Would you like to start your own company and are you curious about how to approach this? Or have you already started setting up your own business? During this minor you will gain experience with entrepreneurship and/or we will help you set up or professionalize your own business. You do this with validated learning. Are the ideas you have about the customer’s needs, developments & opportunities in the market, correct? You will investigate and validate this during this minor! Of course, you must roll up your sleeves during this minor. Together with fellow students, you will solve challenging, enterprising issues and learn how you can provide solutions to customer problems. You do not shy away from a challenge, and you increasingly dare to put your knowledge and skills into practice and expand your network. Your idea comes to life, and you develop your product or service. You even approach potential customers and draw up a financial plan. As mentioned earlier, you do all this through validated learning. This methodology teaches you to validate assumptions through research. This includes conversations with potential customers, industry experts, prototyping and testing
Admission
English level B2 (according to CEFR).
The Examination Board determines which minors do not have a higher professional education level and/or have an unacceptable overlap with the compulsory curriculum of your own study programme. Check at the page Not allowed minor courses under your institute which minors are not allowed. This page will be updated from 29 February 2024 for the 2024-2025 minor offer.
Content
Within this minor you can start your own company or further develop your own company. We provide you with concepts, tools and theories to (further) develop your entrepreneurial skills.
Do you want to start your own company and do you want knowledge and guidance to realize this? Or have you already started and can you use some guidance in further developing your company? During this minor you will experience what it is like to start a company and how to further develop it. You will have to do the work because it is your company but we offer you coaching, tools, theories and time to implement this. Your ideas come to live and we encourage you to actually develop your product and service. You reach out to potential customers, and you draft a financial plan. You will face challenges and develop yourself as an entrepreneur and at the end of this minor you will have a startup.
For more information, watch the promo video.
Learning objectives
Entrepreneurship is responding to opportunities and ideas and transforming them into financial, cultural and / or social value for others. You are able to:
– See and seize opportunities to create social, cultural and / or financial value.
– To investigate and identify needs and challenges.
– Develop different creative ideas to create social, cultural and / or financial value.
– Exploring and deploying innovative approaches.
– Recognize the potential of an idea to create this value and find ways to develop that idea as far as possible.
– To act on the basis of a vision about your idea to be realized, assess the consequences of implementing your idea on the target groups, the market, society and the environment.
– To act sustainably and ethically, and to be accountable, to form a network and involve important stakeholders in the success of your own business (model), to make analyses of e.g. market, competition, customer (needs), potential partners, stakeholders, suppliers, investors and position your proposition within it, apply basic financial knowledge (such as pricing, costs and revenues, financial forecasts) to your own business (model).
– Gather the tools needed to turn your entrepreneurial idea into action and deploy them carefully, to inspire and enlighten relevant stakeholders and to provide the necessary support, deal with uncertainty, ambiguity and risk, cooperate with others, see the opportunity in every circumstance to learn, to learn with and from others, and to learn from the success and failure of both yourself and others.
Courses
Entrepreneurship (20 ECTS)
You will spend most of your time within the minor on the creation or further development of your company ( 20 ECTS). You will able to choose how you will do that; independently or together with other students and we provide you knowledge, tools and coaching.
Entrepreneurial competencies (5ECTS)
This minor also offers you a personal development part in which you will focus on your entrepreneurial competencies (5ECTS); which competencies do you have and which competencies would you like to develop to be able to (further) develop your company and to become a successful entrepreneur.
Entrepreneurial expertise (5 ECTS)
To become a successful entrepreneur in your industry you need to have specific knowledge or skills. Within the minor we offer you the opportunity to do research as part of the entrepreneurial expertise course (5ECTS), participate in online courses and talk with experts to expand knowledge and skills that are useful for the development of your company.
Assessment
You build a case for your business and you do practical assignments but the most important test is if your business is a viable business
Literature
‘Disciplined Startup Founder’ – Robert de Bruijn;
‘Designing your Life’ – Bill Burnett & Dave Evans.
Schedule
It takes 4 days a week to work on your own startup and participate in the meetings in Utrecht. You meet with your learning team and your coach at least 1 day a week. There are also additional sessions per month. You will receive the plan during the introduction week of the minor.
With the exception of the first teaching period of the academic year (starting September), the lesson and test schedules are always posted on Mijn Rooster four weeks before the start of each teaching period. The schedule for the first teaching period of the academic year can be found on the site three weeks before the start. The most up-to-date schedule is always visible on Mijn Rooster.
At HU, full-time education may be scheduled between 08:30 and 19:00.
This minor course is marked by the Green Office as a sustainable minor. This means that by participating in this minor course, you can contribute to one or more of the Sustainable Development Goals from the UN.