Final-year executive MBA students taking the entrepreneurship and innovation elective at the University of Malta re­cently completed feasibility analysis projects for start-up business ideas or concepts. The concepts included convenience-oriented and health-related services, tech-based solutions and specialist consulting, as well as products and retail ideas.

Several of this year’s MBA cohort, which includes international students from Britain, Canada, Finland and Hungary, are looking into the prospects of taking their ideas further. One of these is MaltaShaveClub.com, which is currently kick-starting their start-up with a crowdfunding campaign in collaboration with Zaar. Details may be viewed at the link below.

The project teams also had the opportunity to stress-test and present their early-stage ideas to a panel of professionals and entrepreneurs

The club is being billed as Malta’s first shaving blade subscription service. The club’s founders, Joonas Karhu and Stan Filin, said their internationally proven business model brings convenience and cost-savings to local shavers via a shaving kit and quality razors that can be regularly delivered for free to anywhere in Malta and Gozo when needed, and costs up to 50 per cent less than buying them from typical supermarkets or shops.

All the business start-up feasibility projects form an integral part of the elective of the executive MBA run by the University’s Faculty of Economics, Management and Accountancy. During the team-based pro­jects the final-year students spend a semester compiling a full feasibility report and deliver a presentation pitch, including working prototypes and live demos, under the guidance of Dr Nathaniel Massa, a senior lecturer in management at the faculty.

In the process, they engage in extensive research – in various instances conducting surveys, focus groups and leveraging contacts and networks, including technical expertise – in order to assess product, market, organisational and financial feasibility, as well as a competitor analysis, for their business start-up concepts.

During the semester, the project teams also had the opportunity to stress-test and present their early-stage ideas at a Global Entrepreneurship Week event to a panel of professionals and entrepreneurs associated with mentoring, foresight and creativity, knowledge management and IP, crowdfunding, and business consulting.

The week formed part of a broader international network spanning 170 countries organised by the Kauffman Foundation, locally hosted by the Edward Debono Institute at the University of Malta.

www.zaar.com.mt/projects/maltashaveclub

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