How Startups Are Created

Digital and sustainable: this is how new entrepreneurship in the 21st century must be. And so from today, Gianmario Verona, Rector of Bocconi, and Federico Marchetti, founder of the first Italian unicorn, YOOX, and Alumnus of the year 2014, teach it to Master of Science students.

The course, Creating a start up in the digital and sustainable economy, will give students the step-by-step tools for the "things to do" to create and grow a new business.

With the insights of venture capitalists and successful entrepreneurs, it will specifically focus on the two megatrends that characterize today's entrepreneurship: digital innovation and environmental and social sustainability. Students will be asked to actively participate in class discussions and will engage in an innovation challenge that offers a tangible perspective on the alternative choices that entrepreneurs face when creating and executing a business model.

"The creation and development of startups is an important issue for Bocconi, as our accelerator B4i also demonstrates", explains Verona. "We are facing the fourth industrial revolution based on digital, and these are crucial years, as shown by the investments planned by the Next Generation EU Fund and the PNRR. The idea is to bring together academia and experience, teaching with an innovative method. For class the students will arrive already prepared, in the classroom they will get deeper into the topics."

"Bocconi has given me so much, it is time to give back," says Marchetti, who is a Bocconi professor of practice. "After 20 years of career I felt it was right to teach young people how to make a start-up: it is the most concrete thing I can do to help them".