GRA 3136 New Venture Creation

GRA 3136 New Venture Creation

Course code: 
GRA 3136
Department: 
Strategy and Entrepreneurship
Credits: 
6
Course coordinator: 
Sujith Nair
Course name in Norwegian: 
New Venture Creation
Product category: 
Master
Portfolio: 
MSc in Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Semester: 
2025 Spring
Active status: 
Active
Level of study: 
Master
Teaching language: 
English
Course type: 
One semester
Introduction

In this course, students will gain real-life experience creating a new venture. The course will equip students with state-of-the-art entrepreneurial tools and methods to form entrepreneurial teams, develop, validate, and assess business ideas, and understand how to build a viable business model around them. Students will develop their new ventures in collaboration with the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Oslo. The skills acquired will enable students to start their own ventures, commercialize innovations, or establish a new line of business within an established company.

The course is acknowledged as preparation course for "Gründerskolen" (the Norwegian School of Entrepreneurship, summer programme), and will therefore also run in the spring semester.

Learning outcomes - Knowledge

By completing the course, the students will be able to:

  • Evaluate the theory and practice of entrepreneurship, including team formation, lean startup method, business modelling, and the preconditions for scaling. 
  • Gain knowledge about creating new ventures with various actors in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, such as a business incubator.
Learning outcomes - Skills

By completing the course, the students will be able to:

  • Effectively build and manage entrepreneurial teams. 
  • Use methods and tools to create new ventures.
  • Engage with customers and other actors in the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
  • Present business ideas convincingly to investors and decision-makers. 
General Competence

Through the creation of new ventures in dialogue with the real world regarding the viability of their business ideas and the financial, intellectual, organizational, and policy-related challenges and opportunities they encounter, students will enhance their capacity for critical reflection on entrepreneurship in society.

Course content
  • Founders, teams, and ideas
  • The idea-generation process
  • Customer engagement and feedback
  • Building products and services
  • Engaging with entrepreneurial ecosystems
  • Entrepreneurial resourcefulness and raising resources
  • Business modeling
  • Pitching and storytelling
Teaching and learning activities

The course is structured around developing and validating business ideas and business models related to startups. Course tutors will engage in coaching the development work throughout the semester. Step by step, a business model's core elements and assumptions will be developed and – as far as possible – tested. The final delivery (exams) consists of a business model pitched to an expert panel (30%) and handed in as a term paper (70%). The critical aspects of the business model will need to be backed by reference to relevant entrepreneurship research. Students are expected to participate actively in class discussions and engage with the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Software tools
No specified computer-based tools are required.
Additional information

Please note that while attendance is not compulsory in all courses, it is the student's own responsibility to obtain any information provided in class.

Qualifications

All courses in the Masters programme will assume that students have fulfilled the admission requirements for the programme. In addition, courses in second, third and/or fourth semester can have specific prerequisites and will assume that students have followed normal study progression. For double degree and exchange students, please note that equivalent courses are accepted.

Disclaimer

Deviations in teaching and exams may occur if external conditions or unforeseen events call for this.

Assessments
Assessments
Exam category: 
Activity, Oral
Form of assessment: 
Presentation
Exam/hand-in semester: 
First Semester
Weight: 
30
Grouping: 
Group/Individual (1 - 4)
Duration: 
1 Semester(s)
Comment: 
Oral group presentation ("pitch") of the project
Exam code: 
GRA 31367
Grading scale: 
ECTS
Resit: 
Examination when next scheduled course
Exam category: 
Submission
Form of assessment: 
Submission PDF
Exam/hand-in semester: 
First Semester
Weight: 
70
Grouping: 
Group/Individual (1 - 4)
Duration: 
1 Semester(s)
Comment: 
The term paper has to be written in a group of maximum 4 students (in special circumstances individually). Requirements will be shaped by the nature of the Start-Up and its demand, with guidance from the lecturer. Please note, a degree of primary market research and outreach is expected.
Exam code: 
GRA 31368
Grading scale: 
ECTS
Resit: 
Examination when next scheduled course
Type of Assessment: 
Ordinary examination
All exams must be passed to get a grade in this course.
Total weight: 
100
Student workload
ActivityDurationComment
Teaching
36 Hour(s)
Combination of lectures, group exercises and project supervision.
Group work / Assignments
80 Hour(s)
Developing and testing business idea and business model, writing a business plan. To be handed in for the exam.
Student's own work with learning resources
34 Hour(s)
Company visit and/or Study trip
10 Hour(s)
Meet with actors in the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Sum workload: 
160

A course of 1 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of 26-30 hours. Therefore a course of 6 ECTS credits corresponds to a workload of at least 160 hours.