EPS3541 Launch - Grow Your Existing Venture
4 CreditsThis course is designed for undergraduate students who are actively pursuing a venture that has progressed well beyond the Explore stage of development - already launched or launch-imminent. The course will support students in their active quest to achieve major development milestones in all aspects of their businesses, including but not limited to, products and services, revenue, organization, geographical expansion, distribution, partnerships, funding, profitability/sustainability, pivots, and social initiatives.

To enroll, instructor permission is needed. Email Mary Gale for an application: mgale@babson.edu

Prerequisites: FME or (MOB1000 and MOB1010) and permission from instructor (application and interview-based)

EPS4530: Launch Your Venture

(Previously titled Living the Entrepreneurial Experience)
4 Advanced Management Credits

Living the Entrepreneurial Experience is about being an entrepreneur in action, and "living" the experience of being an entrepreneur through this course. Building on foundations from EPS 3501, students will engage in Entrepreneurial Thought and Action by developing, taking and building on key action steps to advance their own ventures or on projects for existing enterprises. Key elements of the process involve secondary research and engaging experts, stakeholders, analogous/complementary ventures, and investors/donors to enrich your understanding of the entrepreneurship ecosystem and test ideas. Course readings and cases will provide supplemental background. Core to the class experience is the question - how do you build and lead your venture? Students will set milestones to move their venture forward. The core is "action based learning" which will result in pivoting your venture based on information gained in experimenting and testing assumptions. The course has multiple deliverables related to key actions and decisions in marketing, finance, customer service and operations. Students are expected to work independently as well as interdependently with other entrepreneurs in the course.

Contact time for this course will be split between in-class sessions and out-of-class individual meetings with the instructor.

Prerequisites: EPS3501 or permission from instructor

EPS4530 (formerly EPS3530), EPS4525, EPS4531, EPS4532, EPS4533 and EPS4534 are equivalent courses. Students can only take one of these courses.

EPS3524 Made in Japan: Culture & Opportunities

4 Elective Abroad Credits

This course is built on two major themes:
1. Cultural excursion
Provide students to have an in-­depth look and a chance to experience Japan's culture, in other words, its institutional environment (i.e., formal and informal rules of the game)
-­ Students will have opportunities to examine this through various dimensions that constitute the diversity and complexity of the country's cultural/institutional environment today:
o Metropolitan vs. suburban
o Modern-­contemporary vs. old-­fashioned
o Young-­emerging vs. mature-­established
o High vs. low tech, etc.

2. Entrepreneurial opportunities
Encourage students to practice Entrepreneurial Thought and Action (ET&A) within the cultural/institutional environment in Japan.
-­ Students will work in teams to conduct observations, identify problems and opportunities, design an entrepreneurial initiative, and assess its impact (including stakeholder analysis) and feasibility - in various contexts/perspectives:
o Location-­based
o Industry-­based
o Interest/theme-­based, etc.

The entire course is designed on the concept of interactive learning through site visits, mini projects, and individual/group research.

EPS3520 Managing Growing Businesses
4 General CreditsThis course covers the growth phase of an entrepreneurial business, focusing on the nature and challenges of entrepreneurial businesses as they move beyond startup. The primary task for entrepreneurial firms in their growth phase is to build an organization capable of managing this growth, and then ensure the organization can sustain growth as the market and competitive environment changes. The entrepreneur needs to create a professional organization both responsive to external change and entrepreneurial enough to continually create new businesses through innovative thinking.

Issues of particular importance to rapidly growing companies include: getting the right people and systems in place, managing with limited resources, cash flow planning, leadership and delegation, professional zing the business, turning around a troubled business, establishing and communicating culture, and creating a vision to drive the organization toward the future.

Prerequisites: SME and EPS350%

EPS3503 New Technology Ventures
4 General CreditsEPS3501, EPS3502 and EPS3503 are all equivalent courses. Students can take only ONE of these courses.

Creating a new venture that has technology as a basis for its products or services presents special challenges. On one hand is the _push_ of new technology, as evidenced by the plethora of scientific invention and technological innovation. On the other hand is the _pull_ of the market as it presents new entrepreneurial opportunities. Other key challenges present themselves in areas of intellectual property protection, team building and funding opportunities. In this course we will explore entrepreneurship in technology industries in depth with the hope of penetrating the popular veneer, and uncovering the guts of starting a growing new technology ventures. Of course, there is a lot about new technology venturing that is common to all new venture creation, and also the qualities entrepreneurs demonstrate are valuable in a wide spectrum of life's activities.

