600

Entrepreneurship is the art of business. Think of the business plan and the business operation as your canvas. Entrepreneurship takes creativity, innovation and perseverance. Entrepreneurship is a way of thinking and acting. In this course, you will acquire a greater understanding of the entrepreneurial process — a process of opportunity recognition, resource marshalling and team building driven by communication, creativity and leadership. You will work on YOUR business concept.

This course is part of the M.S. in Entrepreneurship and introduces students to the principles and techniques of ideation, creativity and opportunity recognition that are critical to an entrepreneurial mindset. Students will learn a wide variety of creative problem solving and theory building skills and have the opportunity to apply those to the development of a new concept and venture. Students will also learn how to identify and reduce self-imposed limitations to creativity and opportunity recognition. In addition, business modeling techniques are introduced as a method for evaluating creative ideas.

Creating new businesses, capturing new markets and enhancing organizational effectiveness occur through improving productivity or innovation, or both. New discoveries, new technologies, competition and globalization compel both entrepreneurs and existing firms to foster innovation and agility. This course explores successful frameworks, strategies, funding techniques, business models, risks and barriers for introducing breakthrough products and services. Topics include business model innovation, design-driven innovation and leadership. The focus is on the selection of appropriate business models.

This course uses a combination of of case discussions and lectures to study entrepreneurial finance. The course is targeted toward budding entrepreneurs. The course begins with an overview of financial statements. A thorough examination of forecasting revenues and expenses are used to create pro forma financial statements. The course then shifts to financing operations of startups with limited resources. External sources of financing to fund growth are introduced, and the tax implications of all financial decisions are evaluated. The course concludes with a discussion of exit strategies available to harvest the investment in the startup.

In this course we will explore how marketing and entrepreneurship affect and are affected by one another. We will examine concepts from each of these two areas to determine how they apply to and how they can aid the practice of the other. We will look at the role of marketing in entrepreneurial ventures and the role of entrepreneurship in marketing efforts of all firms. Attention will be devoted to understanding why marketers resist entrepreneurship, as well as the common mistakes entrepreneurs make when it comes to marketing.

For graduate students only. This course focuses on developing the skills necessary for successful entrepreneurship. Students will develop a business concept, define a new venture and market the concept, research the market and determine the commercial viability of the business concept, forecast sales and production, prepare financial pro formas, develop a marketing and funding plan, and prepare and present a business plan for the new venture. Students will have the opportunity to enter their work in a business plan competition.

This course treats entrepreneurship as a form of strategy. In today’s competitive environment, size of company does not correspond to entrepreneurship. On the one hand, companies like Microsoft, General Electric and Southwest Airlines have kept excellent cultures of entrepreneurship despite decades of phenomenal growth. On the other, large companies usually find their most aggressive competitors to be startups. Regardless of the type of company you will work in, it is critical to have a strong working knowledge of entrepreneurial strategies. You will work on your project in this course.

For graduate students only. This course broadly surveys the legal issues common to entrepreneurial ventures, including selecting and working with an attorney, business entity selection, corporate governance, contracts, the Uniform Commercial Code, operational liabilities, insurance, debtor-creditor relations, bankruptcy, human resources and buying and selling a business.

For graduate students only. This course provides an understanding of international entrepreneurship, including the development of managerial and knowledge-based skills that underlie the successful launch of a new venture or existing business in the global economy.

For graduate students only. Topics vary and will focus on emerging ideas and the latest research in areas of entrepreneurship that are not covered by the current curriculum. Though not limited to these, example topics include creativity and problem-solving, innovation and technology entrepreneurship, legal issues for entrepreneurs, corporate entrepreneurship, real estate venturing and social entrepreneurship.