HTE405BKK
Market Validation
Faculty
Eugene Noh
Strategic Advisor at KAIST Holdings
Course length
Duration
Total hours
Credits
Language
Course type
Fee for single course
Fee for degree students
Skills you’ll learn
Overview
This course will guide you through a systematic, evidence-based approach to validating your startup idea.
Drawing on Steve Blank’s Customer Discovery approach, teams will use the Business Model Canvas (BMC) to articulate their business hypotheses, then interview potential customers and partners to test them using open-ended, non-leading questions. Through an iterative process, teams will refine their hypotheses and BMC, presenting their lessons learned across several cycles throughout the module. By the end, each team should have a clearer understanding of customers’ biggest problems, what an attractive product or service might look like, and whether they can develop a repeatable, scalable business model.
Learning highlights
- The overall goal is for each student to develop the mindset and skills needed to take an evidence-based approach to starting a company or launching a product.
- The first set of key skills will sharpen your thinking about your business model and initial target customers. These include identifying customer segments that may be early adopters, developing sharp, quantitative value propositions that go beyond simply articulating product features, and modelling startup economics to test financial viability.
- The second set of key skills will equip you with the soft skills needed to surface insights from customer interactions. These include interviewing potential customers without pitching your product or introducing confirmation bias, increasing the quality and quantity of insights from customer interviews, and crafting initial messages to potential customers to increase their willingness to meet with you.
Course outline
15 classes
Session 1
Intro to Customer Discovery.
Value Propositions + Customer Segments.
Session 2
Identifying Potential Early Adopters.
How to Get and Do Interviews.
Session 3
Developing Good Questions.
Practice Interviews.
Session 4
1:1 Sessions with Teams.
Session 5
Conducting Interviews.
Session 6
1st Team Presentations.
Session 7
Channels .
Customer Relationships.
Session 8
Revenue Streams.
Session 9
1:1 Sessions with Teams.
Session 10
Conducting Interviews.
Session 11
2nd Team Presentations on Interviews.
Session 12
Key Partners.
Session 13
Key Activities, Key Resources, and Costs.
Session 14
1:1 Sessions with Teams.
Session 15
Final Presentations.
Prerequisites
You need to have a business idea to take through the course. It can be an existing or new idea, but it should be meaningful enough that you are willing to commit three weeks to exploring and advancing it. At the same time, it should be an idea you are not married to — you must be willing to pivot significantly or even abandon it based on the evidence.
If you already have a team, it would be ideal to take this course together. If not, it is very likely that you will approach your startup in a completely different way from your teammates after the course.
If you do not have a business idea, you will need to join a team that does.
Methodology
A combination of lecture and class exercises to teach the core tools and skills. Teams will present regularly on their learning from customer interviews.
The real work will be done outside the classroom in getting and conducting customer interviews, with the target being 25 total customer interviews during the course. So you need to be ready to hustle!
There is no course project. There is a final presentation which is a summary of your cumulative learning over the course.
Grading
Apply for this course
Market Validation
by Eugene Noh
Total hours
45 Hours
Dates
Nov 09 - Nov 27, 2026
Fee for single course
€1500
Fee for degree students
€750
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
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