The word “entrepreneur” fascinates me. It sounds glamorous. Important. I checked its origin and it’s derived from the French word (hence the glam), “entrependre” which means to “undertake” or “to do something”. It made me want to be an “entrepreneur” even more.

We see entrepreneurs make millions, emerge as winners, and become celebrated changemakers. As the word says, they’ve done something. We want that too.

But what seems thrilling from afar, is the product of hard decisions, endless brainstorming, failures, and a lot (we mean a lot!) of work. To succeed, you need the right mindset and robust systems, which you can learn. 

So here are our top picks for the best entrepreneurship courses of 2025 to help you achieve what you want to undertake!

• What is entrepreneurship?
• Why these courses and why should you trust us?
• The best entrepreneurship courses of 2025

What is entrepreneurship?

The Center of American Entrepreneurship defines “entrepreneurship” as the process of starting and developing a company with the aim of delivering something new or improved to the market.

But an entrepreneur isn’t a business owner, and it’s easy to confuse them, considering their goal is the same—create profits.  

Entrepreneur vs business owner

Imagine you’re walking on the street and seeing two ice cream carts opposite each other. The cart on the left serves the usual flavors, in a cup, cone, or waffle cone. The one on the right has a sign, ”Your Ice Cream, Your Way!” An ice cream cart that lets you mix and match multiple flavors!

The latter is an example of entrepreneurship as it’s a new, original idea that takes your ice cream-eating experience to another level. 

The former, the cart on the left, is an example of a business—a pre-existing model that aims to make profits.

Another major difference is that entrepreneurs build startups and ventures that are in the early stages of operations and development. Business owners run their operations in a predetermined way, without much need for innovation or navigation.

The goal is the same, but the paths are different. The skills needed to thrive are different.

Which skills does an entrepreneur need?

According to Harvard Business School, 10 characteristics make successful entrepreneurs. Consider this an initial checklist before you dive into this journey. How many of these do you possess?

• Curiosity
• Willingness to experiment
• Adaptability
• Decisiveness
• Self-awareness
• Risk tolerance
• Comfort with failure
• Persistence
• Innovative thinking
• Long-term focus

If you’re missing out on a few traits, you can adopt them on the way, only if you’re determined to succeed. 

Around 90% of global startups fail and only 15% of those get successful exits of $50 million or more across the top eight U.S. startup ecosystems.

To win against these odds, you need high-quality skills and exceptional strategies that the best courses and professors offer. So here are the best entrepreneurship courses of 2025 for you.

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Why these courses and why trust us?

We, Class Central, have helped more than 100 million learners find their next course. We have been updating our global course database for 14 years. While we develop our platform, we keep an eye out for upcoming courses and resources that will make your learning experience worth your time.

We’ve chosen courses that:

• Are for entrepreneurs who want to introduce a new or improved product/service in the market
• Cover types of entrepreneurship—social, tech, and more
• Cater to people with different levels of tech-savviness
• Target employees from a variety of backgrounds (students/employees/small business owners/existing entrepreneurs)
• Teach basic, intermediate, and advanced entrepreneurial skills
• Offer varied teaching styles (some courses are case-study heavy, some are filled with practical exercises, and more)

The majority of the courses are beginner-friendly because mindset and foundations are at the core of entrepreneurship. Now, let’s get to the courses!

Best Overall – Entrepreneurship Specialization by Wharton University (Coursera)

• Level: Beginner
• Rating: 4.8 (5082 ratings)
• Duration: 1 month (10 hours/week) (self-paced)
• Cost: Free-to-audit

If you want to become an entrepreneur even when you don’t have a product in mind, this program will guide you there. 

It’s one of the most popular programs out there because it’s a five-course program that starts with identifying opportunities in the market and ends with building your pitch deck. Pretty good trajectory, eh?

To access the free-to-audit option, visit each course page linked below. For more information, see A Guide on How to Sign up for Coursera Courses for Free.