A unique aspect of this course is its desire to include students from both Babson as well as the F.W. Olin College of Engineering. Particular value from this intermingling will be evidenced in the true interdisciplinary nature of the course field project teams that are formed, and the ability for students to begin to develop networks of relationships outside their individual domains of business or engineering.

Primary Course Objectives:
1. To investigate the components, tools, and practices of technology entrepreneurship: identifying new venture opportunities, evaluating the viability of a new business concept, calibrating risk of successful technology development, protecting intellectual property, building a team that possesses the attributes necessary for success, obtaining appropriate financing, writing a business plan, and developing an investor presentation, creating an entrepreneurial culture that increases the odds of success, and creating liquidity for shareholders.
2. To identify and exercise entrepreneurial skills through classrooms debate and assignments.
3. To introduce students to a variety of technology entrepreneurs. Case studies are used as tools for discussion, and are augmented with readings and guest speakers.

The core project for this course will be the development of a technology based business plan. Students will form teams to explore a business opportunity, and develop a business plan and investor presentation.

For more information view this video.

Prerequisites: SME

EPS3540 Raising Money - VC and Private Equity
4 General Credits

Students must be Sophomores, Juniors or Seniors to take this course

This class concentrates on developing a knowledge of the asset classes available for early stage and acquisition funding (both equity and debt). These include money from family and friends, angels (both individual and angel groups), VC funds, private equity, and debt from venture debt funds and special commercial banks. Much of the class is taught from the entrepreneur's perspective, but it will also cover the dynamics of starting and running a VC fund since many of the investor classes rely heavily on the VC when making investment decisions. Case material, lectures, frequent exercises/presentations and guest speakers will provide future entrepreneurs with a detailed understanding of how investors think, analyze and behave.

This understanding is critical so that entrepreneurs can understand the deals they make with investors and how to manage the process to a mutually beneficial conclusion.

Prerequisites: Sophomores, Juniors or Seniors Class standing

EPS3534 Scholar in Action Experience
2 General CreditsThis two-credit course is designed to help individual students in the Bernon Scholar Program research, draft, and plan, execute, and evaluate a programmatic response to social or community need or concern for which the student is passionate.

This course is accomplished in five parts: exploration of issue, benchmarking and research of existing responses, planning of student's response, execution of that response and the student reflection on efficiency and effectiveness.

Enrollment by Permission Only

EPS3536 The Entrepreneurial Innovator
4 Advanced Management CreditsIn the Entrepreneurial Innovator, transdisciplinary teams will identify multiple entrepreneurial innovation opportunities, through user engagement and extensive prototyping, over the course of two separate design sprints. This experimental, hands-on seminar will be held in the Weissman Foundry and offer broad exposure to prototyping processes and capabilities. The seminar is open to 3rd and 4th year Babson, Olin and Wellesley (BOW) community students.

Innovation can be defined as creativity that is new and useful, combining elements of novelty and some compelling utility to an end user or target customer. Entrepreneurship considers ways to generate and monetize innovations, making value-creation profitable and sustainable. Working in transdisciplinary teams, BOW students roll up their sleeves to investigate and define unmet needs and innovation possibilities for two different user groups/customer groups. Participation in the seminar requires an action-orientation, frequent off-campus trips, user engagement, physical prototyping, as well as visual representations of user problems and innovative solutions.

Prerequisites: Open to all Babson, Olin, Wellesley (BOW) community students in their 3rd or 4th
year of study

EPS1210 The Ultimate Entrepreneurial Challenge
(Formerly EPS3510 and EPS3579)
4 Credits

This highly competitive course involves intense TEAM competition and problem-solving. Students will elect CEOs, negotiate to acquire team members, and compete for ten weeks to determine the ultimate winner. We have designed a learning experience that will develop and test your skills in strategy, marketing, negotiation, management, negotiations, and finance -- as well as creative, innovative, entrepreneurial out-of-the-box thinking.

Your learning experiences will primarily engage you in real-world business cases, including, when feasible, interactions with the entrepreneurs that are the subjects of the cases, or practitioners who have relevant experiences and insights to share. Our goal is to make this course one of the most challenging and rewarding learning experiences for you during your time at Babson.

Prerequisites: FME1001 or MOB1000

PS3508 Entrepreneurship and New Ventures in Singapore
4 General Credits**This course is for students in the Babson Leadership in a Global Context program in Singapore and is not open to students not enrolled in the program.**

The course will introduce students to the nature and processes of assessing and shaping entrepreneurial opportunities on location in Singapore.

Upon completion of "Entrepreneurship and New Ventures in Singapore," you will:

• Enhance your skills in assessing and shaping opportunities

• Recognize the practices and processes of successful entrepreneurship in Singapore

• Identify the many contextual factors that influence entrepreneurial activity in Singapore