The Practice of Entrepreneurship

Please direct your questions to entrepreneurship@business.uzh.ch and not to Professor Kaiser. Emails sent to him will not be answered.

THINK BEFORE YOU EMAIL AND READ THE INFORMATION ON THE INTERNET CAREFULLY!

This seminar aims at confronting students with problems and perspectives in entrepreneurship pracitice. The goal of the course is to enable students to effectively write their own business plan. Students will write an own business plan that may relate to either an original startup or an existing firm whose business potential is not yet fully explored. This business plan will be evaluated - and graded - by a team of industry professionals and Professor Kaiser.

A sample business plan from the class of 2009 will be provided on the OLAT course-website.

Business plans may originate from three alternative sources:

• an own (preferable technology-driven) idea that is to be turned into a viable business or
• material obtained from an existing firm with growth potential
  or
• a business case that the industry practicioners involved in the class bring about.
  

We will also offer students the opportunity to write business plans for businesses that either need to grow, need to be sold or need to be turned around. We will post an outline of those firms and further course information on the OLAT course-website.Click here for being redirected to the folder "course material - team case studies BP" on OLAT

Please note: Just to stress that - we highly appreciate if teams choose to write a business plan for an existing firm (check on OLAT for detailed descriptions of these "real world" team case studies by following the link above) or if the team's own idea is technology-driven.

• Christoph Adrian, Greissinger & Partner Business Consultancy, Münster
• Jan Fülscher, Business Angels Schweiz
• Wolfgang Henggeler, unitectra (tbc)
• Ulrich Kaiser, University of Zurich
• Erika Puyal, ZKB (tbc)
• Eduardo Theiler, Phytoceuticals (tbc)

This seminar is open to UZH students of Business, students of Economics and students of Informatics. UZH students from other disciplines may enroll as auditors. Auditors will not obtain ECTS points.

Participants will be selected on the basis of a one page motivational letter. It is not required that applicants present their ideas already at the point of application. The application must contain a CV and a current transcript (list of grades).
The seminar is limited to a maximum of 30 students or ten teams. Each case consists of two to four members. Students who plan to participate in the course should register for the OLAT course website.
A first Sales Pitch will take place at the end of day 1, on Sept. 13. Students with an own business idea as well as industry professionals looking for student teams will pitch their projects in an attempt to assemble a team. That pitch is obviously not graded and is merely ment to generate interest among fellow students.

At the end of the day, all students must be allocated to one project and there must be at least two students for each project. Prior coordination and communication via OLAT is encouraged.

Click here for being redirected to the OLAT course website

The Chair for Entrepreneurship will not be involved in the formation of teams.

August 1st to September 1st; email to entrepreneurship@business.uzh.ch.

Blockseminar which consists of 3 bloc meetings of a total of 5 days of which four are (oral) exams in which ALL students need to participate.

tba

BA in Business, Economics or Informatics for enrolled students. BA in the respective fields for auditors.

1. Final exam presentation; written full plan (40 percent of the total grade), oral presentation (50 percent of the total grade)
   Submission of the full business plan: Thu., Dec. 11, 23:59 (=Thu. before midnight). Submission of the presentations: Thu., Dec. 11, 18:00 (=Thu. evening). Business plans and presentations need to be emailed to ulrich.kaiser@business.uzh.ch.
2. Oral participation (10 percent of the total grade); oral participation is mea-
   sured both in terms of quantity and quality
    

All grades except for the ones for oral participation are for each team, not for individual team members.

Class attendance is mandatory.
Students may skip one day of classes except the introductory day (12.9.2014) and the final pitches (12.12.2014). In other words: Students who skip either of these classes will not receive a grade. There is no exception from that rule.

This class gives 6 ECTS points.

Enrolled students may use the credits for the following modules:

• MA: Wahlpflichtfach BWL 5
• MA: Seminare M&E
  

Informatics: ''Freie Wahlmodule'' (please check yourself the specific terms of how credits for this course can be granted within ''Freie Wahlmodule'').

There will be NO podcasts as some information provided during the course is proprietary.

Students need to register via the "Buchungstool" once admitted to attend the seminar by the Chair for Entrepreneurship.
Furthermore, students shall register for the OLAT course website in order to have access to the course information and material.