Venture Catalyst Masterclass: Building and Scaling Your Business
Type
Workshop
Location
Geneva, Switzerland
Date
-
Price
$3,000.00
Event Focal Point Email
pft-elearning@unitar.org
Registration
Public – by registration
Mode of Delivery
Face-to-Face
Language(s)
English
Pillar
Prosperity
Data Protection and Privacy
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Entrepreneurship is a very important set of emerging career skills, resulting in growing businesses that can positively impact the world. New startup businesses are engines of economic growth, creating jobs. Existing companies that adopt intrapreneur practices create better products for their portfolio, continuing company growth. Social entrepreneurs can apply business practices to create a social business, where products or services solve a social problem, and profits are reinvested to scale the solution. Entrepreneurial skills are becoming more important with the advent of new technologies. Technology may be applied to the entrepreneurial process, and technology also can help create new disruptive products and services that truly change the world. Learn and practice the foundations of entrepreneurism in this masterclass workshop.
A Partnership with The City University of Seattle
This programme is collaboratively developed and delivered, with accreditation from The City University of Seattle. Participants who successfully complete the programme can apply their continuing education credits toward other university programmes.
This event will be facilitated by Dr. Michael Fors
Michael A. Fors is Dean of the School of Business and Management at City University. He is also chairman of the Board at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research’s Prosperity Division, leading United Nations programs for post conflict and developing nations.
Dr. Fors has led workforce development for Boeing, ensuring skills exist to accomplish strategies. Before Boeing, he was an Executive Leader at Microsoft. Michael led a P&L comprised of 350 ex-CIO consultants who digitally transformed Microsoft customers, led business strategy and product development teams and initiatives, and led an internal consulting team that worked with divisional presidents to improve Windows, Xbox, and Office businesses. Before Microsoft, Dr. Fors served as the Executive Leader of Intel University. He is an adjunct professor at Stanford University, Columbia University, and the University of Washington, teaching innovation, entrepreneurship, the future of work, and leadership/executive development.
Dr. Fors has been a representative of the World Economic Forum, the Global Engineering Deans’ Council, ReWork America, & the International Federation of Engineering Education Societies.
At the end of the workshop, participants should be able to:
- Identify a venture market opportunity and define a product or service that meets customer or constituent needs
- Develop a venture plan, with detailed features for your product or service, solid financials, and an innovative marketing and sales plan
- Describe how entrepreneurship works in for-profit organizations, for existing companies who want to develop next products (intrapreneurship), and for social businesses that apply business principles to solve social problems
- Pitch your venture plan to a panel of experts to receive constructive feedback that will make your planned business stronger.
The 5-day in-person event will include the following results-oriented sessions:
DAY 1 – Foundations of Entrepreneurship
- Session 1 – Purpose Mindset
This session will explore your personal strengths, values, and resulting purpose in life. This will help you align your priorities, time, and achievements to what you care most about. Your personal purpose will carry you forward after the workshop. Your team will then create a team purpose for the week. - Session 2 – Your Preferred Workstyle
This segment will help you to see your preferred work style. You will learn how to work better with others, and how they can best work with you. Your team will assess its workstyle composition, to examine its strengths and weaknesses. After the workshop, you can use the workstyles to help you and your work teams in the future. - Session 3 – Team Development
In this session, you will learn how to create a high-performing team. You will practice high performance in your workshop team, and how you plan to work together for the week through the creation of a team charter. You will then be able to use these skills to develop high-performing teams in the future.
DAY 2 – Creating Your Venture Plan: Market Opportunity and Product/Service
- Session 4, 5 & 6 – Market Opportunity & Team Working Session
This session will address how to use AI to find a market opportunity, determine its size, and the portion of the market your venture will capture. You will identify the customer's pain or need that you could solve by addressing the problem. Determining how a potential product or service could scale to meet this opportunity will be key. You will document the expertise of your team members, and why they are uniquely qualified to go after this opportunity. Your team will work together on the market opportunity section to begin building your venture plan. - Session 7, 8, & 9 – Product/Service, Prioritized Features & Team Working Session
Participants will use AI to research and design a product or service that meets the defined customer or constituent needs, aligned to the opportunity. You will reinforce the burning need for your product, and how it uniquely satisfies the customer. Prioritizing features will be a key part of the initial design, especially the use of new technologies and the level of research/development needed. Participants will provide a schematic or diagram of their product/service. You will identify competitors and define how your product is differentiated in the market. Your team will include this section as part of their venture plan they are building throughout the week.
