Pillar 2 - Entrepreneurial Skills Specialities and Skills
Winter term 2024/2025
Pitch Training
To convince a jury, investors or customers, an idea or a company must be presented correctly and precisely. In the start-up context, this is called "pitching". In the pitch training, the basic rules of a short presentation - pitch - are taught. These include gestures, facial expressions, rhetoric, structure and execution. Through theoretical input in combination with independent execution on own or given topics, pitching can be learned quickly and easily in this module.
Business Plan Basics Seminar
Students receive a guide and helpful tools for creating a business plan for their own business idea. They learn about the structure of a business plan and are taught the basics through lectures held by experts. In parallel to the seminar, students will write a business plan for their business idea in the scope of self-study. They will receive feedback on the results. The business plan will tell the founders and any potential investors which products or services can be brought to market at what price and how.
Experience Design Thinking
In the elective module Experience Design Thinking lets students process a challenge from the real world in a hands-on design thinking training. The students, who are expected to be from different faculties and departments, will be divided in cross-semester and interdisciplinary teams and will develop user-focused solutions to diverse presented challenges.Teams go through the design-thinking process in brief design-sprint units. This teaches them the user-focused approach to generating innovative solutions to complex problems. These are applied immediately in development of innovative prototypes as products, services, or processes.
The “Experience Design Thinking” workshop aims at motivated, interested, and committed students who want to think “out of the box” and develop solutions to relevant issues.
Additional modules
Entrepreneurial Management
The “Entrepreneurial Management” elective module presents the different management facets of a founder. Special fields such as time management, corporate governance, corporate culture, and negotiation management are highlighted, examined, and explored together. The elective module illustrates the tasks of an entrepreneur and the possible approaches for addressing such issues. Scenario exercises and role-playing allow students to learn and develop individual ways of dealing with the topics listed independently. This is complemented by best-practice inputs; examples from practical everyday start-up life are presented and realistic circumstances are discussed and can be experienced through debates and Q&A sessions.
Spin-off: Paths from invention to market
The elective module “Paths from invention to market” is dedicated to the process of spin-off and commercialisation of academic inventions. Aspects such as intellectual property, innovations or patents are known in the economic context and are an important element in protecting oneself from imitators. The focus is primarily on the period around the time of origin of inventions as well as the possibilities of the inventors to transfer the scientific findings into economic structures. The elective module deals comprehensively with the individual process steps in the sub-areas of invention, patenting and spin-off processes. In addition to lectures and expert visits, the module includes practice-oriented phases to link and apply the theoretical knowledge. Role models and best practice are presented and conveyed with examples from practice.
Corporate Entrepreneurship / Intrapreneurship
The elective module “Intrapreneurship” covers relevant aspects of entrepreneurship within an existing company (also "corporate entrepreneurship").
This course is about the importance of intrapreneurship for the company, for the employees and for society. Intrapreneurship is viewed from the perspective of the company. Potential questions in this context are: What are the advantages of intrapreneurship in one's own company? Which factors are important to support intrapreneurship? When does it make sense to implement an intrapreneurship programme? How do you establish an intrapreneurship culture in a company? The course aims to develop an “Intrapreneurial Toolbox” for the students, which can be used in their own endeavours in the field of intrapreneurship. Within the framework of workshop formats, students can develop their own ideas for intrapreneurship examples, which are then presented.
Entrepreneurship Talks
Teaching of entrepreneurship includes both theoretical basics and practical implementation or going through a hypothetical founding process. Best practice examples from the real world should be shown in order to connect the two areas so that students can relate what they have learned directly to implementation. This elective module specifically offers practical lectures from role models in the entrepreneurship world. The subjects are chosen broadly, covering anything from intrapreneurship to spin-offs to start-up stories. An additive Q&A round at the end of the presentations will give students the opportunity for active discussion participation on the respective subject.
Dynamics in Entrepreneurship
The “Dynamics in Entrepreneurship” elective module focuses on the different facets and special areas of entrepreneurship. Subjects such as social or sustainable entrepreneurship have been known for many years and implemented in a variety of manners. The focus on other specialisations has been redefined, among other things, by social debates and become the focus of current funding policies. They include, for example, female entrepreneurship and diversity, including a focus on intercultural entrepreneurship. The elective module covers each partial area in detail, listing the history, reasons, and trends for its emergence. The respective subject and its relevance for the social transformation process are developed together with the students and both funding opportunities and barriers are discussed in connection with the social framework conditions. The module focuses on bottom-up approaches as well as on changes at the strategic level and corresponding top-down approaches.
Communication Concepts and Entrepreneurial Marketing
The elective module “Communication Concepts and Entrepreneurial Marketing” is divided into two parts. In the first part, participants deal with the components and facets of communication. This part focuses on text production, channels and target groups and the structure of communication concepts and offers insights into the areas of public relations, marketing and also touches on the topic of science communication. Communication runs through all areas of life and takes place in different ways in the most diverse contexts. The question “What do we communicate and how?” plays a central role.
In the second part of the module, creative and innovative ways of entrepreneurial marketing are highlighted. Start-ups are often faced with the challenge of how to successfully advertise their business model with scarce resources. Practical examples and innovative methods are used to provide insights into alternative marketing strategies.