Innovation and Entrepreneurship

This course explores how anyone can be a successful startup entrepreneur or corporate innovator by thoughtfully examining themselves and the business opportunity. By harnessing these insights and cultivating an entrepreneurial spirit, you can create and transform an entrepreneurial idea into a new startup company or corporate venture.

Over 800,000 people have used The Opportunity Analysis Canvas that is the basis of this course. Designed by Dr. James V. Green, the lead faculty for this course, this unique model equips you to identify and analyze a new business opportunity that aligns with your startup entrepreneurship or corporate innovation interests.

The Opportunity Analysis Canvas distills vast amounts of research in psychology, sociology, and business into a practical how-to guide for aspiring and active entrepreneurs and innovators. The course presents a whole new understanding of entrepreneurial mindset and action. The course is structured as a nine-step experience segmented into thinking entrepreneurially, seeing entrepreneurially, and acting entrepreneurially.

This course will demystify key financial concepts to give aspiring and active entrepreneurs and innovators a guide for understanding their financials and securing funding. Assuming that our learners have no prior knowledge in accounting, economics, or finance, we will work from the ground up to:

● Examine the many financing options available to get your new venture funded

● Learn the basics of finance, valuations, dilution, and non-dilutive funding source

● Understand capital structure for new ventures, term sheets and how to negotiate them, and the differences between early-stage versus later-stage financing

● Develop an understanding of how to develop winning investor pitches, who and when to pitch, how to avoid common mistakes that limit the effectiveness of the pitch, and how to ‘get to the close.

Key questions answered within the course include:

● If and when to raise outside capital?

● What kind of investors invest by stage and where to find them?

● What are your fundraising options?

● What are the key components of the term sheet?

● How to perform company valuations?

● How to pitch to investors?

● What techniques help the entrepreneur ‘get to the close’?

This course was created to guide aspiring and active startup entrepreneurs and corporate innovators that feel...

• Overwhelmed by the tasks of creating a new venture
• Frustrated with finding the right team at the right time
• Disappointed by the widespread failure of bringing good ideas to market

It’s common to desire...

• Innovative approaches and tools to help create a startup company or corporate venture
• Intelligence on what customers really want, and are willing to pay for
• Insights on the big picture of crafting a startup company, and how the puzzle pieces fit together

This course will help you to...

• Understand the theory and practice of value creation
• Determine how to build the right team for your startup company or corporate venture
• Avoid wasting time with startup ideas with limited commercial potential
• Raise the right financial capital at the right time for the right purpose By the end of this course, you will be positioned to...
• Effectively design value propositions that directly align with your target customers’ interests
• Assemble and lead an well-comprised team to produce results that create value for your customers
• Pursue big ideas that really matter to customers
• Craft a financial model that minimizes risks and maximizing your success