Entrepreneurship: From Business Idea to Action (FutureLearn)

You’ll develop yourself as an entrepreneur by learning how to approach key stages of entrepreneurship, from coming up with a business idea to writing a business plan.

Using case studies of local businesses and entrepreneurship in the MENA region, you’ll learn how to apply business concepts and ideas to different contexts.

You’ll also practice pitching your business ideas and learn about developing your enterprise within an entrepreneurship ecosystem.

What topics will you cover?

- How to understand yourself as an entrepreneur, and create a self-development plan

- Sources of business ideas and inspiration

- The business idea and how to develop it, including: the business model canvas; the minimum viable product; the value of having a mentor; resource requirements; raising finance

- Pitching skills and tips; communication and language skills

- The Entrepreneurial Ecosystem, including leadership and management; using feedback for development; family business models; working in a team; customer service; networking’ marketing basics.

- Putting plans into action: the action plan, thinking long term about your enterprise and using resources for continuous development.

What will you achieve?

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

- Explain the different characteristics of an entrepreneur

- Describe how you have come to know yourself better, and the role that you and your enterprise can play in wider society

- Develop ideas from many different sources of inspiration and decide on a suitable idea to take forward to develop for this course

- Improve an entrepreneurial idea to express more detail, including your business structure, target customer, and resource requirements

- Summarise your own vision and mission statement for your enterprise

- Identify how you might raise finance to develop your enterprise and develop your pitching skills to acquire finance and/or sales

- Explore your own action plan for the future, thinking about the importance of short term and longer future planning. Test your idea as a minimum viable product

- Produce your own self-development plan. Recognise, appreciate, and apply many different forms of feedback and resources in your entrepreneurial journey

Who is the course for?

This course is designed for refugees, displaced people and the communities supporting them in the MENA (Middle East and Northern Africa) region who wish to study an entrepreneurship or business related course at a university in English.

It has been created as part of the PADILEIA project, which aims to increase access to higher education and employment.

This course will also be of interest to anyone looking to start their own business and develop their knowledge of entrepreneurship.

It will be helpful for those looking to improve their English language vocabulary and communication skills in a business setting.

We recommend learners have a minimum of CEFR B1 (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) to get the most from this course.