Postgraduate Course: CodeBase: Playbooks for Building Startups (EFIE11500)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh Futures Institute |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course introduces students to startup thinking, innovation, and entrepreneurship through a practical, playbook-driven approach. Designed for students with early-stage startup ideas or those just beginning the ideation process the course focuses on turning raw ideas into sustainable, scalable ventures. Rather than treating entrepreneurship as a purely theoretical exercise, students learn to view startups as experiments under uncertainty, where assumptions must be tested through real-world feedback.
The course emphasises three core goals. First, it helps students translate ideas into viable businesses by developing strong value propositions, understanding users, testing solutions through prototypes or minimum viable products, and iterating based on evidence. Second, it breaks down barriers to the startup world by demystifying the language, tools, and norms of tech entrepreneurship, enabling students from any background to engage confidently. Third, it shares widely used frameworks and toolkits for product and service innovation, including customer discovery, business model design, experimentation, and storytelling.
Through workshops, case discussions, and applied exercises, students build entrepreneurial resilience, learn to navigate rapid change, and develop the skills needed to respond creatively in uncertain and fast-moving environments. |
| Course description |
The course will introduce the principles of startup culture through a series of pre-recorded videos from CodeBase member companies and entrepreneurs who have experience building and scaling startups, alongside selected articles and supporting resources. Content will emphasise how startups identify opportunities, test assumptions, and design scalable business models.
Discussion boards will be available throughout to support students in engaging with core concepts, demystifying startup terminology, and preparing for teaching activities.
Students will work in teams to explore an opportunity for innovation based on the course Challenge Theme. Teaching will combine short lectures with applied workshops, enabling students to engage critically with theory while applying entrepreneurial frameworks to real-world startup scenarios.
The four sessions will cover core startup concepts:
Introduction to Startups & Tech Solution Ideation:
This session introduces the role startups play in modern economies, how they innovate, what differentiates them from other organisations, and why many startups fail. Through applied workshops, students focus on identifying and scoping strong, scalable problems using ideation techniques, Jobs To Be Done theory, and business model frameworks, defining a problem space to explore throughout the course.
Understanding Markets & Product Discovery:
This session introduces markets and market research, including market sizing (TAM, SAM, SOM) and market types. Students will consider how markets differ across regions and where opportunities for scale may exist.
Product discovery and solution validation will be explored through customer interviewing techniques, insight synthesis, and lean solution experimentation to test business ideas with real potential customers.
Business Models & Go-To-Market Strategy
In this session, teams will work on exploring their business model on one sheet of paper and consider how to build a scalable startup as it grows. Students will also examine how go-to-market strategies are designed, including early customer acquisition, channel selection, and traction metrics.
Startup Financing & Pitching:
This final session introduces how financing choices shape startup strategy and growth trajectories.
Pitching is introduced as a core entrepreneurial skill, focusing on the development of compelling startup narratives that adapt to different audiences while maintaining a consistent vision. Applied pitching activities support students in practising clear communication and storytelling skills, becoming ready to pitch their hypothetical idea to a variety of stakeholders.
Following the course, students will complete summative assessments that reflect real-world startup practice. All students will submit an individual written coursework component focused on a selected aspect of the course, demonstrating critical insight and reflective engagement. In addition, all students will complete a mandatory recorded pitch submission, consisting of a short pitch presentation and a supporting slide deck. Assessment prioritises evidence-based reasoning, practical application, and critical reflection rather than the success of the startup idea itself.
This course is created and delivered by CodeBase. CodeBase is a tech ecosystem support organisation that has supported over 500 startups and scaleups, which have collectively raised over £4 billion. CodeBase provides workspace for startups to grow, delivers expert educational programmes and industry accelerators, and fosters connection through mentorship, events, and meetups. Launched in Edinburgh in 2014, further hubs opened in Stirling in 2017 and Aberdeen in 2019, alongside pop-up hubs across the UK. CodeBase now supports startups across 37 hubs nationwide and delivers the Scottish Government's Techscaler platform for supporting tech startups across Scotland.
Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) - Hybrid Course Delivery Information:
The Edinburgh Futures Institute delivers many of its courses in hybrid mode. This means that you may have some online students joining sessions for this course. To enable this, the course will use technologies to record and live-stream student and staff participation during their teaching and learning activities.
Students should be aware that:
- Classrooms used in this course will have additional technology in place: in some cases, students might not be able to sit in areas away from microphones or outside the field of view of all cameras.
- All presentations, and whole class discussions will be recorded (see the Lecture Recording and Virtual Classroom policies for more details).
