In 2016, at the Heilbronn campus of the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW) the idea of founding a "real company" was born to give students the opportunity to practice their entrepreneurial skills while still studying at our university.

Two years later, our company "Culinary Coffee" was founded in the legal form of a cooperative and entered in the Stuttgart Commercial Register (Ust-IdNr. DE323233825). In the same year, we accredited modules tailored to this teaching construct in the curriculum of the bachelor's degree program in business administration. In 2019, we were awarded the State Teaching Prize of the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science for this innovative teaching construct.

In this session, we provide an overview of the key design decisions in constructing this entity for instructional purposes. Finally, we report on the experiences we have gained since then in using this construct.