Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice

This module is designed for students who wish to develop the skills and techniques to develop and test a new business idea.

It covers methods for analysing, specifying, designing and launching new ventures, along with strategies for the assessment of business opportunities and techniques for effective business planning in order to secure the necessary resources (including finance). The module introduces frameworks to assess and to mitigate key risks to new ventures, including those relating to personnel, markets and technologies. It draws on case studies that illustrate the challenges of creating high potential enterprises, but will also explicitly focus on the testing and validation of new venture concepts generated by students.

Upon successful completion of this module, students will:

• Have gained first-hand experience of the selection and deployment of tools, techniques and theories for the identification, validation and structuring of a new business venture
• Understand strategies to confirm customer needs and test market demand
• Be able to define and test critical business model uncertainties
• Understand key principles that underpin financial forecasting.

This is a level one module (equivalent to first year undergraduate). No prior subject knowledge is required to study this module but students are expected to have a keen interest in the subject area.

Classes (usually three or four hours per day) take place on the Bloomsbury campus from Monday to Friday any time between 9am and 6pm.

• Group coursework (60%)
• Individual coursework (40%)

Before joining UCL, Fiona had a career in the private sector as an entrepreneur and at universities such as Imperial College and Oxford, where she was Founder Director of the Oxford Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Said Business School. She has served as Director of UKCDS, and is a Fellow of the RSA and lectures internationally on innovation and creating social and economic benefit from entrepreneurship. She has worked with organisations such as Philips, CERN, FT, Goldman Sachs, with governments, and high-growth small businesses, and has been involved in the creation of many new spinouts and social ventures arising from HE. Her expertise focuses on complex innovation spaces, the interface between science and business, and entrepreneurial thinking within organisations.