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Build a Startup from Scratch: the Venture Design Process

Design a tech business from scratch using Founders Factory processes and agile methodologies and learn to pitch to investors

The CPD Certification Service

This course has been certified by the CPD Certification Service as conforming to continuing professional development principles. Find out more.

Develop the core skills you need to create your own backable business venture

This business venture focused course from the Founders Factory will give aspiring entrepreneurs all the skills you need in order to build your own venture-backed, start-up business in a post COVID-19 world, and help upskill in the wake of widespread business collapse.

You’ll demystify the venture building process and will identify the core skills you need in order to come up with and test new venture business ideas from scratch.

Discover the components and lifecycle of venture backable businesses

After an overview of what makes a successful business venture, you’ll then investigate markets ripe for disruption, explore trends suitable for venture design, and come up with areas where your start-up business can flourish.

You’ll then explore how people fit into this process, gathering insights to create something that people want through human-centered design, conducting user interviews and designing surveys.

Using this information, you’ll then generate backable business venture ideas using proven ideation techniques.

Measure the success of your business venture and learn to pitch to investors

You’ll go over your collated ideas, recognising challenges and assumptions early on, and will explore different ‘go to market’ ideas.

You’ll then learn how to validate these assumptions through experiment design and smoke testing, then will learn how to pitch and communicate your ideas effectively in a venture context to potential investors and raise venture capital.

Learn from a team of start-up experts at the Founders Factory

The team at the Founders Factory have created over 60 businesses from scratch, and helped to grow 150 more.

You’ll be guided throughout from a team of start-up experts, experienced in all areas from product and engineering to fundraising and growth.

What topics will you cover?

  • Components and lifecycle of venture backable businesses
  • Researching markets and trends
  • Human-centered design
  • User interviews and surveys
  • Ideation and differentiation
  • Business models and go-to-market strategies
  • How to test and refine your idea
  • Creating pitch decks and pitching

Who is this accredited by?

The CPD Certification Service
The CPD Certification Service:

The CPD Certification Service was established in 1996 and is the leading independent CPD accreditation institution operating across industry sectors to complement the CPD policies of professional and academic bodies.

Learning on this course

On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

  • Describe the lifecycle and components of a top Venture Design business
  • Investigate markets ripe for disruption
  • Explore current trends and focus areas suitable for Venture Design
  • Identify several Focus Areas that combine trends and markets that interest you
  • Explore different customer segments
  • Produce a market map which describes incumbents and challengers, and describes their qualities
  • Identify unmet user needs through various methods for your Focus Areas
  • Apply ideation techniques in a session to generate ideas for you venture
  • Explore how you can flesh out your ideas and learn to differentiate
  • Produce a New Venture Canvas with 3 detailed ideas
  • Produce an assumption map
  • Produce a go-to-market strategy plan
  • Identify issues related to timing in your venture
  • Summarise the ways in which assumptions can be tested and identify which methods are required to test your idea
  • Design a landing page
  • Interpret and assess test results
  • Explain the key components of a successful pitch deck
  • Produce a pitch deck for a concept
  • Assess the quality of a pitch

Who is the course for?

This course is suited to any budding entrepreneurs who are interested in starting their own business or start-up.

This could include current university students, recent graduates, or professionals looking to change their career, upskill or reskill.

Who will you learn with?

Following working in London startups and European digital agencies I now work at Founders Factory. Working as a Venture Designer I design and test new startup ideas everyday.

Who developed the course?

Founders Factory

Founders Factory parter with the world’s best founder and corporates to build, fund and scale ambitious startups worldwide.

  • Established

    2015
  • Location

    London (founding location), Johannesburg, Paris, New York

What's included?

This is a premium course. These courses are designed for professionals from specific industries looking to learn with a smaller group of like-minded individuals.

  • Unlimited access to this course
  • Includes any articles, videos, peer reviews and quizzes
  • Certificate of Achievement to prove your success when you're eligible
  • Download and print your Certificate of Achievement anytime

Still want to know more? Check out our FAQs

Learning on FutureLearn

Your learning, your rules

  • Courses are split into weeks, activities, and steps to help you keep track of your learning
  • Learn through a mix of bite-sized videos, long- and short-form articles, audio, and practical activities
  • Stay motivated by using the Progress page to keep track of your step completion and assessment scores

Join a global classroom

  • Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners
  • Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course
  • Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others

Map your progress

  • As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning
  • Whenever you’re ready, mark each step as complete, you’re in control
  • Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate

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