The courses (which you can audit individually) include:

• Entrepreneurship 1: Developing the Opportunity
• Entrepreneurship 2: Launching your Start-Up
• Entrepreneurship 3: Growth Strategies
• Entrepreneurship 4: Financing and Profitability
• Wharton Entrepreneurship Capstone

This course brings you the clarity to understand whether you have the traits to be an entrepreneur if your idea fits the market needs, and how you can build a profitable startup.

What sets it apart:

• It is taught by Wharton’s top professors and has insights from their start-up founders and financers
• It covers micro-aspects such as intellectual property, offering equity to team members, entrepreneurial exists, and more
• It sets you up for the right operations by covering every aspect of entrepreneurship

Who is it for:

• Someone who wants to find a viable product or test ideas in the market
• Entrepreneurs who want to grow their ventures
• Founders who want to learn technical concepts of entrepreneurship (legalities, financing, etc)
• Entrepreneurs whose long-term plans are seeking an investor for their product

About the instructors:

The program has five top Wharton professors:

• Ethan Mollick (named one of TIME Magazine’s Most Influential People in Artificial Intelligence)
• Dr. Lori Rosenkopf (Ph.D. in Management of Organizations from Columbia University and previous Senior Editor for the journal, Organization Science)
• Kartik Hosanagar (award-winning teacher and researcher, part of world’s top 40 business professors under 40)
• Dr. David Hsu (Ph.D. in management from MIT and renowned researcher)
• and Karl T. Ulrich (an award-winning teacher who co-founded the Weiss Tech House and the Integrated Product Design Program at Penn).

Creativity, Design Thinking, and Innovation for Business (Udemy)

• Level: Beginner
• Rating: 4.4 (27,896 ratings)
• Duration: 3 hours 10 minutes
• Cost: Paid

My first boss said, “Design thinking is magical”. He was a corporate trainer who designed innovative and experimentative training sessions for maximum learning. Design thinking pushed him to create more valuable programs, enrich them with practical tools and resources, and create an unmatched customer experience.

If, as an entrepreneur, you want to cultivate a creative and innovative work culture, you need to learn design thinking. It inculcates empathy, problem-solving, and resilience within you, making it easier to deal with entrepreneurial setbacks.

This course teaches you to brainstorm successfully and keep your end user in mind. It helps you master innovation and create a venture that thrives on it.

What sets it apart:

• It gives you a framework to test your ideas and pivot based on customer needs
• It emphasizes the role of creativity in problem-solving
• It teaches you how to develop flexible and creative teams
• It helps you elevate team spirit, motivation, and interaction

Who is it for:

• Existing entrepreneurs who want to solve business problems
• Aspiring entrepreneurs who want to test their innovation
• Entrepreneurs who have recently hired a team

About the instructor:

Joeel A. Rivera, M.Ed. and Natalie Rivera are pioneers in the life coaching field and co-founders of Transformation Services – the leading online course marketplace for life coaching, personal development, and entrepreneurship. 

Business Model Innovation: Differentiate & Grow Your Company (Udemy)

• Level: Beginner (intermediate-friendly)
• Rating: 4.6 (28,029 ratings)
• Duration: 5 hours 36 minutes
• Cost: Paid 

If case studies and real-world examples make you learn better, pick this one. You will comb through entrepreneurship lessons from giants like Uber, Spotify, Tinder, and more.

This course revolves around creating and improving business models (a plan that includes everything about your venture, from product/service and target market to distribution channels and revenue) that can make you lead among competitors.

It also helps reframe your mindset, making it flexible and adaptable based on the changing market demand. 

What sets it apart:

• It focuses on one thing—crafting a sustainable and profitable business model
• It uses 100+ examples from global companies
• It teaches you how to differentiate your product/service and get ahead of the competition
• It has a section on using AI to grow and improve your venture

Who is it for:

• Entrepreneurs that have a viable product/service but haven’t made a long-term business model
• Founders who have launched a product/service in an overcrowded market and want to stand out
• Entrepreneurs who want AI assistance in running their venture

About the instructors:

• Paul Nekh is a YouTuber (Business Disruptors) and online instructor, using his expertise in researching and teaching winning patterns in business.
• Olena T. is an entrepreneur who designs practical courses for entrepreneurs and uses her experience with start-ups and accelerators to teach online.

