Course Impressions

The Kickbox program pushes aspiring entrepreneurs to validate key assumptions of their idea and iterative through different prototype stages to collect market feedback toward a sustainable business model.

In addition, David and his team always make sure that several of the course sessions take place at different locations in the Zurich startup scene, where our students were able to meet experts and serial entrepreneurs.

There was no excuse to not make signifcant progress from idea to start-up...

Course Projects

Typically, students enter the course with or without concrete business ideas. Teams get formed around project leaders who come with a more or less developed business concept. The wide variety of starting ideas reflected the diversity in academic background at ETH. Ideas, for example, range from a noise level monitoring system for intensive care nurseries, to tech-enhanced cooking/kitchen applications, peer-to-peer car insurance, or e-learning concepts for novice piano players.

Project “champions” team up with motivated peers to work together on bringing realism to their concepts. During the semester, team members and invited experts challenged core project assumptions and probe the receptiveness of potential customers. These inputs then help the teams to refine their business model, especially pinpointing their target markets and value proposition.

By the end of the course, several teams had undergone substantial pivots. Most teams reach functional websites with demos of their MVP (Minimum Viable Product), and some even manage to test beta versions with their launch customers and secure funding for further development.