Hello and welcome to all of you who are taking the course "Develop your venture"!
It is the following of our 1st mooc (Decode the Entrepreneur's DNA), but this is not a prerequisite.
Throughout the 4 parts of this course, you will learn the basic process for going from a promising idea to a structured solid venture project. How to characterize and asses the market, prototype, design the Business Model, and use for building the strategic roadmap of your venture...
Though you cannot decide when you're going to embark on such a journey, we do hope that this will stimulate some of you to actually starting your venture.
If you have questions about the course contents, this is the place to ask! I will be here to answer them as best I can, but feel free to talk amongst yourselves and help each other. :-)
If you have questions about the logistics of the course (how to access exercises, how to correct assessments…), you can ask them via email to: hello@openclassrooms.com
I have started to watch the courses' videos and honestly I am impressed by the quality of the content. The sweetch example was particularly interesting to me, since it shows some ideas sound great but are actually very hard to implement, which is why so many startup fail.
I am not surprised that the city of San Francisco decided to sue Sweetch, but successful business ideas often have to use such "gray areas" and hope that their activity will be accepted as legal, like Uber and AirBnb which both have legal problems currently. Is there a good rule of thumb to assess if a legal risk is too high when taking the decision to start a business or not?
History demonstrated that innovations that address regulated industries usually happen before legislation changes and adapts.. So, this being stated, there is a judgment call for the entrepreneur to be made about whether or not it's OK to operate at the very edge or slightly outside.. and how much you agree to be outside...
Because, even though on the long run there is little doubt that the legislation will adapt, on the short run, the local lobbies and politics may always kills your business.
Ultimately, it's about what kind of educated bet you are ready to take, understanding oyu may win .. or not...
First I'd like to thank Bruno for the quality of the contents and their exhaustiveness. I have completed 80% of the two first parts of the parcours and I'd like to start the third but it seems closed. Do I have to totally complete the first stages or is there an opening date planned? Can't wait to learn more :-)
Donkey Kong