Business Strategy Specialization by University of Virginia (Coursera)

• Level: Beginner (Intermediate-friendly)
• Rating: 4.8 (2795 ratings)
• Duration: 1 month (10 hours/week) 
• Cost: Free-to-audit

From analyzing your competitors to managing stakeholders, everything requires strategy. When you’re innovating, you also have to set systems that ensure profitability and a competitive edge. A business strategy helps build those systems.

This 5-course program starts by teaching you how to explore the industry in which you want to disrupt. And it ends with you developing a business strategy and communicating it.

To access the free-to-audit option, visit each course page linked below. For more information, see A Guide on How to Sign up for Coursera Courses for Free.

It covers:

• Foundations of Business Strategy
• Advanced Business Strategy
• Business Growth Strategy
• Strategic Planning and Execution
• Business Strategy in Practice (Project-centered Course) 

What sets it apart:

• It’s a comprehensive program with beginner and advanced business strategies
• The final project is building your business strategy
• It teaches strategic innovation, execution, and analysis

Who is it for:

• C-suite executives in startups such as strategy directors, project managers, CEOs, etc
• Founders who want to scale and grow their ventures
• Startup coaches and consultants who want to add value to their clients

About the instructors:

• Michael Lenox is the Senior Associate Dean, Chief Strategy Officer, and Professor of Business Administration at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. 
• Jared Harris is a faculty member at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business and a Senior Fellow at Darden’s Olsson Center for Applied Ethics. 
• Scott Snell is the Senior Associate Dean for Executive Education and a Professor of Business Administration at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. 

Entrepreneurship For All: The Startup Guide by Silicon Valley Insiders by University of California, Berkeley (edX)

• Level: Beginner (Intermediate-friendly)
• Rating: 4.7 (674 ratings)
• Duration: 14 weeks (4-7 hours/week)
• Cost: Free-to-audit 

These two courses validate your product/service from every angle. They make you work on your idea rigorously, testing it several times, and finalizing its profitable version.

• Entrepreneurship For All (Part I)
• Entrepreneurship For All (Part II)

It also has an impressive list of guest speakers—Patrick Lee (Co-founder, Rotten Tomatoes), Steve Chen (Co-founder, YouTube), Marla Beck (Blue Mercury- acquired by Macy’s), and many more.

Apart from customers, they help you find a co-founder and funding opportunities—things that can make or break your venture.

What sets these apart:

• They apply the lean startup methodology (a build-measure-learn loop that tests your idea, measures its impact, and improves it rapidly)
• The guest speakers are from Silicon Valley and you get insights from the best!
• They teach essentials such as growth hacking, distribution partnerships, creating liquidity, and more

Who are they for:

• Entrepreneurs who want to create a user-friendly product 
• Aspiring entrepreneurs who want to research 
• Founders who want to develop a user-friendly product 
• Students who want to work in a startup and have long-term plans for entrepreneurship

About the instructors:

• Umair Khan is a Visiting Professor at UC Berkeley and a founding partner at Mentors Fund, a seed-stage venture fund.
• Charles Huang is the co-founder of RedOctane, the co-creator of the Guitar Hero franchise, and currently the co-founder of Indigo 7, a startup focused on brands in fashion apparel and entertainment.

Sales Training for High Performing Teams by Hubspot (Coursera)

• Level: Beginner (Intermediate-friendly)
• Rating: 4.7 (674 ratings)
• Duration: 13 weeks (4 hours/week)
• Cost: Free-to-audit

Sales is one of the most misinterpreted parts of a venture. It involves a study of psychology, negotiation, interpersonal skills, and more. This program imparts tools for consistent conversions. It is designed to make you a salesperson and once you scale, it helps you pass those skills to your team and build a winning sales team.

