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Technology Ventures: From Invention to Innovation

Course overview

Recent research suggests that technological invention, i.e. the generation of technology-based ideas, has slowed down over the past half century. At the same time, scholars argue that our societies need to further increase the rate at which they invest in technological innovation, i.e. the economic and societal application of technology-based ideas. The bridge between invention and innovation is most often a technology venture.

The venturing process, also referred to as technology start-ups or entrepreneurship, is surrounded by many myths: Entrepreneurs are born, not made; technology-based ideas require STEM (Science-Technology-Engineering-Mathematics) teams to succeed; and the venture must be based in Silicon Valley. Many of these ideas are not just myths but can be shown by evidence-based research to be wrong, potentially leading to poor decisions by scientists, entrepreneurs, businesses, and policy makers. This is problematic at the macro level, for the progress of our societies.

 At the micro level, this fragile bridge between invention and innovation is problematic as labor market statistics in many leading economies indicate that up to one in three people will be entrepreneurs during their working lives, and many more will work for a start-up or young company at some point.

This course examines the different stages of a technology venture, from invention to innovation. Students will learn from recent research in competitive strategy, financial economics, innovation, organization theory, science of science, and sociology how to think more systematically about the evaluation of ideas, scaling and eventual exit of a technology venture. As aspects of the venturing process clearly benefit from practical experience, the course will invite industry and policy experts to enrich the practical exercises and classroom discussions.

Academic year

2024/25

Duration and dates

2 weeks from June 29 to July 14, 2025

Teaching format

Face-to-Face in Mannheim, Germany

Coordinators

Prof. Dr. Marc Lerchenmüller (Lecturer), Yvonne Hall (Intl. Affairs), Janna Ried (Intl. Affairs)

Biography

Marc Lerchenmüller holds the Assistant Professorship for Technological Innovation and Management Science at the University of Mannheim. He is also a Fellow at the Leibniz Center for European Economic Research. Professor Lerchenmüller’s research pertains to the economics of innovation and the science of science. His research has been published in top management and general science journals and has been covered by popular media, like the New York Times, the Economist, and Le Monde. Professor Lerchenmüller has served as an academic advisor on science and technology policy to the European Commission. He is a co-founder of AaviGen, a biotechnology company focused on developing next-generation gene therapies. The company completed a Series B financing round that placed it among the top ten in the industry in the year 2023 according to EY Germany. Prior to pursuing an academic career, Professor Lerchenmüller worked for the Boston Consulting Group in New York City and obtained degrees in the disciplines of financial economics and public health from Imperial College London, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the University of Oxford, WHU, and Yale University.  

 

Professor Lerchenmüller will deliver the class with the support of invited academic and industry experts whose biographies will be made available on the course website.

Learning outcomes

On completion of this course a student should be able to:

While the course is built on rigorous theory and empirical evidence, the Global Innovation Challenge has a highly practical focus: How can technology ventures improve their odds to succeed?

Students will gain a deeper understanding of tech-based ventures, and the practical steps involved. By the end of the course, students’ ability to answer the following questions, among others, will have improved:

 

  • Identify what makes an attractive technology-based venture idea
  • What are characteristics of successful ventures, founders, and start-up teams
  • Understand strategies for overcoming challenges in attracting resources,
    g. financial and human capital
  • Analyze business case materials and how to make decisions based on the information
  • Analyze the role of technology ventures in our economy and their broader societal applications

 

The learnings will be useful for students who are interested in eventually (co-)
founding or working for (technology) ventures, who want to undertake research in entrepreneurship, and students who will take on jobs that require educated interactions with ventures, including investment banking, private equity, consulting, startups, STEM faculty, and life science and technology industry positions.

Course content

The course is taught through lectures and the case study method. Classes will be delivered in nine 3-hour blocks, spaced across the first six days of the course. To prepare case-based classes, students are expected to read the case and submit brief polls the night prior to class.

 

Module 1: Getting started

Class 1 | Technology ventures: What are we talking about

Class 2 | Starting-up: (Co-) founders, naming, structuring

Class 3 | Raising capital

Class 4 | Technologies that will change the world

  

Module 2: Scaling (and failing)

Class 5 | Protecting the idea

Class 6 | Product-market fit and pricing

Class 7 | Pivots

 

Module 3: Exit

Class 8 | Selling a company

Class 9 | Reflections on career development

 

Most of the second week of the course, will be focused on developing the final team project in partnership with a technology venture.

Course value

6 ECTS

Required background

No formal requirements, but basic knowledge in operations/supply chain management is recommended.

Assessment

Students’ performance in the course will be evaluated via three components: class participation and polls (30%), individual exercise on major problem identification of an example tech-based venture (10%), and the final team project (60%). *

*Class participation and polls:

For most days that involve case-based discussions, the course will have brief online polls available that students should fill out the night before the next class. The answer must adhere to a concise format of maximum two-bullet point lines per question. The polls will inquire students’ answers to key questions about the case, which will allow to focus the class-room discussion as well as assess classroom participation even for those students who had no opportunity to speak during class.   

Exercise on major problem identification:

For the final case of week one of the Global Innovation Challenge, students are tasked to identify a major problem the technology venture faces in its development. Your response will be maximum 200 words of written text, describing (a) the situation, (b) the major problem, and (c) an idea for a potential solution. Your answer can draw on the course material discussed during the first week of class.

Final team project:

By the end of class, students will produce a 12-slide annotated pitch-deck and an associated spreadsheet with a financial model for the scaling phase of a technology venture. Many of the elements of the pitch deck will be developed for a generic technology venture during the first half of class. Through interactions with an actual technology venture during the second half of class, students will tailor the pitch deck to the case at hand. The grading for the team project will solely depend on the final product. Teams that draw on learnings from the course content and can make these learnings explicit in the annotated pitch-deck will receive better grades.

The pitch-deck will follow the following format:

  1. Problem
  2. Solution
  3. Value proposition
  4. Proof-of-concept data
  5. Competition
  6. Intellectual property and other protections
  7. Market opportunity
  8. Business model
  9. Regulation
  10. Financial burn rate and runway
  11. Operational plan
  12. Funding needs

In the annotation, you should report the sources, research, and reasoning for your assumptions and hypotheses presented in the pitch deck.

Bibliography

To be defined.

Extra cost

Travel & Aaccommodation, Course Fee (to be defined).

Miscellaneous information

Accommodation and travel must be arranged by the participants.

About the School

Located in the heart of Germany, the University of Mannheim, Business School is one of the leading Business Schools in Europe. It unites first-class research, internationality and a distinct orientation towards corporate practice.

Its innovative teaching methods and consistent quality management contribute to the best academic conditions.

© Photo by Norbert Bach