IMPORTANT: This lecture is only for students assigned to the supplementary curriculum "Diploma Supplement on Innovation" offered by the Innovation Incubation Center (i²c)! For further information, please visit http://i2c.ec.tuwien.ac.at/home/are-you-a-student/how-to-apply/
***ECTS Breakdown***
6 ECTS = 150 hours
40 Lectures (Workshops, Mentoring- and Input-Sessions, Milestone-Presentations)
40 Prepare for Milestone-Presentations
70 Work on individual project (different topics)
***Content decription***
Innovation Project 1+2 - General Content:
The "Innovation Project" of the supplementary curriculum on innovation will focus on implementing the lessons learned within the other lectures. Students of the curriculum will work on a concrete innovation project in order to consolidate and strengthen the innovation knowledge in a real innovation case. The lecture starts in winter semester with "Innovation Project 1" and concludes in summer semester with "Innovation Project 2".
The following topics will be covered:
- Customer exploration, problem validation, solution, value proposition
- Design Thinking
- Prototyping, problem-solution-fit
- Business Model Canvas (BMC)
- Competition & Market Analysis
- Milestone-presentations: Go-to-market-strategy, finance plan & financing strategy, extended pitch deck, 3-min.-pitch
- Slide Deck Writing, Storytelling & Pitching
- Demo Day (final pitch)
Format of Course:
The course consists of input- and mentoring-sessions as well as milestone-presentations:
- In the input- and mentoring-sessions on specific topics, experienced mentors support the students in implementing the theory learned in their individual projects. The input- and mentoring-sessions will cover the topics Design Thinking, prototyping, Business Model Canvas, competition and market analysis, product-market-fit, storytelling, slide deck writing and pitching.
- In the milestone-presentations, students will present the current status or specified aspects of their project to the others and some mentors, who will offer feedback and help them to improve and adapt with asking critical questions.The milestone-presentations will include Business Model Canvas, competition and market analysis; marketing-, sales- and PR-strategy; finance plan & financing strategy; extended pitch deck and a 3-min-pitch deck.
The Diploma Supplement on Innovation will conclude with the Diploma Demo Day, where the students pitch their innovation projects to a jury of innovation scouts and potential investors and the best projects will be awarded with special prizes (e.g. the acceptation into the TUW i2nkubator program or a place in the co-working space Founder Space).
Innovation Project 2 – Content Overview:
1. 2nd Milestone-presentation + feedback: Go-to-market-strategy
2. 3rd Milestone-presentation + feedback: Finance Plan & Financing Strategy
3. Workshop: Storytelling & Slide Deck Writing
4. 5th Milestone-presentation + feedback: Extended pitch deck
5. Workshop: Pitching
6. 6th Milestone-presentation + feedback: 3-min-pitch
7. Demo Day, final presentation
Innovation Project 2 – Detailed Content:
1. 2nd Milestone-presentation: Go-to-market-strategy (various lecturers):
The project teams will present the Go-to-market-strategy for their projects including all planned marketing, sales, branding and PR activities. A jury of various mentors will offer feedback and challenge the teams with questions.
2. 3rd Milestone-presentation: Finance Plan & Financing Strategy (various lecturers):
The project teams will present the Finance Plan & Financing Strategy for their projects including all planned financing activities. A jury of various mentors will offer feedback and challenge the teams with questions.
3. Workshop: Storytelling & Slide Deck Writing (lecturer: Alex Pinter)
Having a good idea is great – but how can you sell it?
A startup pitch can happen anywhere – formally or informally. While there is no ultimate guide to raising money and creating the perfect pitch , there are tactics entrepreneurs can use to make their idea more attractive for investors. Every entrepreneur needs a value proposition statement for his or her startup that can hook potential investors and partners in less than a minute. This lecture aims to give an overview about the complex art of pitching, its relation to storytelling and provide students real-life example pitch decks as template, as well as useful hacks to improve pitch decks.
PART 1: SLIDE DECK WRITING
According to First Round, you’re sunk if an investor doesn’t know what your company does 10 minutes into your pitch. Obviously, creating a pitch deck is a tough task to encounter. It has to tell a story, paint a vision, include relevant metrics and much more. How to structure and prepare mentally, physically and organizationally is prior in order to attract investors’ attention.
Content:
- The art of pitching (traction, product/market fit, social proof & growth)
- Frameworks for pitch decks (incl. Do’s and Don’ts)
- List of successful pitch decks
PART 2: STORYTELLING
From first line to closing sentence, a pitch must convey a coherent message in easy-to-understand language. This important message is about the founder. How he or she delivers it is as important as the content itself. In terms of actual time, a founder has usually only a couple of minutes to make a connection and a strong impression on investors. Therefore, how to convey a certain message is prior to convince CVs.
Content:
- Importance of storytelling
- Types and elements of storytelling
- Best practices, and watch-out points
4. 5th Milestone-presentation: Extended pitch deck (various lecturers):
The project teams will present their Extended Pitch Desks for their projects including all relevant topics (problem, solution, validation, market, competition, business model, finances, go-to-market-strategy, team etc.). A jury of various mentors will offer feedback and challenge the teams with questions.
5. Workshop: Pitching (lecturer: Daniel Cronin)
Daniel Cronin is the pitch expert and he will explain what makes a good pitch. With a game, students practice spontaneous pitching. After the workshop, they are ready to prepare their final pitches for the Demo Day.
6. 6th Milestone-presentation: 3-min-pitch
The project teams will present their 3-min-pitch-deck which they will also present at the Demo Day. A jury of various mentors will offer feedback and challenge the teams with questions.
7. Demo Day, final presentation
The Diploma Supplement on Innovation concludes with the Diploma Demo Day, where the students pitch their innovation projects to a jury of potential investors.
***Lecturers***
Mag. Daniel Cronin is a passionate marketer and public speaker. He studied at the Vienna University of Economics and Business where he qualified with a Masters in Economics & Social Science. He wrote his thesis on Mobile Marketing and in 2011 became a founding member of the full-service app-agency “all about apps”, where he was Head of Marketing. Daniel is Co-Founder and Member of the Board of AustrianStartups and lectures Mobile Business and Marketing at the University of Applied Sciences in Hagenberg. He presented the show “2Minuten, 2Millionen – die PULS4 Startup-Show” on national TV. Daniel has also hosted many events and panels including Startup Week 2011, Pioneers Festival 2012 & 2013 as well as the World Business Dialogue and the EBAN Annual Congress, both in 2013.
Alex Pinter is co-founder of Trayn, a platform for strength and conditioning coaches to create fully individualized training programs for athletes faster and easier. It was officially launched in 2014 with selected professional sports teams in the US and Canada. Prior to that, he was a strategy consultant at Accenture for many years and worked with numerous international clients across Europe (main industry focus: consumer goods, retail, high-tech, and chemicals).
Prof. Dr. Michael Heiss is Principal Consultant for Digital Enterprise at Siemens. He studied Electrical Engineering at TU Wien, made a post-doc at MIT in Boston, started his industry career at Bosch and is since 1996 with Siemens in various leading positions for Knowledge, Innovation and Technology Management always with a focus on Open Innovation and Knowledge Networking. He is also Vice Chair of IEEE Austria and Chair of the IEEE Technology Management Council, Chapter Central Europe.
