Business Enterprise Certificate course
Would you like to run your own business, learn practical knowledge and skills for a business start-up and develop your own business plan?
The Business Enterprise Certificate is a free, six-week course for students who have a good business idea, plenty of passion and enthusiasm, and the ability to communicate effectively to others.
Week one: Why you? Problem-vision
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What drives you to do what you do?
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What skills/experiences/behaviours/culture do you have?
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What is your ‘unfair advantage’ as a team?
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Why should an investor back you?
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Who is your team?
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What is the problem or market inefficiency you are solving?
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Who has that problem?
Week two: Product or service and its value proposition – the underlying secret sauce
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Key features
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Benefits of your products or services?
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Describe the idea, technology, secret sauce, or magic behind your product or service.
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Will it scale or is it a lifestyle business.
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Why will it work, and why would it be hard for someone to copy it?
Week three: Target market or opportunity – Business model
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How big is the market for your solution? Is the size enticing to potential investors?
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Is it large enough to provide a sustainable business to you?
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How we plan to make money now or in the near future
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Are there other potential revenue sources?
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If you are a tech business and pre-revenue – how have you arrived at this model and/or price point?
Week four: Go to Market Plan – Validation – Traction – Road Map – Milestones
- How you are going to reach your customers without spending all investment on marketing?
- Who is using the product/service now, and what do they have to say?
- What else do you have in the pipeline?
Week five: Competitive Analysis – Financial projections – Key metrics
- Why is your offering better/cheaper/faster/more scalable?
- High-level cash flow projections for the first year.
- Other key figures that will show you are on the right track (could be meetings, connections, users, customer retention, active users, etc.
- Where are we now – where we will be in the near future?
- Do we need external investment now and what will we use it for?
- Next Steps
Week six: Presentations
This forms an essential part of the course. It can help consolidate your ideas and develop a means of effectively describing them to others.
Your audience will be staff from the University of Sunderland in London and you will be asked questions, and possibly challenged, on your ideas, processes, finances, marketing plan etc.
These events are usually an enjoyable and enriching process which past cohorts have benefited from.
Contact us
Visit the Careers and Employability Service on the 4th floor (next to the Study Skills Office), the University of Sunderland in London.
Email: careers-london@sunderland.ac.uk
Phone: 020 7531 7333 Ext. 2342
For further information about careers and employability, please see the University of Sunderland in London Careers and Employability website.