DAY 3 – Creating Your Venture Plan: Financials and Sales and Marketing Plan
- Session 10, 11 & 12 – Financials & Team Working Session
You will work in groups to outline the venture's financials. This will include your business model (how you make money), revenue, operating expenses, cash flow, when you expect to break even and turn a profit, a 5-year financial projection, and how you intend to finance the venture. - Session 13, 14, & 15 – Go to Market & Working Session
In this session, you become very clear on how you will attract customers or constituents and market and sell their product/service. You will identify the first customers and how to scale to other customer groups. You will determine how much customers are willing to pay. You will create a plan to acquire customers, remain connected to customers, and retain them.
DAY 4 – Creating Your Venture Plan: Pulling it All Together in A Pitch
- Session 16, 17, 18 – Building a Pitch
Whether looking to raise money or not, pitching the overall venture plan developed throughout the week to a panel of experts and investors helps you learn how to improve as an entrepreneur. In these sessions, you will pull together all of your team’s work from the week in the form of an expert pitch, with the help of mentors and coaches.
DAY 5 – The Crescendo: Pitches, Constructive Feedback, Awards, and Graduation
- Session 19 and 20 – Pitching, constructive feedback, awards, and graduation
You will pitch your venture plan with your team. A panel of experts will grade your pitch with a checklist. They will provide constructive feedback so that you may improve as a team and individuals. Panelist scores will be tallied, and awards will be provided for the best pitches. After the pitch competition, there will be a graduation ceremony, where you will be awarded a certificate.
The workshop leverages best practices from Fortune 50 companies, start-up incubators, and Silicon Valley in California, the perennial hotbed for entrepreneurism. We will use a mixture of teaching approaches including the use of case studies, classroom discussions, and team and individual projects. Participants will have an opportunity for team and individual coaching as they develop a venture plan for their team, for their individual business needs, and for gaining key competencies that will carry them forward in their careers.
The target audience includes anyone interested in entrepreneurship, including start-up entrepreneurs, company product development individuals (intrapreneurs), social entrepreneurs, non-profit leaders, government officials, ministers, diplomats, decision-makers, multi-lateral development organization leaders, university professors and faculty, and others who aim to learn about and understand the current state of entrepreneurism.
A certificate of completion will be awarded by UNITAR to all participants who successfully fulfill the workshop-related assignments and assessments.
Training Fee: The fee is 3,000 USD per person (excluding bank transfer fees) and includes tuition, lunches, and course materials.
Venue: The masterclass will be held at UNITAR Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
Travel Arrangements: Participants are kindly requested to arrange their own travel, including flights, accommodation, insurance, and visa (if required). While UNITAR is unable to assist with travel logistics, we encourage early planning to ensure a smooth experience.
Cancellation, Refund, and No-Show Policy: The course fee is non-refundable but transferrable to another course or participant and subject to change as per UNITAR's policy on pricing. In the rare event that UNITAR reschedules or cancels the event, a full refund will be issued. However, please note that UNITAR cannot cover any travel or accommodation expenses incurred. Participants who do not attend the Masterclass (no-shows) will not be eligible for a refund.
Visa and Insurance: Participants may require a visa to enter Switzerland. As visa processing times may vary, we recommend applying well in advance. Please note that UNITAR cannot intervene in the visa process, and completing payment does not guarantee visa approval. Additionally, UNITAR does not cover participants' medical and life insurance. Given Switzerland's high healthcare costs, participants are strongly encouraged to obtain valid medical insurance for the duration of their stay.
We look forward to welcoming you to this enriching learning experience in Geneva!