HTE104BKK
Can this Idea Make Money?
Faculty
Aleksey Alekseev
Founder & CEO at Luni Monster
Course length
Duration
Total hours
Credits
Language
Course type
Fee for single course
Fee for degree students
Skills you’ll learn
Overview
This course is designed to build foundational skills for evaluating start-up ideas through a financial lens. Students will learn how business models shape scalability, how unit economics determines commercial viability, why retention and customer acquisition drive long-term value, and how to build simple financial models to test assumptions.
Students will develop practical frameworks for distinguishing promising opportunities from ideas that are unlikely to succeed.
Learning highlights
By the end of the course, students will be able to:
- Evaluate start-up ideas using financial rather than emotional reasoning
- Explain how different business models affect margins, scalability, operational complexity, and investment attractiveness
- Build and interpret basic unit economics models
- Estimate Lifetime Value (LTV) and Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
- Understand why retention is the primary driver of long-term start-up value
- Identify unrealistic assumptions within start-up metrics and investor presentations
- Estimate market size and evaluate whether a market can realistically support the required growth momentum
- Build a simple financial model for an early-stage start-up
- Diagnose whether an idea is commercially viable within one or two days of analysis
Course outline
15 classes
Session 1
The financial “physics” of start-ups: why “cool” ideas may not become viable businesses
Session 2
Business models: different start-up categories behave differently and why it’s critical to understand it upfront
Session 3
Unit Economics: financial backbone of a start-up
Session 4
Retention: foundation of start-up value
Session 5
Customer acquisition: often the key problem post-launch
Session 6
Workshop on Unit Economics: running numbers
Session 7
Fake metrics and how to look through them analytically
Session 8
Sizing the market and competition
Session 9
Workshop on financial modelling: running numbers in groups
Session 10
Stress-testing assumptions
Session 11
Operational realism - can you really execute the idea?
Session 12
The 24-Hour Idea Evaluation Framework
Session 13
Team Break-out Session
Session 14
Team Break-out Session
Session 15
Demo Day
Prerequisites
Come prepared with a business idea for your team project or be ready to join a team on someone else’s project.
No prior finance knowledge is required.
Students should be comfortable with: basic arithmetic, logical reasoning, spreadsheets to a basic level (Excel or Google Sheets).
Prior to starting the course, it is strongly encouraged to watch the YC start-up school video playlists: the general one and specifically of the 2017 batch. The links are on the materials page.
Methodology
The sessions are structured around the following activities:
- Interactive lectures: to cover critical theoretical concepts of the course through real-world case studies, each supported by open discussion in-class
- Individual assignments: each student presents the calculation of unit economics of a given start-up project or business idea
- Teamwork: work with your team to critically assess a given startup project or business idea
- Presentations: students will present their final group projects in-class to their peers
Grading
Apply for this course
Can this Idea Make Money?
by Aleksey Alekseev
Total hours
45 Hours
Dates
Oct 19 - Nov 06, 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
FAQ