This 4-course series begins with understanding the qualities of a good salesperson and ends with you coaching your new sales team. It also teaches you the art of human-centric sales and building meaningful customer relationships.

To access the free-to-audit option, visit each course page. For more information, see A Guide on How to Sign up for Coursera Courses for Free.

What sets it apart:

• It’s by Hubspot, a go-to for sales and marketing knowledge
• It teaches how to close premium leads
• It helps you understand how to build an efficient sales team
• It covers long-term sales goals like crafting funnels, creating a bullet-proof strategy, and even developing a mindset for it

Who is it for:

• Entrepreneurs who want to build better customer relationships
• Founders who aren’t hitting their sales targets
• Entrepreneurs who want to hire a sales team

About the instructor:

Kyle Jepson teaches sales and CRM courses at HubSpot Academy and has worked on the HubSpot Sales Software Certification and the Sales Enablement Certification. 

Enabling Entrepreneurs to Shape a Better World (edX)

• Level: Beginner 
• Duration: 6 weeks (4-6 hours/week)
• Cost: Free-to-audit

If you have an innovative product/service to solve global issues, this course will help you create an impact and communicate your idea with the world.

It helps you lay the foundation for your solution while dissecting tricky parts like financing and building entrepreneurial ecosystems. By the end of the course, you will have learned how to measure your social impact and tackle failure.

What sets it apart:

• It helps you with ideation and prototyping your idea
• It ensures you create a solid business plan for your social enterprise
• It has lectures from leaders such as Prof Mohammad Yunus, Alexander Osterwalder, and more

Who is it for:

• Current or aspiring entrepreneurs who want to build a product/service for a social cause
• Founders who want to scale their social enterprise and maximize the impact
• Social-sector consultants/leaders/coaches

About the instructors:

The course is facilitated by leaders in the social entrepreneurship world. Some of them are:

• Ryan Little is the co-founder of CanadaHelps, a donations platform that has facilitated more than $900 million in charitable donations
• Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus was named “one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time” by Fortune Magazine in 2012
• Hedda Pahlson-Moller, the CEO of TIIME.org, has spent 20 years building, growing, and investing in start-ups as an entrepreneur and business angel. 

Launch Your Online Business by State University of New York (Coursera)

• Level: Beginner 
• Rating: 4.7 (773 ratings)
• Duration: 16 hours 
• Cost: Free-to-audit

This is one of the simplest courses on launching an online product. It helps you with tasks that seem easy on the surface but can be overwhelming in reality, such as opening a bank account, content production, and being in touch with your customers.

This is a step-by-step approach to putting your product online and building a brand on social media platforms.

What sets it apart:

• It teaches you micro-tasks that you might need help with
• It has comprehensive reading materials and assignments
• It doesn’t just help you launch an online business but also sustain relationships after that

Who is it for:

• Entrepreneurs who aren’t tech-savvy but have an idea for a digital product
• Aspiring founders who have an online product idea but need a blueprint to begin
• Entrepreneurs who want to build an online brand for their product 

About the instructor:

An integrated marketer, Joan Decollibus has advised brands to succeed in the digital age for more than 20 years. She’s also the founder of Ruffina.NYC, an e-commerce start-up for pets’ fashion.

Honorable mentions

Entrepreneurship Strategy: From Ideation to Exit (Coursera)

This free-to-audit course by HEC Paris helps you look within and assess your entrepreneurship traits. Then, it offers you practical techniques to navigate entrepreneurial challenges while scaling beyond borders.

The Complete Business Plan Course – Includes 50 Templates (Udemy)

This 9-hour, paid course helps you craft a successful business plan. It gets you to approach your venture from the pov of marketing, sales, finances, and the competition. If you’re struggling for clarity about your business idea, sign up for this one!

Innovation: From Creativity to Entrepreneurship (Coursera)

If you’re looking to adopt creativity into your venture, this free-to-audit course equips you with strategies and toolkits that stand out in a cluttered market.

Entrepreneurship comes with massive learning opportunities and these courses will arm you with a focused mindset and an exceptional skill set.