In 2006, I started to develop courses in entrepreneurship, aimed at bridging the Ross School of Business and the College of Engineering.  As part of the development process I checked around what other university programs were doing, looked at books, and talked to colleagues.  The result is that I found that programs had one of two objectives: 1.  Starting with an idea and developing a business plan, or 2. Discuss case studies in entrepreneurship of successful businesses.  In addition, there usually was the odd course on intellectual property protection, usually with emphasis on patents.

I had come to the Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies as an engineer with two decades of experience in ‘flask-to-field’ technology development, and was frustrated about the lack of market adoption of these technologies and processes.  One of the main reasons is that applied research does not result in a business, and technology or process designs are focused around technical boundary conditions, but not parameters that would allow business value creation.  Hence, neither the ‘idea to business model’, nor the case studies fit the needs of the emerging entrepreneurship education programs we were about to embark on.

At the Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies, we we believe it is valuable to think about the development of a new venture and its growth as a series of phases, illustrated in the Entrepreneurial Arch.  The Arch links the capabilities of the scientist or engineer with the potential business it can become.  Moving from opportunity identification, to business design and business assessment, the students learn to vet and design a business before operationalizing it in a business plan.  By using value chain assessment, 5 forces analysis, entrepreneurial finance and market analysis as business design tools, the students learn to become serial entrepreneurs, rather than focus on translating an single idea or technology into a business plan. 

Many entrepreneurial discussions tend to begin with the business plan, but you need to start well before that. Who wants to waste their time putting together a plan that has no chance of success?  As a result of this approach, our students have gone on to compete successfully in business plan competitions, formed investable ventures, or have gone on in high profile value creating opportunities in government or the corporate world.