Entrepreneur­ship in Chal­len­ging En­vir­on­ments: Les­sons from Ukraine

Course content

The course covers the multiple elements of the entrepreneurial process – the backgrounds and motivations of founders, team formation and early hiring, idea generation and implementation, financing challenges, and paths to scaling. The different sessions will provide additional nuances that are relevant to female founders and other groups of entrepreneurs that may still be underrepresented in entrepreneurship. In particular, the content of the course will be organized around the following four core topics:

Key topics:

• The people behind the business: when and how to take the leap into an entrepreneurial career; the role of role models; forming founding teams; hiring in a resource-constrained environment.
• Taking the idea to market: business model design, hypothesis testing, and principles of entrepreneurial strategy.
• Funding an entrepreneurial idea: entrepreneurial finance basics, gender gaps in funding, alternative funding models, and negotiation tools.
• Scaling a startup: growth strategies, critical success factors, and exit options.

By integrating theory with real-world examples, students will gain an academically rigorous yet practical understanding of entrepreneurship in a challenging context. The course is designed to help participants assess the viability and value-creation potential of new ventures and also equip them with tools to explore and advance their own business opportunities in these particular settings.