Entrepreneurial Opportunities

Overview

Do you have a business idea, but you’re not sure if it’s going to fly? Or maybe you know you want to be an entrepreneur, but you’re not sure where to start? This business course is for anyone aspiring to be an entrepreneur – regardless of the industry or type of venture you might have in mind.

This course offers an overview of the guiding principles that underpin the entrepreneurial process, providing you with practical tips and grounded theory to evaluate your entrepreneurial opportunity, team and resources. You’ll explore some of the myths and key facts about entrepreneurship, and find out what it takes to be an entrepreneur, so that you can conduct your own self-assessment and identify priorities for your own growth as an entrepreneur. You’ll learn how to unlock your creativity and innovation to help you generate more and better entrepreneurial ideas. And you’ll bring it all together in a capstone activity designed to help you evaluate the entrepreneurial opportunity you have identified.

In this course, you will work with the expert team at the Entrepreneurship, Commercialisation and Innovation Centre at the University of Adelaide. They have experience as entrepreneurs and investors and have facilitated the establishment of many successful businesses.

Join us and make your business ideas fly.

Syllabus

Week 1: The entrepreneurial process

Describe what entrepreneurship is and how it’s different to conventional business approaches
Understand the diversity of entrepreneurial characteristics and describe the different entrepreneur types
Distinguish what innovation is and how it impacts the success of the entrepreneurial process
Outline the key factors that underline the entrepreneurial process.

Week 2: The importance of creativity and ideas

Understand the importance of creativity and idea generation within the entrepreneurial process
Be able to identify mental blocks that inhibit creativity and apply creative thinking techniques to overcome them
Learn how to apply ideation techniques to develop new and unique ideas that can lead to successful business opportunities.

Week 3: From ideas to opportunities

Identify the differences between a business idea and real business opportunities
Understand and identify what an exceptional business opportunity looks like
Learn how to apply evaluation techniques to a business idea to determine market, financial and harvestability prospects.

Week 4: Teams and leaders

Outline the characteristics of a cohesive entrepreneurial team with complementary skills
Understand the importance of matching the opportunity with the right entrepreneurial team members
Identify the key strategies that will give your opportunity the best chance of success.

Week 5: Assessing the opportunity

Learn how to quantify your gut feel about an opportunity through the use of quantitative decision tools
Be able to analyse and interpret results generated by relevant quantitative decision tools
Outline what steps are needed to take a viable opportunity and create a business.