Cause and goal of the project
The reason for starting this project was that the project leader perceived a lack of high-quality business cases on fundraising activities for startups to teach Entrepreneurial Finance students. He therefore wanted to build good cases that could be of use at the Tilburg School of Economics and Management, but also at other institutions.
Plan and method
The project leader used state-of-the-art business case writing techniques, informed by literature on business case writing. Though, mostly he relied on his experience as lecturer in Entrepreneurial Finance in many countries. The project leader chose two cases that illustrate how financing contracts can be structured so as to allow a start-up to experiment and grow also in the face of uncertain, and sometimes adverse, events.
Evaluation and results
As the project leader used the cases in his course still in draft form, the evaluation was informal and mostly consisted of written and oral feedback from students. These students used the cases in class and helped the project leader with their comments to improve the clarity of the write-up.
The most important results of the project were naturally the cases themselves. Those wishing to replicate this innovation can contact the project leader to obtain the cases and teaching notes.
The main challenges were due to convincing companies and case protagonists to share details of their experiences, because of confidentiality. This took time and effort in terms of assuaging the concerns of the companies about which information would be disclosed.
A couple of factors were important in securing the aims of the innovation. For example, having a network was an important factor. This made the search for suitable companies to be analysed possible. Other factors for success concern having a supportive and helpful organization and the financial contribution. The latter made it possible to be freed from teaching activities and to spend that time on the innovation.
Prospects for continuation and/or expansion
The project leader plans to continue writing more cases, probably one a year as they are quite time consuming. He already sees an opportunity in the further fundraising activities of one of the companies that was object of a case.
The cases and teaching notes are available to university instructors who would like to use them in class. They can contact the project leader so he can track of who is using the cases and notes. The project leader can also obtain feedback for drafting future cases, as well as keeping interested university instructors aware of any future cases that will be written. This will help build a community of high-quality case users that may help improve teaching practices at Dutch universities.
Literature
- Deighton, J. (2011). The Case Method of Instruction, Course Overview Note. Harvard Business School Marketing Unit Case, (512-027).
- Ellet, W. (2018). The case study handbook, revised edition: A student's guide. Harvard Business Press.
