very specific need that we had absolutely no idea about.

So yes, we spoke to people who radically changed the way we were doing things.

That's easy.

The one thing I would change is I would trust my instinct much more.

You hear so many people telling you that you're not going to make it,

that it's impossible, that it's difficult, any time you come across a difficulty,

so I would be more confident in myself.

I would say, as I was saying before, trust yourself, push the boundaries

and aim for something that you think even for you is too hard,

because there are, you know,

the chances are you're going to succeed, in every instance,

you're going to make the product better.

Julien gives an example of how the design thinking method actually works.

Now you can already leverage design thinking methodology

to refine your product or service.

In the next video, we're going to discuss the S-curve and the singularity concept.

Stay tuned.

[MUSIC]

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