Business Project - Starting Up ("GATE Program")

The course "Business Project - Starting Up ("GATE Program")" is WU's pre-incubation program for deep tech ventures. It is organized in cooperation with WU’s Entrepreneurship Center.

During the course, small teams of SIMC students are matched with scientists who have invented a new, or significantly improved an existing technology and now aim at commercializing their inventions.

The goals of the program are

- to build interdisciplinary venture teams (who might even be willing to collaborate in the long term)

- support the scientists in identifying and seizing the market opportunities for their inventions (to allow for valid “go/no go” decisions), and

- develop an extensive business proposal (in form of a pitch-deck) as a basis for grant proposals or meetings with investors/business angels.

To achieve these goals, participants will receive hands-on training in entrepreneurial domains like application and customer discovery, customer validation, market and competitor analysis, business modeling, go-2-market strategizing, financial planning, and pitching. In addition, the teams will work on communication preto- and prototypes of the solutions to be developed.

Towards the end of the semester, the student teams will get the opportunity to present their projects in the course of a "Demo Day" to representatives of the leading institutions and organizations of Austria's entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem.

Please note: This course is more than a mere "academic exercise". Participants will be working on real-life projects with significant commercial potential. Thus, the work load is clearly higher than in other WU courses. If you do not want "to go the extra mile", this class might not be for you. If you want to get hands-on insights into building a deep tech venture, learn a lot, and maybe get a chance to become a part of an actual start-up/spin-off with high commercial potential, this class definitely is for you!

After completing this course students will know how to:

• ...search, recognize and assess business opportunities
• ...enrich business ideas by applying appropriate methods and tools
• ...identify customers and their needs
• ...analyze and evaluate the ecosystem around the business idea
• ...develop profitable and sustainable business models
• ...apply creativity techniques throughout the whole process of business development.

Furthermore, students will acquire relevant complementary skills:

Project Management:

• manage several different stakeholders at once
• structure an innovative, fuzzy project and deal with uncertainty 
• manage different ways to arrive at a decision
• summarizing the most important outcomes in a pitch-book 

Team Work:  

• work efficiently in interdisciplinary teams through recognizing and incorporating individual strengths of each team member
• cope with different work styles, opinions and perspectives
• complementing the team by actively searching for external support to outweigh weaknesses within the core team

Communication:

• engage in lively discussions and interactive workshops
• structure complex data (project outcomes)
• present project outcomes in different environments and for different target groups (e.g., experts, team members)

In order to successfully pass this course, your absence is limited to 20% of our appointments. Furthermore, full-time presence at the kick-off day(s) and the final demo day is obligatory! 

The course is built around several coaching sessions and workshops, which are structured to be interactive and combine several teaching methods, eg. teamwork, open discussions, individual team coaching, and coaching by external mentors.

During the kick-off session, the basic principles of entrepreneurship, business model design, opportunity recognition and tools to be employed during the semester will be presented and discussed.  

The students will be supported in the further development of their ideas by lecturers and external mentors. Regular presentations of results are scheduled. The results of the start-up planning process will be summarized in a pitch book.

The final grade of the course will depend on

• Pitch deck (30%) 
• Documentation (30%)
• Elevator pitch (20%)
• Participation in class & Executive Summary (20%) 

In order to pass the class, all of these performance indicators have to be positive!

The following grading scale applies:

To participate in the class "Business Project - Starting Up (GATE Program)", you need to register via LPIS until September 13, 2024. In addition, you'll have to submit an "application one pager" to peter.keinz@wu.ac.at in which you answer the following questions:

1.) Why do you want to participate in this class?

2.) What specific and relevant skills do you have that make you the "perfect" participant for this class?

Please submit your "application one pager" until September 13, 2024, 6 pm, at the latest.

Based on the "application one pager", the lecturer will make the final decision whether or not you'll be allowed to participate.

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Peter Keinz: peter.keinz@wu.ac.at