Option-E Paris: Disruptive Entrepreneurship

What you'll experience

Building Blocks

• ART THINKING
  “Because entrepreneurs are closer to artists than any profession, we should look at how artists are trained to rethink the way we train entrepreneurs” (Steve Blank, Co-Founder of Lean Startup , Adjunct Professor Stanford)

  The world is highly improbable. From Covid-19 to the Anthropocene, it is difficult to predict what our life will look like in the years to come. In such a context, the optimization of old recipes is not enough. We need to challenge what we do and why we do it. Artists do this. They do not optimize; they do not follow the rules. Quite on the contrary, they question what is to propose alternatives. Their art pieces not only change the cultural climate, they also influence core practices in design, architecture or business.

• DESIGN THINKING
  This course will explore the key design strategies: visualization, simultaneous engineering, prototyping, co-creation, scenarios, voyaging, concept design, conjecture testing, rapid conceptualization, trial launching, metaphoring and storytelling.
• ENTREPRENEURIAL METHODS
  This course explores the fundamental concepts of entrepreneurship. We will develop an understanding of entrepreneurship as a broader phenomenon stressing a variety of problem spaces and we will discover and discuss insights from entrepreneurial expertise and how it informs the idea of uncertainty management.
• ENTREPRENEURIAL ECOSYSTEMS
  Entrepreneurship does not happen in a vacuum. To understand entrepreneurship you have to understand entrepreneurial ecosystems. By engaging and interacting with typical players of a specific ecosystem like Paris, Berlin or Stockholm, the course will offer participants insights into state-of-the-art trends in digitalization, technology, incubation, acceleration, company building, and industry developments.
• ENTREPRENEURIAL FINANCE
  This course is an introduction to entrepreneurial finance for students of entrepreneurship. We will explore basic concepts of finance and how they must be applied, and sometimes adapted, to boost resilience in the fast-changing, unpredictable environments common to entrepreneurial ventures. Core concepts, illustrative cases, in-class exercises, and fieldwork are relevant and useful to anyone aiming to build an economically viable business or project, whether in the for-profit or not-for-profit sectors, and whether in an early-stage start-up or within a multinational corporation.
• ENTREPRENEURIAL HR
  This course is dedicated to the human challenges of business creation: the major issues of HRM for entrepreneurship, whether it be the strategic recruitment of the first employees, the implementation of an evaluation policy or the management of working conditions.

  This course is intended to train students to manage others in a new company and/or in innovative structures. It also helps students to think about themselves as entrepreneurs by introducing the concept of personal branding.

• THE ART OF PITCHING
  This course has two main objectives. First it discuss the reasons why entrepreneurs have to pitch, what pitching really is and the fundamental idea behind pitching. Secondly it will help participants to create and deliver a pitch, that is to say a short and convincing message designed to gain support for their project. They will use the FAST DESIGN method, a combination of storytelling and design techniques to clarify complex ideas and value propositions.