Technology

Entrepreneurship
Dr. Ferran Giones Valls / Philipp Haessler
WS 21 - Sessions 1
Course Aim

• Equip students with the knowledge of how to view and analyze technologies
• How to identify compelling market opportunities
• Understand how science-based research and technological breakthroughs move
into the market
• Solid theoretical understanding of key concepts on the diffusion of technologies
• Learn practical experience in managing early stage technologies
Some Rules 

• We will be taking attendance each session, so please be on time

• If you cannot attend a session, please let us know in advance. We will not accept no
shows more than once (without excuse). Telling us after the session will also not be
accepted (only in cases of emergency)
• You can ask questions anytime and please do so

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Agenda

Technology Entrepreneurship Introduction I 21.10.2021 15:45 – 17:15

Technology Entrepreneurship Introduction II 28.10.2021 15:45 – 17:15

Recognizing Opportunities and Generating Ideas 04.11.2021 15:45 – 17:15

Technology Presentation 11.11.2021 15:45 – 17:15
IP & How to profit from new technology? 18.11.2021 15:45 – 17:15
FTO Analysis 25.11.2021 15:45 – 17:15

Roads to the Market / Industry Emergence 02.12.2021 15:45 – 17:15

Technology Exadaption 09.12.2021 15:45 – 17:15

Market Opportunity Navigator: Brainstorming 16.12.2021 15:45 – 17:15

Market Opportunity Navigator: Opportunity Identification 13.01.2022 15:45 – 17:15

Industry and Competitor Analysis 20.01.2022 15:45 – 17:15

Financing your Opportunity / Venture 27.01.2022 15:45 – 17:15

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What is Entrepreneurship?

„Entrepreneurship is seen as new combinations, which include the

introduction of new goods, new methods of production, opening
of new markets, new sources of supply, or a new organization“ -
Joseph Schumpeter

„Entrepreneurship is an act of innovation that involves endowing

existing resources with new wealth producing capacity“ – Peter
Drucker

„Entrepreneurship is a way of thinking, reasoning and acting that is

opportunity obsessed, holistic in approach and leadership based.“
– Jeff Timmons

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Common Characteristics of Entrepreneurs

• Spot an opportunity (see a problem)

• Has new idea (find a solution)
• Is an innovator
• Most problems are not new, they are usually still problems because nobody has
found an adequate solution
• Takes well thought out risks
• Creates and builds a business or other enterprise
• Changes the world
• Could be profound or narrow

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Who are Entrepreneurs?

The Entrepreneur DNA – by Ernst & Young

• Passion for the business

• A product/customer focus

• Tenacity despite failure

• Execution intelligence

• Why does the world care?

http://www.bostonec.com/uploads/1/4/0/0/14008812/nature_of_entrepreneurship.pdf

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What is technology?
Division of Products
A product is made up of technologies while technologies are made up of functions

Product X Product

Technology I Technology II Technology X

Function Function
Function I
II X

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What was the first technology?
The first technology
The first technology was fire

How did the first

technology come to be
and how was the
application found?

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How do technologies come to be?
There are sudden and combinatorial technologies

Tech. I Tech. X

Sudden Combinatorial
technologies technologies

first Almost all

prin- electr technologies
fire air-
ting icty are
plane
combinations

Brian W. Arthur (2011) The Nature of Technology: What it is and How it Evolves

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Finding applications
Functions and applications are found through observation, combination and experimentation

observation

Application
Tech-
nology combination Functions (market,
product)

experimentation

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The example of fire
Observation, combination and experimentation leads to the functions of fire

observation combination experimentation

transferable to
warmth hurts light
other objects

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Functions to products
Which functions are taken into account determine the product

Functions Products

warmth

Fireplace

hurts

Weapon

light

Protection
transferable
to other
objects

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Thinking about products
Thinking about functions helps in identifiying opportunities

Usually when a technology is developed a future application is already in mind

(future product, use case), i.e. the inventor designs their technology so that there is
a primary function that is fulfilled

Some functions or technologies need others to work well, e.g. our example fire or
GPS

Thinking in functions may open up new possibilities for the technology and detail
dependencies or technologies needed!

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Types of technologies
There are multiple ways to classify technologies

principal enabling

product process

Production
proprietary generic/GPT infratechnologies
technologies

emerging

Relatively fast Large degree of Longer period of

Radical novelty Prominent impact
growth uncertainty coherence

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Types of innovations
Innovations are categorized according to their impact

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Determinants of technology acceptance
Technology acceptance depends on complexity and functionality

Complexity Functionality
• Crucial in technological development • Link between complexity and the user
and economic success needs
• Technologies become more complex • Law of ideality – technologies evolve
over time  combinatorial following a law of ideality 
technologies maximization of the ratio between
• Complex technologies thus have more useful functions and non-useful
functions • The selection of the dominant
functions make up the functionality of
• Complexity requires more R&D, more
the overall technology
cooperation, concentrated in space
Broekel, Tom (2017). Measuring technological complexity – Current approaches and a new measure of structural complexity.

Apreda, R.; Bonaccorsi, A.; Dell‘Orletta, F.; Fantoni, G. (2016). Functional technology foresight. A novel methdology to identify emerging technologies

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Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)

Functionality

Complexity

Complexity

Functionality
Davis, F. (1985), A technology acceptance model for empirically testing new end-user information systems - theory and results, PhD thesis, Massachusetts Inst. of Technology.

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