Corporate Venture Building (or Company Building) means the development and implementation of new business models and radical innovation projects outside of the existing corporate structures – as newly founded startups.

Venture Building helps to free innovative ideas, concepts and projects from structural barriers and is thus one of the most promising ways for corporates to overcome the innovator’s dilemma.

As of today, venture building is being applied by an increasing number of corporations, regardless of geography, size or ownership structure and significant amounts of funds go towards it. Methodologically it blends Lean Startup, Service Design and Agile approaches yet distinctive Venture Building methods have been developed over the past few years.

This course will introduce students to the theory and practice of venture building, introduce typical phases and methods and give students an inside-view into this emerging field of innovation. The course is taught by Lukas Meusburger, who did his doctorate at WU on innovative strategy and innovation processes and is a founder and managing partner of Austria’s leading company builder V_labs. Lukas is also one of the Editors on one of the first books on company building. The course will thus be theoretically grounded yet focused on the real-life practice of company building and the skills needed to positively contribute to company building projects.

Note: The course explicitly focuses on corporate venture building yet many of the methods and tools can also be applied to startups of venture studios or individual founders.

After the course, students…

- Know what distinguishes venture building from other innovation approaches

- Will be able to assess when venture building is an appropriate innovation vehicle

- Understand what advantages and potential downsides venture building has

- Understand the difference between different venture building setups and approaches

- Know how the phases of a typical venture building project are structured

- Have insights into the methods used in each venture building phase

- Know how corporate startups should be set up in order to be successful

- Know what team composition makes for a good venture building task force

- Know the basics of stakeholder management in venture building

- Have an understanding of the modes in which company building agencies, studios and corporates can work together

- Are able to convincingly present a venture building case study to a professional audience

All in all the course will help prepare students for working in corporate innovation units, venture building agencies and the entire innovation field.

Attendance in 80% of the classes is required.

In the first sessions, we will look at the theoretical foundations of venture building. Students will be introduced to the concept of venture building, its origins, definition, boundaries as well as different setups for conducting it in practice.

The course will then analyze typical project phases and the methods used in each, as well as success factors and potential obstacles. Prototypical project setups (so called “venture frameworks”) will also be discussed. In the later sessions exemplary company building projects will be presented and analyzed in class. We will look at examples from V_labs projects as well as other internationally known cases. Small group assignments will be worked on during most of the session. One session will include current V_labs employees giving an inside view into how it is to work in corporate venture building and what it takes to deliver successful projects.

Towards the end of the course, multiple real-life case studies will be introduced to the students. Students will work on those in groups in the following weeks. In the final session, the groups will present their findings and results and we will discuss and reflect on those findings in the group.

• Case study presentations (60%)
• Active participation (20%)
• Reflection Paper (20%)

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