Reflecting on the effects this course has had on me

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123When I started this course I had no clue what to expect. To be completely honest, I basically ended up taking this course because I had a clash in courses which meant I had to find another one. A friend of mine then recommended this course and mentioned that it was a little bit different from other KTH courses. However, as the first class started I got to see why it was a good choice as well as I quickly realized how much more there is to know about entrepreneurship and everything around it.

Serdar has taught me how to look at myself from another person’s perspective in many cases, mostly through how I am viewed during presentations. He has also taught me to see things from another perspective. It has been quite a journey for me, to get out of my comfort zone and step into the world of the idea generation. Studying mechanical engineering I normally focus on the technological side of an idea, not the entrepreneurial side of it all as I have been doing in this course. Though, putting myself out there and challenge myself has been a bit tricky in my past, I have been pushed even further than I had expected of myself which means that I have exceeded my expectations. So kudos to Serdar!

But explicitly, what are the main learning outcomes from the course?

  • Pitching an idea The Elevator pitch step taught me how to make business idea concrete and appealing for others in the span of just a couple of minutes. This was something new for me and I believe this will be useful in my future career. It is crucial to be able to catch someone’s attention and make others understand why what you are saying or proposing is relevant for them. The Elevator pitch step of the course has helped me understand that and gave me tools in order to do so.
  • The meaning of Entrepreneurship As we needed to blog about entrepreneurship I started researching the topic reading current articles and looking at entrepreneurship websites. One of those blog posts was What is an entrepreneur? I also realized that I became more observant of articles and posts related to the subject on the internet scrolling through my Facebook for example. Writing the posts, attending the lectures and doing the project gave me further knowledge. I also gained personal insights into the subject, apart from the actual knowledge.
  • Running a company Having to work in a small group both to sell coffee and work on our made me understand what it is like to run a company. There is a lot to think about and a lot of coordination to be done. This made me both see the charm in being an entrepreur and the value of being employed by a company. Also through playing the “marketplace live” simulation game, a lot of knowledge and terms of how to run a business and compete in a market has been a tremendous amount of help for me.
  • Going from idea to reality The task of having an idea and actually putting it into reality has become more realistic. The lecture on prototyping and the whole project was what taught me that. I realize that if one has an idea it is not impossible to go through with it if one really wants to do so. Finding and  trying out start ups see Lendify – the service that makes you rich $$$ and My experience with Instabridge and attending the start up events taught me how many start ups there are out there and how many great ideas there are that potentially could bloom into great things.
  • How to attract investors Attending the start up events I learnt both how to attract investors and the importance in doing so. Having investors is often necessary to fulfill an idea, to going from idea to reality. I learnt that the idea can be great but if it is presented poorly it will not matter. More about this in these posts 19@19 startup event with SUP46 and STHLM TECH Meetup.

Thanks again everyone!

 

How one class changed my life

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Taking the Entrepreneurship course ME2603 of Serdar Temiz at the KTH University in Stockholm was one of the most influential decisions in my life so far. I am incredibly thankful to Serdar for forcing us to step outside our comfort zone and explore new territory. In this post, I will summarize the many things I have learned since the course started and I will mark the tasks actually given to us in class, to clarify how awesome this course is, but also, how much work is expected of you. Many of the lessons learned have already been covered more extensively in some of my other blog posts, so I will link to them in case you want to take a closer look at a specific topic.

Lessons Learned

First of all, I learned that hands-on experience beats everything else. This was impressively demonstrated in the coffee sale, one of our first assignments, where I also learned the importance of customer awareness, which eventually made its way into my first, yet most popular post on “the importance of beeing present“. (Also the 3rd most read article on the whole blog 😉 )
The Marketplace Simulation Game only reinforced that exact lesson: You can have the best product on the market, if you don’t advertise enough or not in the right way, you will not sell.

Next, I learned the immense power of networking, which we were primed to experience through the assignments to attend startup events and to collect feedback on our business ideas. Just exposing yourself to the environment of the startup scene will get you in a different headspace. Talking to a lot of people will force you to express yourself and will also improve your pitch and sharpen your business idea. What I found the most amazing was the fact that everyone whom I talked with immediately started thinking of who they could connect me with to help me with my project.

Furthermore, the elevator pitch, which we had to prepare for our second lecture proved to me that anyone can come up with a business idea. Not having a good idea is really not an excuse to not start your own business. Honestly, the idea is the easiest step of the journey. Just write down a list of problems you encounter in your everyday life, then find a solution for any of those problems, there’s your business idea. That’s how I came up with the Sound Hub project that I’m currently working on.
Also while testing the two startups, I realized, that a service really does not have to tremendously complicated, as long as it solves a specific need in the market.

Serdar’s prototype lecture and the guest lecturers speeches taught me that the first step in starting a startup is to get an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) going. This is supposed to prove that there is actually a demand for the thing you are planning to sell.

The assignment to use Twitter, LinkedIn and this blog to communicate our experiences made me realize the importance of social media for promoting your brand. Also, it helped me getting feedback and practice, which further improved my writing skills.

The presentations of our venture ideas made me realize how important it is to precisely specify what exactly your service or product is supposed to do and which value the customer will get out of it. Also, it taught me to present big shiny visions and not to talk about the nitty gritty prototyping work when talking to investors.

Final Note

Now, I didn’t talk much about what has been covered in the actual lecture itself, because that can be looked up on Serdar’s Slideshare. What I found much more interesting are the things that make this course extraordinary. At some point we heard this quote in class:

I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand.

Well, this course makes you do stuff. It forces you to go out and get your hands dirty and I am very grateful for that because it made me realize how much enthusiasm is in me for the whole entrepreneurship subject. So much so, that I am now taking two more courses in the same direction: “Entrepreneurial Leadership in practice” and “From Idea to service Business”, which are both promising to be very interesting. So thank you Serdar for opening this path for me!

PS:   I will most likely keep writing these blog posts, because I found it to be very useful to structure my thoughts and the lessons I learn during my time here, so stay tuned for more posts 😉