15.

S09 Fintech Ventures

MIT

Fall 2015

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

15.S09 FINTECH VENTURES
Fall 2015 H2 6 units (2-0-4)
COURSE SYLLABUS
Course Meeting Times and Locations
15.S09 Tuesday, 5:30 7:30pm, 32-XXX (MIT Stata Center)
H2 Course, classes start October 27th
Requirements
The faculty strongly recommends the concepts and skills developed in 15.401 Finance Theory I, 15.402
Finance Theory II and 15.390 New Enterprises. Proven experience in finance, entrepreneurship and startups may allow exceptions.
This course places a strong emphasis on presentation and discussion skills. It will be important for you to
explain your positions or arguments to each other and to try to argue for the implementation of your
recommendations.
Course Overview
High margins, underserved customers, and accumulated inefficiencies have made the financial services
industry a perfect target for entrepreneurs and innovators. And digital technology has given the very
necessary power to their punch. Dozens of digital disruptors are giving consumers and companies
cheaper, better, or entirely new ways to manage their financial lives. And the change is not also affecting
the way the financial services industry interacts with clients because technology also promises to change
the way the commercial and back-office backbone of incumbents (banks and financial institutions) work.
Fintech Ventures is the class where students will work to capture opportunities in this space. MIT
leverages its unique position to create a class of multidisciplinary teams (Business, Law, Computer Science
and Operations) that can use their combined skill-set and networks to build the next generation of Fintech
Ventures.
This is an advance entrepreneurship class that is sector focused to go beyond general entrepreneurship
concepts and do a deeper dive on the special challenges in the Financial Services industry and how to best
address them. Student will learn through a mix of lectures, cases, guest speakers and exercises while
building their own team projects. Teams will be formed during the first three weeks of the class.
Throughout the remainder of the semester, each team will work together to create a new business plan.
Lectures will focus both on the how-tos of starting a new venture and the unique challenges faced by
Fintech startups.
The class is application-only, and all students should come ready to actively engage. Entrepreneurship is
not a spectator sport.
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MIT

15.S09 Fintech Ventures

Fall 2015

Required Materials
-

Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup (Wiley, 1st Edition), William Aulet, ISBN
1118692284
The Future of Finance. Part 1, 2 and 3, Goldman Sachs Equity Research
The Future of Financial Services, World Economic Forum

Suggested Readings
-

Next Generation Finance: Adapting the financial services industry to changes in technology,
regulation and consumer behavior, Paul D. Stallard, Robert Lempka
Breaking Banks The Innovators, Rogues and Strategists, Brett King
The 50 Best Fintech Innovator Report, KPMG, AWI Limited
The Fintech 2.0 paper, Santander Innoventures

Instructors
Bill Aulet
Senior Lecturer & MD of the Trust Center
MIT Office: E40-160
Tel: (617) 253-2473
Email: aulet@mit.edu
Antoinette Schoar
Michael M. Koerner (1949) Professor of Entrepreneurship and a Professor of Finance
MIT Office: E62-638
Tel: (617) 253-3763
Email: aschoar@mit.edu
Teaching Assistant
Borja Moreno
Tel: (857) 209-1300
Email: bmoreno@mit.edu
Additional Advisory Resources Available
For information on the 24 steps, please refer to http://www.detoolbox.com.
We also strongly encourage you to take advantage of the Entrepreneurs In Residence (EIR) program
available through the Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship. For more information and to schedule a
time with an EIR, go to http://entrepreneurship.mit.edu/eir.
For resources more specific to Finance Innovation and Fintech, please reach out to the Finance Practice
at the Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship (fintech@mit.edu) or the MIT Fintech Club
(www.mitfintech.com)
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Grading
Grades will be based on class participation (30%), measured primarily through business plan assignments
(50%) and final presentation (20%).
Note Regarding Intellectual Property Rights
Work done in the class is purely for academic purposes and there is no explicit or implicit agreement that
teams that are formed in the class are obligated in any way to share their intellectual property or equity
in a new venture that comes out of the class. All marketing and business analysis that is produced is
considered public domain unless explicitly specified and agreed to by the instructors.
Schedule Overview
There will be 7 classes of 2 hours:
-

Class 1 will include:

Discussion of what is going on in the FinTech industry
Ideas panel: Presentations of company challenges, MIT technologies and students ideas
Team formation
Classes 2-6 will follow the same structure:
Review of one FinTech topic by relevant faculty (e.g., Payments 30-40 min)
Relevant speaker presentation + Q&A (30-40 min)
Team presentations + Feedback from Speaker and class (30 min)
Closing: Key takeaways of the day (5min)
Class 7 will include:
Presentation of all business plans in front of a panel of Fintech related people (including not only
Fintech entrepreneurs but VCs, Accelerator people, incumbents)
Next steps where faculty will give an overview on available resources at MIT, and next steps
(prizes, top accelerators, etc)

Key topics, deliverables and readings are outlined below.

Class

Date

Topic

10/27

What is going on in Fintech?

Project Pitches (Company
challenges) + Team
Formation

Preparation

Deliverables

Readings:
- Upload
- Foreword, Six Themes of
resume to
the 24 Steps, and Step 0:
Stellar by
Getting Started from 24
11:59pm on
steps
Friday before
- The fintech scene is so hot,
1st week
it's boiling, Chris Skinner
- Fintech Idea
Blog
Journal (List of
(http://thefinanser.co.uk/fs
15 problems
club/2015/02/the-fintechFinance
scene-is-so-hot-itsconsumers/
boiling.html)
companies
3

11/3

11/10

11/17

11/24

12/1

12/8

Consumer Finance/
Behavioral Finance (advice
and financial literacy)
- Overview of space
(Faculty)
- Speaker: TBD
- Team presentations
Payments
- Overview of space
(Faculty)
- Speaker
- Team presentations
Investing and Trading
- Overview of space
(Faculty)
- Speaker
- Team presentations
Cryptocurrencies/
Blockchain
- Overview of space
(Faculty)
- Speaker
- Team presentations
Crowdfunding/ Lending
- Overview of space
(Faculty)
- Speaker
- Team presentations
Team presentations
- Final presentations by
teams
- Feedback from industry
panel
- Next steps: Forming a
team and taking the
company forward +
resources at Trust
Center and MIT
- Team presentations

- The Future of Financial

Services (World Economic
Forum)
Readings:
- Review steps 1-5
- The Future of Finance: The
Socialization of Finance
(Pages 1 to 9, GS Research)

face with
solutions)
Team formation
and idea pitch

Readings:
- Review steps 6-12,13,18
- The Future of Finance: The
Way We Pay (Part 2, GS
Research)

Deliverable 1
(Customer/
Market)

Readings:
- The Future of Finance: The
Socialization of Finance (Pg
19-31, GS Research)

Deliverable 2
(Product and
customer
acquisition)

Readings:
Deliverable 3
- Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer cash (Business
system (S Nakamoto)
model)

Readings:
- The Future of Finance: The
Shadow Bank (Part 1, GS
Research)

Deliverable 4
(Regulatory
review)

TBD

Consolidated
deliverable 1-4