Lectures and assignments
Course intro sessions
Students are admitted to the course only after having participated in all four (4) kick-off sessions (intro week lectures + team formation event) and handed in their personal assignments (2).
(Click on the links for details)
Course intro.
Personal video assignment - click to open assignment page.
Assignment deadline: Monday, Jan 15, 21:00. Hand in assignment below.
Lecture slides:
Introduction to building a successful team.
Pre-lecture video assignment.
Assignment deadline: Wednesday, Jan 10, 09:00.
Add your team member promise as a short file (txt, Word or PDF).
Deadline: Wednesday, January 10, 23:55.
Introduction to startups.
Pre-lecture video assignment.
Assignment deadline: Thursday, Jan 11, 09:00.
Note: This is only for those students who have been chosen to act as CEO's
Hand in:
1) Link to video about your learning goals for the course (you should upload the video on a video platform, eg Youtube or Vimeo) and then include a clickable link to the video.
2) Your career plan based on the Excel template. You can either upload an excel file or add a link to an Office365 or Google Docs document.
Deadline, January 15, 21:00.
You can be part of a course team ONLY IF
- you have uploaded your personal CV here
- participated in all 3 introductory lectures and completed the personal assignment on time.
End of intro sessions, period III lectures and assignments start
(Click on the links for details)
Assessing the business opportunity based on the book "New Business Road Test" by John Mullis.
Per-lecture video and reading assinment
Workshop.
Team pre-assignment: 25 interview with relevant users/customers for your initial business concept. The interviews shall be documented as short insights (4-6 words written in big, clear handwriting), one insight per Post-It.
Deadline: the Post-Its must be prepared by Tuesday, 09:00.
Personal video assignment: User research in 60 minutes.
We continue working with your first set of user data (from the workshop on Tuesday, Jan 23).
Pre-lecture video assignment
Team assignment: Ensure that you have completed and documented all the group work exercises from Tuesday if you did not have time to complete them in class.
The purpose of Team Agreement is to agree on collective working principles and values for the team. The values and principles are there to enable you to perform better, ensure good interaction, and promote your continuous learning both individually and collectively. It is crucial that you elaborate your team values and principles together as a team, discuss how they are manifested in your daily interactions and operations, and ensure common understanding.
The Team Agreement must be submitted as a signed (all team members must sign the document) hard copy to a course staff representative no later than 29th of January at 4 pm in AVP Space. Responsible COO: Team CEO.
Team can choose the layout and design of the document freely. The title must be Team Agreement - Startup Experience 2018. Put your team's name on the top, and the names of the team members. The team must discuss and agree on at least following issues:
1. Communication and interaction
- how are you going to ensure good flow of information? what are you communication and interaction key principles?
2. Performance and delivery
- how are you going to ensure that your team is performing well and delivering what is agreed and requested? what are your principles for meeting deadlines and keeping your promises?
3. Decision making
- how are you going to make decisions? how will you ensure that each of you are aware of and committed to mutual decisions and agreements?
4. Conflict resolution
- what will you do when a conflict emerge? how are you going to resolve conflicts? how can you solve the situations even before they become conflictual?
5. Support and help
- how will you help and support each other? how help and support is requested within the team? how will you support other teams if requested?
6. Learning and improvements
- how will you support collective and individual learning in a team? how will you evaluate your team practices and performance? how will you make necessary changes in your team practices? how will you evaluate the appropriateness of these principles?
7. Positivity and fun
- how will you ensure that the team atmosphere remain good throughout the course?
8. Respect and appreciation
- how will you ensure that all team members feel that they are respected and appreciated within the team?
9 . Optional issues
- the team can decide possible additional principles to be agreed on
Formulate as concrete as possible but at the same time general enough principles. Add short examples if possible. Keep the number of principles low enough. Too many or too lengthy are hard to remember.
The Team Agreement will be used as a reference when discussing your team performance and experiences in mid term consultation session. First of all, it should be a helpful document for you to have a great and productive team and learning experience together.
The first team pitch (for sprint 1). You should only present the problem(s) you want to solve, ie your current best estimate/hypothesis of the Users/customer problem.
Hand-in: pitch slides either as a PowerPoint or PDF file or as a clickable link to a Google Drive presentation.
Deadline: Monday, Jan 29, 21:00.
Responsible COO: Sprint 1 COO (cannot be the CEO)
Presenter: Some else than the COO or the CEO.
NOTE: DO NOT hand in here, instead upload to your team forum!
