Master of Management — Entrepreneurship & New Venture Creation

Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management · CDU-BUS-ENVC-900 · MM · v1.0.0

Master of Management — Entrepreneurship & New Venture Creation

New ventures as they are actually built: effectuation over prediction, affordable loss over expected return, and the arithmetic of investible value when an orchestrator aggregates an informal merchant economy into something a funder can price.

Lineage

Wits Business School, 2026 — MMENVC — supposed to be

Final research project

The WardByWard Agent Orchestrator — A New Venture Form For Effectuating Investible Value Creation In the Informal Merchant Economy

Syllabus

Effectuation: the five principles as a diagnostic
Affordable loss: sizing a step by what can be lost
Runway and burn: how long the venture lives
Investible value: merchants × GMV × take rate × multiple, discounted for formalisation

Reference

Effectuation: Sarasvathy (2001): bird in hand, affordable loss, lemonade, crazy quilt, pilot in the plane
Investible value: annual net revenue × multiple × formalisation factor; net revenue = merchants × GMV per merchant × take rate
Runway: cash ÷ net monthly burn
Affordable loss: the maximum the founder commits to one step without needing it back

Units

Investible value of an orchestrator · Runway and burn · Affordable loss · Effectuation assessment

Role when narrated: You are an entrepreneurship professor and former founder advising a new venture in the informal economy. Diagnose before you prescribe; name the principle at work; turn the numbers into the next affordable step.

Investible value of an orchestrator · investible_value

Try with the example

What is a merchant-aggregating orchestrator worth to a funder, from the merchants it serves, their volume, its take rate, and how formal the economy it organises has become?

Reference: The WardByWard research paper: investible value = net revenue × multiple × formalisation

Returns

annualGmv: GMV across the base per year
annualNetRevenue: GMV × take rate per year
annualContribution: Net revenue − cost to serve
investibleValue: Net revenue × multiple × formalisation
valuePerMerchant: Investible value ÷ merchants
formalisationUplift: Value added by lifting formalisation to 1.0

The example

{
  "merchants": 1200,
  "gmvPerMerchantMonth": 15000,
  "takeRate": 0.025
}

Agents: POST /faculty/mm-envc/investible_value with JSON {pan, …inputs} and the x-402-payment header. Manifest.

Runway and burn · runway

Try with the example

How many months does the venture live at its current burn, and what does it need to reach the next milestone?

Reference: Runway = cash ÷ net burn; net burn = costs − revenue

Returns

netBurn: Costs − revenue per month (negative means profitable)
runwayMonths: Months of cash (null when profitable)
reachesMilestone: Runway ≥ months to milestone
shortfall: Cash needed to reach the milestone (0 when none)

The example

{
  "cash": 450000,
  "monthlyCosts": 60000,
  "monthlyRevenue": 15000,
  "monthsToMilestone": 9
}

Agents: POST /faculty/mm-envc/runway with JSON {pan, …inputs} and the x-402-payment header. Manifest.

Affordable loss · affordable_loss

Example filled in — consult below

How much can the founder commit to the next step without needing it back, and does the step fit?

Reference: Sarasvathy: affordable loss principle

Returns

untouchable: Living costs × months of safety
affordableLoss: What can be lost on the next step
stepFits: Step cost ≤ affordable loss (true when no step given)
stepsAffordable: How many such steps could be lost in sequence

The example

{
  "liquidAssets": 300000,
  "monthlyLivingCosts": 18000,
  "stepCost": 40000
}

Agents: POST /faculty/mm-envc/affordable_loss with JSON {pan, …inputs} and the x-402-payment header. Manifest.

Effectuation assessment · effectuation_assessment

Try with the example

How effectual is the venture’s approach across Sarasvathy’s five principles, scored 0–4 each from the founder’s answers?

Reference: Sarasvathy (2001) — the five principles of effectuation

Returns

score: Total, 0–20
percent: Score ÷ 20
orientation: effectual, mixed, or causal
strongest: Highest-scoring principle
weakest: Lowest-scoring principle — the one to work on

The example

{
  "bird_in_hand": 4,
  "affordable_loss": 3,
  "lemonade": 3,
  "crazy_quilt": 4,
  "pilot_in_plane": 3
}

Agents: POST /faculty/mm-envc/effectuation_assessment with JSON {pan, …inputs} and the x-402-payment header. Manifest.

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