Startup Launch Course

Lesson 1 • The Entrepreneurial Mindset

Contrasts entrepreneurial thinking with corporate thinking across risk, ownership, and iteration. Establishes the mental framework underlying every subsequent decision in the course.

Lesson 2 • Startup Archetypes and Models

Surveys major startup categories—SaaS, marketplace, hardware, services—and their operational implications. Grounds students in the vocabulary used throughout the course.

Lesson 3 • Crafting a Founding Thesis

Guides students to synthesise problem, market, and founder fit into a concise founding thesis. This thesis becomes the north star for all subsequent planning work.

Lesson 4 • Evaluating Founder-Market Fit

Assesses how a founder's skills, network, and passion align with a chosen problem space. Helps students self-select opportunities where they hold a genuine edge.

Lesson 1 • Competitive Landscape Analysis

Maps direct and indirect competitors to reveal whitespace and differentiation opportunities. Competitive clarity sharpens positioning decisions made in later chapters.

Lesson 2 • Designing Customer Discovery Interviews

Covers interview design, question sequencing, and bias avoidance for qualitative research. Directly feeds the primary data needed for the chapter's discovery report.

Lesson 3 • Defining Your Target Customer

Moves beyond demographics to behavioural and psychographic segmentation. Precise customer definition prevents wasted research effort and misaligned product decisions.

Lesson 4 • Quantitative Market Sizing

Introduces top-down and bottom-up sizing methods to estimate addressable market scale. Accurate sizing informs go-to-market scope and investor conversations.

Lesson 1 • Revenue Model Options

Surveys subscription, transactional, freemium, licensing, and other revenue structures. Choosing the right model determines cash flow timing and customer acquisition strategy.

Lesson 2 • Crafting a Value Proposition

Applies the value proposition canvas to align product gains and pain relievers with customer jobs. A sharp value proposition anchors all messaging and product decisions.

Lesson 3 • Cost Structure and Key Resources

Identifies fixed vs. variable costs and the resources required to deliver the value proposition. Understanding cost structure is prerequisite to financial modelling in later chapters.

Lesson 4 • Assembling the Business Model Canvas

Integrates all nine canvas blocks into a coherent, internally consistent model. Students stress-test interdependencies and identify the riskiest assumptions to validate.

Lesson 1 • Defining MVP Scope

Teaches techniques for ruthlessly scoping an MVP to the single riskiest assumption. Tight scoping accelerates learning and conserves early-stage resources.

Lesson 2 • From MVP to Product Roadmap

Translates validated MVP learnings into a phased product roadmap aligned with business goals. The roadmap bridges early experimentation and the scaling work in later chapters.

Lesson 3 • Lean Product Principles

Introduces the build-measure-learn loop and the cost of building the wrong product. Lean principles govern every product decision made throughout this chapter.

Lesson 4 • User Testing and Iteration

Covers usability testing protocols, feedback collection, and structured iteration cycles. Connects test results back to the MVP scope and assumption validation process.

Lesson 1 • Selecting Go-to-Market Channels

Applies the bullseye framework to rank and test acquisition channels by cost and fit. Channel selection determines where early traction experiments are run.

Lesson 2 • Content and Community-Led Growth

Covers organic growth tactics including content marketing, SEO basics, and community building. These lower-cost channels complement paid acquisition and build long-term brand equity.

Lesson 3 • Measuring and Interpreting Traction

Defines traction metrics by business model and teaches cohort analysis for early data sets. Accurate traction measurement informs the scaling decisions covered in later chapters.

Lesson 4 • Positioning and Messaging

Defines the startup's market position relative to alternatives and translates it into clear messaging. Strong positioning makes every downstream marketing and sales effort more efficient.

Lesson 1 • Unit Economics Fundamentals

Defines customer acquisition cost, lifetime value, and payback period as the core health metrics. Unit economics mastery is prerequisite to building credible revenue projections.

Lesson 2 • Cash Flow and Burn Rate Management

Models monthly cash flow, burn rate, and runway to prevent fatal cash shortfalls. Runway awareness directly shapes hiring, spending, and fundraising timing decisions.

Lesson 3 • Startup Valuation Concepts

Introduces pre-money valuation, dilution, and common valuation methods used at early stages. Valuation literacy prevents founders from making costly equity mistakes during fundraising.

Lesson 4 • Scenario Analysis and Sensitivity Testing

Builds base, upside, and downside scenarios to stress-test financial assumptions. Scenario fluency prepares founders for investor due diligence and operational contingency planning.

Lesson 1 • Crafting a Compelling Pitch Deck

Structures a ten-slide narrative that moves investors from problem awareness to conviction. Each slide is evaluated against investor decision criteria covered in this section.

Lesson 2 • Startup Funding Instruments and Sources

Compares bootstrapping, grants, convertible notes, equity rounds, and revenue-based financing. Instrument choice affects control, dilution, and operational flexibility.

Lesson 3 • Term Sheet Negotiation and Closing

Decodes key term sheet provisions—valuation, pro-rata rights, board seats—and negotiation tactics. Students apply these concepts in the chapter's negotiation simulation exercise.

Lesson 4 • Building an Investor Pipeline

Teaches how to identify, research, and prioritise investors by stage, thesis, and portfolio fit. A targeted pipeline improves conversion rates and reduces fundraising time.

Lesson 1 • Building Startup Culture Intentionally

Teaches founders to define, codify, and reinforce culture before it forms by default. Culture becomes a competitive advantage in recruiting and retention as the team grows.

Lesson 2 • Managing Growth and Organisational Change

Addresses the leadership transitions founders face as teams grow from five to fifty people. Proactive change management prevents the dysfunction that derails many scaling startups.

Lesson 3 • Hiring Strategy for Early-Stage Startups

Covers role prioritisation, sourcing, structured interviewing, and offer design for early hires. Each hire at this stage has outsized impact on culture and operational capacity.

Lesson 4 • Operational Systems and Process Design

Introduces lightweight SOPs, OKRs, and tooling stacks that enable coordination without bureaucracy. Operational clarity reduces founder bottlenecks and supports team autonomy.