Purpose: Enabling entrepreneurial creativity is a key aim of UK Government; however, there is a dearth of constructively aligned models of teaching and assessment. This paper aims to introduce design-based pedagogies and to highlight cognitive approaches that develop innovative mindsets; it seeks to indicate their propensity for adoption in entrepreneurship education. Design/methodology/approach: A literature review plus empirical evidence from pedagogical approaches developed through the extended collaboration of specialists in creative design, financial management and brain-related occupational therapy inform this paper. Findings: Neuroimaging studies challenge the thesis that learning for creative output is entirely algorithmic; diverse ideas occur when the brain's right cortex has opportunity to bring its findings to the fore, usually via "relaxed cognition". Design-based entrepreneurship pedagogies embed these concepts. Research limitations/implications: The paper offers initial insights into how these understandings can be applied in transdisciplinary entrepreneurship-education contexts. Practical implications: Predicable assessment outcomes equal predictable students; which needs more working practices, behaviours and cultural environments that encourage innovation. Any educational environment that excludes these understandings is inherently flawed. Social implications: The case study/project "Free time is thinking time" implies that traditional 9-5 working practices are inappropriate for creative mindsets. Originality/value: This paper links emerging bodies of evidence; it provides a first response to calls for a more creative enterprise curriculum and offers constructively aligned assessment. (Contains 3 figures.)