The Slingshot is an interactive business simulation that puts you in the driver's seat of an AI startup. Over 16 quarters, you'll navigate the challenges of building a venture in one of eight sectors, from healthcare to creative industries.
Based on research, real entrepreneurship patterns and startup experiences, the simulation offers an authentic learning environment where every decision matters. Will you bootstrap or raise venture capital? Focus on product development or customer acquisition? Build in-house or partner strategically?
Every quarter, you'll face critical choices about your startup's direction. Allocate your limited cash across R&D, marketing, operations, and team building. Each decision creates ripple effects that shape your company's trajectory.
Encounter over 550 unique events drawn from actual AI startup experiences. A key engineer gets poached. A competitor launches a similar product. A major customer wants to pilot your technology. Your regulatory landscape shifts. How will you respond?
Choose your path to funding. Bootstrap and maintain control, or pursue venture capital and accelerate growth. Navigate term sheets, understand dilution, and balance growth ambitions with runway constraints.
Recruit co-founders and key hires who bring different skills and perspectives. Manage equity splits, maintain team morale, and navigate the human dynamics that can make or break an early-stage venture.
You're not alone in this market. Competitors will launch products, raise funding, and vie for the same customers. Track your position in the ecosystem and adapt your strategy accordingly.
There's no single winning strategy. Some players will build sustainable businesses with steady revenue growth. Others will swing for unicorn status through aggressive scaling. The choice is yours.
Experience key business activities through three hands-on mini-games:
Diagnosis, drug discovery, patient care
Manufacturing, supply chain, predictive maintenance
Trading, risk assessment, fraud detection
Personalization, inventory, customer insights
Content generation, design tools, media
Threat detection, compliance, privacy
Autonomous vehicles, logistics, routing
Personalized learning, assessment, tutoring
The Slingshot was developed by Ammon Salter, Stefano Baruffaldi, and Federico Bignone as part of an ESRC-funded research project (ES/X003949/1) exploring entrepreneurship education and innovation management.
The simulation draws on extensive research into startups, AI ecosystems, venture funding patterns, and the specific challenges facing technology ventures. Events and scenarios are grounded in real startup experiences, market dynamics, and regulatory developments.
The Slingshot is open source and free to use under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. We welcome educators and researchers to adopt it in their teaching and provide feedback.
Citation:
Salter, A., Baruffaldi, S., & Bignone, F. (2025). The Slingshot: An AI Startup Simulation. https://github.com/ammonsalter-del/The-Slingshot-Simulation
This game was developed as part of the ESRC-funded project "Profiting from Science: the development and valuation of Artificial Intelligence new ventures and engagement with the science base" (Grant ES/X003949/1).