There’s an app for that — teaching discovery driven planning in the entrepreneurship curriculum

I’m often asked whether it is possible to teach entrepreneurship — or more importantly — having an entrepreneurial mindset. Well, I can’t teach you passion or hard work. What I can teach you is how to de-risk projects and how to build the right kind of plan.

Fascination with entrepreneurship education

While it’s hard to remember these days, there was a time when entrepreneurship education was seen as a niche offering for a small audience. My mentor and co-author Ian MacMillan is widely regarded as having laid much of the groundwork for the burgeoning field, with the creation of the global entrepreneurship network, founding of the journal Journal of Business Venturing, creation of the first truly global database studying cross-cultural aspects of entrepreneurship and among the first empirical research in the field.

Since then, interest in entrepreneurship education has exploded. As Heidi Neck points out, the topic of starting a new venture has gone way beyond business schools to becoming incorporated in degrees in the arts, public sector and many other places.

But that much being said, teaching entrepreneurship is tricky. Although instructors are often quite comfortable with conventional business plans and pitch decks, these are often not the most fruitful way for students to learn how to build a new venture.