Entrepreneurial frameworks: This module helps you develop a better understanding of the skills and mindset prospective entrepreneurs require. You'll be able to master entrepreneurial frameworks and create a compelling value proposition for your customers.
Opportunity sizing: It is essential to align the founders’ objectives, and those of team members, investors and suppliers, with what is actually happening in the market. Understanding ‘how big can this actually get?’ needs analysis of current trends and timings, which requires identifying, calculating and forecasting the appropriate market size.
Competition: Creating value for customers is not enough, unless the overall proposition is fundamentally more attractive than the competitors’. Analysing and visualising the competitive landscape helps identify which attributes are needed to compete and to establish relative attractiveness.
Customer value proposition: One of the biggest reasons start-ups fail is a lack of market need. It is essential to identify customer problems and pain points, their significance and the discrepancies between real and perceived needs. One can always look at the gaps in the existing market to find the additional attribute which is required.
Market research: Given the cost and time required to develop and launch new products and services, testing concepts and validating key assumptions through market research is crucial. Mistakes can prove fatal, and false positive results are all too common among inexperienced entrepreneurs.
Team and network: Team members are an crucial part of building a successful business. It is essential to understand when to hire, how to leverage peer networks and the various HR and legal considerations that must be taken into account, as well as methods to enhance team collaboration.
Forecasting and growth drivers: Drawing exponential hockey stick graphs is easy. But ensuring sound, well- documented assumptions sit behind a viable bottom-up financial model is what distinguishes the pros from the amateurs. A good model will indicate the critical drivers needed to support growth, while identifying how much investment is needed and why.
Spend 12 intense weeks in interactive, online sessions that explore case studies and draw on the expert support and insight of expert faculty, founders, mentors and peers. Your course director walks you through the key concepts each week and guides you towards deep insight and additional sources of support.
Faculty masterclass: Explore the latest academic research, essential frameworks and industry best practice with world-leading entrepreneurship professors.
Founders insights: Gain invaluable real-world context from company founders with ventures at different stages of growth.
Industry experts: Acquire insight into a range of topics, from investment to intellectual property, accelerators and incubators, legal issues and terminology.
Weekly pitch practice: Pitch your venture to an Investor’s Committee made up of venture capitalists and angel investors. Every week, you’ll prepare and present a new slide for your ‘pitch deck’ and You’ll have the opportunity to use honest but constructive feedback that you’ll receive from your mentor and peer support group to review earlier slides.
Peer support: Give and receive support from other founders and build a strong network that will continue to grow beyond the programme.
Entrepreneurial mindset: The programme provides weekly insights contrasting the entrepreneurial mindset with the ‘normal’ way of business thinking. Topics include risk-taking, leadership, decision-making and dealing with failure.
Commitment required: You are expected to complete all programme activities, which translates into a time commitment of up to 5-8 hours per week. The weekly regime of activities follows a themed cycle – learn, discuss, apply, pitch and refine.
What is the application process?
You can apply to the programme of your choice online. Acceptance is not automatic and your application will be reviewed to ensure the best fit between applicants and programmes. Spaces on our programmes can fill up quickly so we encourage you to apply early and ensure your submission is as comprehensive as possible.
What does the programme fee cover?
It covers all required study materials and programme activities.
Challenge your thinking with our range of online courses for individuals and teams. During this unique digital learning experience, you’ll embark on a self-paced journey with a dedicated Learning Manager over the course of several weeks. We have a variety of programmes to suit your individual needs, all of which offer access to the expertise of our world-class faculty, no matter where you are in the world, and an e-certificate on completion.
Up to 96 hours of pre-recorded faculty-led lectures
Learn from industry experts through videos, curated content, assignments and - on select courses - live faculty sessions.
12 weeks, 5-8 hours per week
Experience a journey to suit your schedule with self-paced learning over the course of 12 weeks.
Dedicated learning manager support
Benefit from the support of a learning manager to boost your development
Global online peer network
Connect and reinforce your learnings with an exceptional group of peers from around the world.
E-certificate on completion
Build credibility with a London Business School e-certificate on completion.
Our faculty
Experts in the field
The Entrepreneurial Edge programme offers you intensive faculty-led-online masterclasses, industry expert online interviews & Founder’s insights. Access some of the world’s leading thinkers whose cutting-edge research in global business is grounded in real-world practicality.
David’s research interests include marketing strategy, innovation and market evolution, brand management, and global customer management.
