How to Validate your Startup Idea

UNSW Sydney (The University of New South Wales)

How to Validate your Startup Idea

Instructors: Allya Koesoema

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6 modules

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.

150 reviews

2 weeks to complete

at 10 hours a week

Flexible schedule

Learn at your own pace

94%

Most learners liked this course

6 modules

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.

150 reviews

2 weeks to complete

at 10 hours a week

Flexible schedule

Learn at your own pace

94%

Most learners liked this course

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Taught in English

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There are 6 modules in this course

Starting a new business begins with an idea that needs to evolve through experimentation, iteration and interactions with people. This course is for existing and potential entrepreneurs who are looking for guidance and support to make their ‘great idea’ a reality. In addition to reviewing the basic principles of entrepreneurship, this course guides you through the process of actively validating your idea in the market. We encourage you to identify and communicate good opportunities and to create and capture value from these opportunities. By working through the course and completing the activities you’ll learn how to get feedback that systematically tests different parts of your business idea. You will learn how to do this through interacting with potential customers, suppliers, partners and investors outside the course. Along the way, you will also become more confident in pitching your idea. By the end of the course you should have a validated business idea that you can start right away.

In the first week, you'll be learning about some basic concepts in entrepreneurship. Specifically we're going to introduce the business canvas and the lean method, two key frameworks that will be used to structure your activities throughout this course.

What's included

2 videos4 readings1 peer review5 app items

2 videos Total 6 minutes

Video: Introduction to the Course and Entrepreneurship (3 min) 2 minutes
Video: How will your business idea evolve? The Lean Startup Method 4 minutes

4 readings Total 40 minutes

About this course 10 minutes
Reading: Introduction to Entrepreneurship 10 minutes
Activity: The Lean Startup Method and Business Model Canvas 10 minutes
Reading: Mentors, who needs them? 10 minutes

1 peer review Total 120 minutes

(Optional activity) Your first Business Model Canvas - Show it off to your peers! 120 minutes

5 app items Total 300 minutes

(OPTIONAL activity): How do you learn? 60 minutes
Activity: Are you ready to be an entrepreneur? 60 minutes
Offline Activity: Finding a mentor to validate your idea 60 minutes
Activity: Lessons learned from your mentor 60 minutes
(OPTIONAL activity): Ouch! Feedback can hurt. How sensitive are you? 60 minutes

This week you'll learn to articulate and test your value proposition by drawing on three concepts: the strategy canvas, persona and minimum viable product (MVP). The strategy canvas emphasizes the uniqueness of your value proposition. The 'persona' represents who you think your typical customer is, which is useful for identifying real customers. The MVP is a simple prototype, which is a key tool to to get feedback from potential customers about the value you are providing them.

What's included

1 video4 readings2 app items

1 video Total 5 minutes

Video: How is your idea valuable? 5 minutes

4 readings Total 40 minutes

Strategy Canvas: Mapping how you are different 10 minutes
Creating your first Persona and Customer Journey Map 10 minutes
Building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) 10 minutes
Measuring and Learning from your MVP 10 minutes

2 app items Total 120 minutes

Offline Activity: Finding a potential customer to validate your value proposition 60 minutes
Activity: Lessons learned from your customer 60 minutes

This week we'll help you think beyond your first customers, to scaling up your business across multiple segments of customers. The core concepts for this module are the diffusion of innovation and developing partnerships.

What's included

1 video2 readings3 app items

1 video Total 3 minutes

Video: How will you reach more customers? 3 minutes

2 readings Total 20 minutes

Growing your business: Segmenting and targeting your niches 10 minutes
Partners and resources 10 minutes

3 app items Total 180 minutes

Offline Activity: Finding a potential partner to validate the scalability of your idea 60 minutes
Activity: Lessons learned from your partner 60 minutes
Midpoint Assignment: Self-assessing your Business Model Canvas 60 minutes

This week is an introduction to financial literacy. We'll show you how to build an income statement, how to develop financial models and financial forecasts. We'll also introduce you to some metrics to track the viability of your business that complement the traditional accounting metrics.

What's included

1 video3 readings2 app items

This week you'll learn some basic investment capital strategies for new ventures, illustrated using a simple capitalization table.

What's included

1 video2 readings2 app items

This week pulls together all the elements and evidence of your business idea so far to develop a coherent and succinct business pitch

What's included

2 videos5 readings2 app items

2 videos Total 9 minutes

Video: How will you pitch your idea? 3 minutes
Watch UNSW students pitch 'crumplemap' 6 minutes

5 readings Total 50 minutes

Pitch structure: What key ingredients do you need? 10 minutes
Activity: Example pitch decks - Learning from the greats (& not so greats) 10 minutes
Contextualising and delivering your pitch 10 minutes
Activity: Example pitches - Learning from the greats (& not so greats) 10 minutes
Activity: Developing your pitch 10 minutes