The debrief for sprint 1
Participants: All sprint 1 COO's (no other participants allowed)
Hand-in: Filled in template as Powerpoint or PDF file or as clickable link to Google Doc presentation.
Deadline: February 1, 12:00
- The roles and responsibilities of key company persons/roles.CEO, shareholder, board member
Managing your activities.
Background reading: Guide to startup board practices, download from here: agile-startup-boards-signup
Stefano's slides Improving your pitching
Pre-lecture video assignment
Lecture on on-line marketing.
Lecturer: Juha Frey, CEO of Netprofile
Pre-lecture video:
Deadline: Monday, Feb 12, 21:00.
Some guidanace for the assignment:
Two ways to implement the assignment:
- You can discuss various company scenarios and document (in human-readable clear text) how you would like to handle the events
- You can use a template and try to fill in the template (but note that you still need to have the discussion as per point 1. above)
Stefano's lecture gave good information on what to agree on, see in particular the slide 10 (Prepare for possible futures).
Here is a very concise description of the shareholder's agreement:
virtuallawyer.fondia.com/en/articles/the-shareholders-agreement, you might want to check out the wider context here: virtuallawyer.fondia.com/en/articles/basic-information-on-limited-liability-company (most start-ups in Finland are formed as limited liability companies).
Here is a good repository for shareholder agreement template: seriesseed.fiTeam pitch for sprint 2.
Hand-in: pitch slides either as a PowerPoint or PDF file or as a clickable link to a Google Drive presentation.
Deadline: Monday, February 12, 21:00.
Responsible COO: Sprint 2 COO
Presenter: Some else than the COO
The midterm exam, done as the full team.
Book a time for your team via this Doodle link (make sure it works for EVERYONE).
The exam cannot be retaken so make sure you participate with your team!
Period IV lectures and assignments will be published later.
Workshop hosted by Marco Mäkinen, TWBA
Pre-lecture video assignment.
Means of and Methods for Strategic Insight & Entrepreneurial Practice.
Lecture by Peter McGrory, Aalto ARTS
Slides here.
An in-depth market research fro your current "best hypothesis" customer segment/segments.
The research should cover macro market and industry insights (such as market size, competitive landscape etc) from the "The New Business Road Test".
Submission deadline: Feb 26, 21:00.
Slides here
Introduction to some basic concepts such as cash flow, revenue model and pricing models.
Slides here.
Workshop held by Jukka Mäkinen.
Pre-lecture on-line course: http://avp.aalto.fi/online-courses/business-ethics-and-sustainability
Jukka's slides here.
Deadline: Monday ,12.3. 21:00
Hand in short report on your marketing campaign.
Critical content:
- Campaign goals (target group, outcome)
- Campaign execution
- Results and analysis (results in relation to goals, execution success, impact/conclusions for your overall project)
You can report this in two parts: Campaign goals and implementation plans (by March 12) and Execution and Results (no later than 26.3 21:00). We will provide feedback/grade only after having received both parts.
Deadline: March 12, 21:00
How to finance your company. Lecturer: Kirsi Snellman
Mike Klyszeiko, American Chamber of Commerce
Deadline: March 26, 21:00
Company dashboard collects critical metrics.
The important information is
- what are the key metrics for your business and why
- how do you collect the information needed to publish the metrics
- how are the etric best presented
Deadline: March 26, 21:00
Deadline: April 2, 21:00
Video presentation of your business or product/service.
DO NOT upload the video, add a link to Youtube/Vimeo or similar.
You will be showing your Sprint 5 reflection video in your oral exam. To facilitate find the video, please add it also here (in addition to in your team space).
Sprint 5 reflection video content:
- Before you make the Spring 5 reflection video, watch all your previous reflection videos
- In the Sprint 5 video, you should comment on your personal development during the course, has something changed since you started the course? Can you see the change in your reflections?
- Any other observations on how the course has (or has not) changed you (note: this is a bit different from what you have learned).
You should also add links to your previous 4 reflection videos in the same post so that they are easy to find during your oral exam.
Add your videos as links, Sprint 5 video should be the topmost link with links to the rest of the videos below it.
Deadline: April 3, 21:00.
Deadline: April 2, 21:00
Team exam is conducted with Jari Ylitalo.
Book a slot for your team here: https://doodle.com/poll/hkmhyg3bfcdr9tmq
Make sure you pick a time that works for everyone in the team.
Personal exam, duration of exam 1 hour/person
Book your slot here (starting times indicated) : https://doodle.com/poll/43v5wzeavxffpfa2
Make sure it does not overlap with your team exam.