UW414
Adventure Capitalism
Faculty
Ivan Yamshchikov
Professor at THWS, co-founder and CPO of Pleias
Course length
Duration
Total hours
Credits
Language
Course type
Fee for single course
Fee for degree students
Skills you’ll learn
Overview
In this course, students will learn the basic principles of technological entrepreneurship.
- Students will be able to create a Minimal Viable Prototype (MVP) by applying principles of paper prototyping.
- Students will be able to create and implement a customer development pipeline and will be able to evaluate a product’s market fit and unit economics.
- Students will be able to create a pitch deck for their project from scratch, evaluate the quality of the early-stage venture capital, and implement a fundraising plan.
- Students will be able to understand the overall properties of venture capital markets.
Learning highlights
- Statistical properties of venture capital markets
- Concept of a Paper Prototype
- Structure of the customer-development pipeline
- Product market fit
- Learn the principles of pitch deck creation.
- Have a chance to get funding and start their company.
Course outline
13 classes
Session 1
What is Venture Capital?
VC and Technology.
Session 2
Why is Technology not a Product?
Product Market Fit.
Session 3
Customer Development. LLM as market research tools.
Session 4
Tinkering session.
Session 5
First shark tank.
Looking for Product Market Fit.
Session 6
Pitch Deck.
Session 7
Unit Economics.
Session 8
Tinkering session.
Session 9
Tinkering session.
Session 10
Second shark tank.
Plausible deniability.
Session 11
Tinkering session.
Session 12
Tinkering session.
Session 13
Third shark tank.
Roadshow.
Course materials
Books
Prerequisites
-
Methodology
Lectures, individual exercises, group presentations, and group projects at the end of the course. Every week we have lectures accompanied by in-class exercises and project work in groups. We finish every week with a shark-tank event with feedback from external “sharks” who are VCs or founders.
Grading
Prof. Dr Ivan Yamshchikov worked as a data analyst at Yandex for six years, was an artificial intelligence evangelist at ABBYY for three years, and a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig for four years. Ivan is the author of a number of scientific publications presented at leading conferences in natural language processing. He founded the LEYA Laboratory for Natural Language Processing at the Higher School of Economics in St Petersburg.
He is currently a professor at the Technical University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt, where he leads the AI Institute CAIRO.THWS. Ivan is also a co-founder and CPO of the Paris-based Frontier AI Lab Pleias and an adviser to several start-ups.
See full profileApply for this course
Adventure Capitalism
by Ivan Yamshchikov
Total hours
39 Hours
Dates
Jul 20 - Aug 05, 2026
Fee for single course
€1500
Fee for degree students
€750
Web Application Development
Jun 12 - Jun 30, 2023
Andrey Martynenko
Software Engineer at Google
How to secure your spot
Complete the form below to kickstart your application
Schedule your Harbour.Space interview
If successful, get ready to join us on campus
FAQ
Will I receive a certificate after completion?
Yes. Upon completion of the course, you will receive a certificate signed by the director of the program your course belonged to.
Do I need a visa?
This depends on your case. Please check with the Spanish or Thai consulate in your country of residence about visa requirements. We will do our part to provide you with the necessary documents, such as the Certificate of Enrollment.
Can I get a discount?
Yes. The easiest way to enroll in a course at a discounted price is to register for multiple courses. Registering for multiple courses will reduce the cost per individual course. Please ask the Admissions Office for more information about the other kinds of discounts we offer and what you can do to receive one.