Deep Dive: Entrepreneurship and Value Creation (FSE 301)

Our FSE 301 EM integration effort started with the recognition that EM could be addressed even more explicitly in this course, and, in fact, that if the entrepreneurial mindset cannot be achieved in this course, where students are enrolled in an entrepreneurship elective, we would be, as Dr. Brent Sebold, Director of E+I @ Fulton Schools of Engineering, puts it, “likely missing a bigger opportunity.”  The growing enrollment numbers fueled our sense of urgency and added the challenge of refining the course to mentor student teams through the venture development process at greater scale. 

The first step we took was modifying the course syllabus, specifically adapting the course’s learning outcomes and assessment plan. We added the following EM-relevant learning objectives:

• Learn how to effectively identify and critically analyze an entrepreneurial opportunity and formulate the steps in establishing a value proposition oriented toward that opportunity.
• Learn how to analyze customer groups and develop a plan to identify and reach customers in a specific target market.
• Learn how to critically assess business model choices and select an optimal strategy for a chosen business concept.
• Prepare and deliver evidence-based pitches for new ventures as a process to help understand the complicated sales and funding experiences and the mindset of a customer, investor or partner.
• Work as a contributing and collaborative team member within a team in order to habitually find value in the many different backgrounds and viewpoints of those you interact with during your lives.

To ensure consistency across sections of the course (within academic calendar years and from year to year), the TEM team developed EM content for several weeks of the course, including a full module on entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial mindset that includes having students apply the entrepreneurial mindset with their technical and business skillsets in their E-Team projects. This module includes a new video we created that provides an overall introduction to entrepreneurship and value creation (assigned during week 1); a customer discovery lecture in week 3; and two KEEN EM videos that can be used in both hybrid and fully online sections: Traditional Versus EM Engineering (week 1) and Why EM Matters (week 4). Students are required to contribute discussion posts and are invited to comment on the EM videos. To implement the new syllabus and material, we redeveloped the online course shell (on Blackboard), created new lecture slides, revised the course’s project description and requirements (a further adaptation of the Lean Launch curriculum of VentureWell/Steve Blank), and planned and recorded the new introductory video.

Importantly, we also developed an end-of-term assignment that returns students’ attention to the 3Cs, with its specific purpose being having students reflect on the process they engaged in as both individuals and team member throughout their work on the final V3 Evidence-Based Pitch Deck deliverable. The starting point for this assignment is students thinking about the work that was involved in the following course activities:

• Collecting feedback/data from your target customer
• Developing a well-researched and well-tested design solution
• Justifying the value of your design solution from multiple perspectives (e.g., technological, economical, societal, environmental, etc.)

Reminded that there are no right or wrong answers and encouraged to answer honestly, students then write and submit a one- to two-page personal reflection that includes responses to each of the following questions:

• What behaviors do you think are important in accomplishing each task above? Consider behaviors to be specific actions that you perform as part of completing a particular activity.
• What attitudes do you think are important in accomplishing each task above? Consider attitudes as views, ideas, or ways of thinking that you bring to bear on a particular activity.
• Among the behaviors and attitudes you mentioned, which of these behaviors and attitudes do you think you have? Which of these behaviors and attitudes do you think you still need to work on? Give specific examples from working on the final project to support your answers.
• Do you envision these behaviors and attitudes being helpful in your work after graduation? Explain why you do or do not. How might you continue to develop these behaviors and attitudes in the future?

The above changes were included in what was a new 7.5 week, fully online version of FSE 301  that we developed as well as implemented in its on-ground sections. Finally, we have incorporated EM-related events happening around campus as optional extra-credit assignments for on-ground sections. These events have included the following:

• A talk given by Doug Melton, Director of the Entrepreneurial Engineering Program at the Kern Family Foundation, titled “Just Start with an Entrepreneurial Mindset” 
• ASU Venture Devils Demo days, an ASU Venture Devils pitching showcase where students can see 10 of ASU’s top student and faculty ventures compete for cash and connections
• ASU eSeed Challenge Demo Day, where students enjoy a free lunch on campus and watch 15 finalist ventures compete for a second tranche of funding and acceptance into ASU’s eSeed Accelerator cohort 

To get the full points available for these events, students simply take and submit a selfie photo of themselves at the event by the given due date to prove they were there. 

NOTE: Supporting resources for this case study can be found within its companion KEEN card (link below), which is also where the community can discuss the case and its broader topic.