Experience
He consults to multinational companies on various aspects of international marketing. His publications have included The Mirage of Global Markets (2003), Can Selling be Globalized? (2001), Seven Rules of International Distribution (2000) and The Handbook of Brand Management (1992). David also holds adjunct faculty positions at two other business schools.
John Bates is the founder and a director of Sussex Place Ventures Ltd, the School’s in-house venture capital fund manager. For 10 years he led the School’s practical initiatives in developing entrepreneurial firms. This included €20 million of pre-seed and seed venture capital funds and various networks of entrepreneurs, advisors and private investors who have supported over 70 alumni-founded or affiliated companies since 1998.
He started teaching and developing Strategy and Entrepreneurship courses at LBS in 1985, while also starting up, running and selling two technology businesses in Cambridge. He developed and taught New Venture Development, Managing the Growing Business and New Creative Ventures MBA electives and the popular Growing Your Business Open Executive programme. As Fellow in Strategy and Entrepreneurship, he continues to teach on custom programmes for Executive Education clients and the Entrepreneurship Summer School for Masters students.
He received his BSc from Nottingham University in 1972. Following a sales career in the scientific equipment and pharmaceutical industries in the UK and Africa, he graduated from Harvard Business School with an MBA with high distinction in 1979.
Mr Bates then became a Marketing Manager for International Paint (now part of AkzoNobel), launching the highly successful Interpon range of solvent-free coatings worldwide. He was invited back to Harvard as a lecturer on the MBA programme in 1983, before joining the London Business School faculty part-time the following year.
Since then he has balanced a career as an entrepreneur, educator, investor and investment manager. He is chairman of DocSociety, Chattermill Ltd , Colmeia Ltd (Hiver) and New Unity CIO (Charity). He is an investor, director or board advisor of a number of early-stage ventures and growing businesses in the creative and technology industries in London.
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Julian Birkinshaw
Vice-Dean; Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship; Academic Director, Institute of Entrepreneurship and Private Capital
Julian’s main area of expertise is in the strategy and management of large multinational corporations, specifically corporate entrepreneurship, innovation, change management and subsidiary headquarters relationships.
Recent Clients
Rio Tinto, ABN Amro, UBS, Tata Group, Exxon.
Experience
Professor Julian Birkinshaw is a Fellow of the British Academy, the Strategic Management Society, and the (US) Academy of Management. He has been awarded Honorary Doctorate degrees by the Stockholm School of Economics (2009) and Copenhagen Business School (2018), and is regularly ranked among the Thinkers50 list of the top global management thinkers.
His main area of expertise is in the strategy and organisation of large corporations, and specifically such issues as innovation, corporate entrepreneurship, strategic agility and headquarters-subsidiary relationships.
Professor Birkinshaw is the author of 15 books, including Fast/Forward, Becoming a Better Boss, Reinventing Management and Giant Steps in Management, and more than 90 articles in journals such as Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Journal, Harvard Business Review and Sloan Management Review.
Professor Birkinshaw speaks at business conferences in the UK, Europe, North America and Australia. He is regularly quoted in international media outlets, including CNN, the BBC, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, Businessweek and The Times.
Rupert teaches on Executive Education programmes around the themes of entrepreneurship, owner management and the management of growth. Rupert works with ambitious entrepreneurial businesses around the world helping to plan and implement their strategies and growth plans.
Experience
Rupert is both a chartered accountant and a qualified HR professional, so has an unusual mix of experience when it comes to advising on the implementation of strategy. Previously Rupert was a partner of BDO for 16 years. He is the author of 7 books on growth, governance and management, the latest of which, Growing a Business, was published by The Economist in 2016. He currently sits on 3 boards as a non-executive director.
John’s numerous Best Teacher Awards reflect both his 20 years of executive experience in the retailing industry in America and his award-winning research focused on fast-growing entrepreneurial companies. John is the author of two best-selling books, <em>The New Business Road Test</em> and, with Randy Komisar, <em>Getting to Plan B</em>.
Experience
John has consulted with and taught executive education on five continents for organisations such as Novartis, the Young Presidents Organisation, Kenya Airways and the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Co-founder of several start-ups, his entrepreneurial work includes helping on the expansion of the retail chain Gap.
This programme can also be taken as part of the Certificate in Management. Enhance your leadership approach, hone your business skills and curate your own curriculum with a blend of online and in-person learning.
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