How to Validate your Startup Idea

In the first week, you'll be learning about some basic concepts in entrepreneurship. Specifically we're going to introduce the business canvas and the lean method, two key frameworks that will be used to structure your activities throughout this course.

This week you'll learn to articulate and test your value proposition by drawing on three concepts: the strategy canvas, persona and minimum viable product (MVP). The strategy canvas emphasizes the uniqueness of your value proposition. The 'persona' represents who you think your typical customer is, which is useful for identifying real customers. The MVP is a simple prototype, which is a key tool to to get feedback from potential customers about the value you are providing them.

This week we'll help you think beyond your first customers, to scaling up your business across multiple segments of customers. The core concepts for this module are the diffusion of innovation and developing partnerships.

This week is an introduction to financial literacy. We'll show you how to build an income statement, how to develop financial models and financial forecasts. We'll also introduce you to some metrics to track the viability of your business that complement the traditional accounting metrics.