You will need access to a personal computing device for this course. Most activities will take place in a web browser, unless otherwise stated. We recommend using a device with a screen, a physical keyboard, and internet access.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2026/27, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 30 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 12,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 8,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
The course will be assessed by means of the following components:
1) Individual Report (70%)
A 1,000 word critically reflective report on one core concept (markets, product discovery, business models, or startup financing), demonstrating analytical insight and application to an early-stage venture.
Learning Outcomes Assessed by Component: 1, 2, 3, 4
2) Recorded Investor Pitch (30%)
A 3-5 minute recorded pitch supported by a structured slide deck, accompanied by a written investor briefing paper (1,000 words + 200-word critical reflection).
Learning Outcomes Assessed by Component: 5 |
| Feedback |
Feedback on any formative assessment may be provided in various formats, for example, to include written, oral, video, face-to-face, whole class, or individual. The Course Organiser will decide which format is most appropriate in relation to the nature of the assessment.
Feedback on both formative and summative in-course assessed work will be provided in time to be of use in subsequent assessments within the course.
Feedback on the summative assessment(s) will be provided in written form via Learn, the University of Edinburgh's Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).
Formative Feedback Opportunity:
Formative feedback is ongoing feedback which monitors learning and is intended to improve performance in the same course, in future courses, and also beyond study.
Following the presentation of the pitch decks, tutors and peers will provide instant feedback that highlight strengths and weaknesses in the ideas.
Groups will be formed around each of the core concepts associated with the development of new products and services: markets, Jobs To Be Done, Build-Measure-Learn and business models/ investment. These groups will provide peer support and feedback toward the production of the final individual summative submission.
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| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate a critical understanding for the principal theories, concepts and principles within start-up culture.
- Critically review, consolidate and extend knowledge and thinking across an aspect of entrepreneurship derived from exposure to 'real world' start-up companies.
- Communicate with peers, more senior colleagues and specialists, using key terminology to explain a core concept within start-up culture.
- Demonstrate the ability to explain with coherence and critical insight the opportunities and limitations that a particular concept will allow a start-up company to succeed.
- Demonstrate the ability to communicate a coherent and critically informed investor pitch, including the opportunity and the limitations associated with your early-stage venture.
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Reading List
Indicative Reading List:
Essential Reading:
Article: Why is Software Eating the World, Mark Andreessen; 2011. Web link: https://a16z.com/why-software-is-eating-the-world/
Article: What is a startup?, Ries, Eric; 2010. Web link: http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2010/06/what-is-startup.html
Article: How to Think for Yourself, Paul Graham; 2020. Web link: http://paulgraham.com/think.html
Article: Do Things that Don't Scale, Paul Graham; 2013. Web link: http://paulgraham.com/ds.html
Article: The Soul of a Start-Up, Ranjay Gulati; 2019. Web link: https://hbr.org/2019/07/the-soul-of-a-start-up
Recommended Reading:
The Lean Startup; Eric Reis; Board Book; 2011.
Disciplined entrepreneurship: 24 steps to a successful startup; Bill Aulet. Hoboken, NJ : Wiley; 2013.
The Startup Playbook: Secrets of the Fastest-Growing Startups from their Founding Entrepreneurs; David S. Kidder. Chronicle Books LLC; 2012.
Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value; Teresa Torres. Product Talk LLC.
Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It; April Dunford. London: Ambient Press.
Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works; Ash Maurya. London, O'Reilly Media, 2012.
The Lean Product Playbook; Olsen, Dan. Wiley, 2015.
Further Paul Graham essays: http://paulgraham.com/articles.html
Further Reading:
This Is Service Design Methods: A Companion to This Is Service Design Doing / Marc Stinkdorn and Markus Edgar Hormess. London, O'Reilly, 2018.
Sense & respond: how successful organisations listen to customers and create new products continuously. Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden. American Library Association CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, 2017-06-01, Vol.54 (10), p.1541.
The hard thing about hard things: building a business when there are no easy answers / Ben Horowitz. Horowitz, Ben, author. HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY; 2014.
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an eternal golden braid / Douglas R. Hofstadter. Hofstadter, Douglas R., 1945-London: Penguin; 2000.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | CodeBase,Tech Startup,Entrepreneurship,PG,Level 11,EFI,Startups,Business |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Alessandro Rosiello
Tel: (0131 6)50 8246
Email: Alessandro.Rosiello@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mr David Murphy
Tel:
Email: dmurphy7@ed.ac.uk |
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