ENT101 · The Entrepreneurial Mindset in Technology
About Course
An introduction to how technology ventures really start, the habits of thinking that help founders act under uncertainty, and how to choose an opportunity that fits your skills, time and risk tolerance.
Who it is for
Anyone curious about starting a tech product, service or side project, including employees who want to innovate inside their company.
Prerequisites
None; this is the first course of the Technology Entrepreneurship program.
What you will be able to do
- Distinguish four common types of technology ventures and the trade-offs of each
- Apply the five effectuation principles to frame a first step with an affordable loss
- Identify at least three opportunity sources linked to current technology and market shifts
- Produce a personal founder profile with a defined time, money and risk budget
Lessons
- Lesson 1 · What technology entrepreneurship really is
- Lesson 2 · Thinking like a founder under uncertainty
- Lesson 3 · Spotting opportunities and checking personal fit
- Lesson 4 · Lab and assignment
Lab: Founder profile and opportunity log
You build a one-page founder profile listing your skills, networks, interests and constraints, and a spreadsheet opportunity log with at least ten observations. You then score the observations against fit and effort criteria and set an explicit affordable-loss budget for your first experiment.
Free tools: Google Sheets or Google Docs (free)
Assessed assignment
Write a two-page founder profile that summarizes your means (who you are, what you know, whom you know), your weekly time budget and your affordable-loss limit. Select three opportunity hypotheses from your log and describe each in the format: customer, problem, current workaround, why now. Explain which one you will explore first and why, referring to the effectuation principles. End with one small action you can take in the next seven days that costs no more than your stated affordable loss.
| Criterion | Weight | What excellent work looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Self-assessment of means | 25% | Skills, knowledge and network are specific and honest, with concrete examples rather than generic adjectives. |
| Opportunity hypotheses | 30% | Three hypotheses each name a specific customer, a clear problem, the current workaround and a credible why-now trigger. |
| Use of effectuation | 25% | The choice of the first opportunity is justified with at least three effectuation principles applied correctly. |
| Next action and limits | 20% | The seven-day action is small, concrete and within the declared time and affordable-loss budget. |
Portfolio piece
A founder profile and scored opportunity log that you will reuse as the starting point for the rest of the program.
Next step
Continue with ENT102 · Finding and Validating Problems Worth Solving · 4 hours · $28.00
Course Content
ENT101 · The Entrepreneurial Mindset in Technology (4 h)
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Lesson 1 · What technology entrepreneurship really is
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Lesson 2 · Thinking like a founder under uncertainty
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Lesson 3 · Spotting opportunities and checking personal fit
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Lesson 4 · Lab and assignment
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ENT101 Assessment · The Entrepreneurial Mindset in Technology