[MUSIC] Are you ready to live the accelerated journey of an entrepreneur? This is what the course "Entrepreneurship strategy: from ideation to exit" is about. Whether you define yourself as an entrepreneur or an intrapreneur, this course will offer you an end-to-end toolkit from the start of your project to its maturity. The main goal is that your new venture or your entrepreneurial project will generate sales and begin its international developments. My name is Ambroise Huret and I teach both strategy related to digital and big data and entrepreneurship strategy at HEC Paris. I have been giving this course for ten years now, and I am delighted to give it online today. I have launched quite a few new ventures myself and I am a board member of several companies in different sectors, mainly in technology, consumer goods, and real estate, both in Europe and in the US. This course is based on my professional experience. This course is for both future entrepreneurs, and future intrapreneurs, because even if these two roles are very different, the tools needed for both are similar. There are also a lot of similarities in the way you approach projects, team and even professional and personal life. The course follows a chronological order, and will answer the crucial questions you'll be asking yourself during each stage of that adventure. So, do you have a crucial question in mind? Take a moment to answer that question. What is the main question that I would love to have an answer to about my entrepreneurial adventure right now? In my experience, the main questions entrepreneurial people ask themselves at this stage are: Is my personality fit for this particular type of professional endeavor? What tools can I use to generate an idea that is actually disruptive? What is the best strategy to use to form a founding team? Should I raise money and if so, what are the negotiation pitfalls I should be prepared for when speaking to investors, and what tools can I use to monitor my cash burn? How do I launch my product? And from a very practical standpoint, and with a limited budget, how do I generate the client impact, and master the art of selling my product to someone I meet for the first time? How do I recruit the first employees or contributors to my project, taking into account that nobody knows my company? How do I expand internationally with limited budgets? And finally, what should my exit strategy be considering that my aim is to attract offers from rich buyers? Among these questions, which one resonates the most with you now? Choose one and you will also see where you fit compared to other students in the course. All of these questions are of course more than valuable, it just depends on the stage of your project. The course is developed in four main parts. The first module deals with knowing who you are, because knowing yourself is the key to shaping your project that will truly fulfill you. We will talk about what I call your "Intimate Mechanics", and take a closer look at your inner functioning. We will also discuss your intrinsic values to help you assess if they match the demanding reality of entrepreneurship. Finally, we will see how you can analyze and then consolidate your belief system, the set of values that are the pillars of your personal and professional life. The second module is about securing the first steps of your entrepreneurial project. We will cover topics related to creativity; as you already know, entrepreneurship is not necessarily about finding the next big thing, yet you still need an idea with a real competitive advantage. We will also talk about gathering a founding team, and consider the question of the funding of a new company as well as all of the traps you should avoid during a fundraising process. The third module deals with what we call the ignition of a project. The special moment when you actually turn the key and launch the engine of the core of the company. We'll talk about day-to-day cash management at your young company or project where the tools you might have learnt in a traditional finance course won't help you. We will then talk about how to initiate your first sales and dive deep into the art of mastering your sales meeting. It has always been surprising to me that this "art" is not really taught in most MBA programs and business schools except, of course, at HEC where indeed you are so lucky! And yet, I still think this is one of the most important success factors for a new venture. Finally, we'll see how to measure the launch of a new project using techniques like cohort analysis which puts you in a position to get the right signal when you launch your project, and to correct your potential mistakes as early as possible. The fourth module is called the path to maturity, and deals with the final steps necessary to bring your project through to the adult state. First, we will talk about human resources. Recruiting when nobody knows the name of your company can be a tough challenge, and managing your first employees when the scale of the company changes every week is equally as challenging. Finally, we'll then spend some time to consider your exit strategy, something that should be in your mind from day one, whether you are creating your own company or launching an internal project in a large corporate environment. Indeed, you should always begin with the end in mind, because it might impact some of your key choices, which will help you to not sell your company, but to get bought out by a large company that happens to critically need you. You will not only learn about my personal experiences, but also hear testimonials from entrepreneurs that have made the decision to choose entrepreneurship at some point in their careers. They will share some of the key lessons they learned from each milestone, from ignition, to maturity. So, are you ready to learn what they have learned? Then please join me in the next video. [MUSIC]
