Entrepreneurship

This course concentrates on identifying and evaluating opportunities for new business. The primary purpose is to investigate concepts, tools, and practices associated with identifying or creating new venture opportunities. You will explore ways to shape and evaluate the viability of these opportunities by understanding key industry factors, market and competitive factors, and customer needs. You will gain a better understanding of personal entrepreneurial capacity, team building, and management, and are augmented with readings, guest speakers, videos, and software simulations.

Course Description

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.

Prerequisites

SME

This is not a course you’ll find in many bachelor’s in entrepreneurship programs. This experiential seminar explores the rapidly evolving field of artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential for creating new business opportunities. You will learn about cutting-edge technologies in AI, such as machine learning, computer vision, neural networks, and natural language processing. We will also cover recent developments in the AI industry and the impact of venture capital investment on AI startups. Throughout the course, you have the opportunity to experiment with AI technologies and develop your own innovative projects.

This course is designed to provide a strategic decision-making, future-oriented perspective in entrepreneurship for undergraduate students interested in Entrepreneurial Thought & Action ® (ET&A™) methods used by start-up, early stage ventures, and corporations that practice innovation. You explore techniques for looking at the future including scenario planning, key-trend impact analysis, systems thinking, and experiencing the gestalt of the future. Because ET&A™ is specific to Babson, this is a course you can’t get in a BS in entrepreneurship program at another school.

This course explores the stages of great entrepreneurial wealth creation, preservation, and destruction. Topics cover geographical and sector concentrations of great wealth formation, along with socio and economic conditions prevailing at the time of generation. Particular emphasis is on the detailed paths of notable entrepreneurs from the past century, along with the ethical dilemma and social contributions attributed to each of them. The course also discusses the rise and fall of great family dynasties in the section of wealth destruction. Current practice of wealth generation, preservation, and destruction methodologies will be reviewed, covering hedge funds, family offices, and entrepreneur impropriety.

The entrepreneurship in fashion course explores the challenges to entrepreneurs in the fashion industry with a view toward understanding opportunities, the changing nature of design to distribution technologies and processes, and the resources required to successfully launch and grow new ventures and corporate innovations. This course examines past, current, and leading-edge business models while building entrepreneurial skills in the fashion context to create economic and social value. Speakers from the fashion industry will be invited to converse with students about experience and opportunities in fashion.

This course, which you find in many business entrepreneurship degree programs, 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.