Enterprise
and the Entrepreneur
Course
Outline
Fall
2008
The objectives for this course
are not easy to define. I teach the course because I appreciate the importance
of entrepreneurship in our society and others. Among other things, I want to
encourage some of our students to become entrepreneurs -- to become innovators
and managers of the technology that will define our future. I enjoy working
with students who are excited by the spirit of entrepreneurship. Perhaps the
primary objective of this course is to encourage and refine that spirit.
Additionally, I try to develop
or enhance skills that raise the probability of success for students who aspire
to someday become involved in entrepreneurial ventures. This objective can be further subdivided
into a number of categories:
·
Awareness
of the entrepreneurial environment, including the role played by law and
contracts, personnel and other labor management issues, fundraising, marketing
and sales techniques, and so forth.
·
Stressing
the importance of planning and strategy and the devices for implementing them,
such as the business plan, timelines, project management, etc.
·
Exposure to
certain business fundamentals that an entrepreneur should know before starting
out.
·
Exposure to
issues of character, personality, and moral responsibility.
·
The
capacity for promotion and becoming a tenacious champion of the Koz
(traditionally stressed very strongly in this class).
What
do we do in this class?
This is a course that combines
reading, lectures, class discussion and team presentations.
If you look at the course
calendar you will see that I have reading, lectures and discussions arranged by
topics, such as discussions of financing, building the team, sales, etc. We will begin these segments with class
discussions about the reading assignments for the week (see the section below
on Reading with lectures about the material being considered). There will be a class discussion of
the reading assigned for that week on Monday of that week. Therefore you must have all of the
assigned reading completed for the week prior to coming to class on Monday. Then I will usually give a lecture or two on
the same subject.
We are going to study examples
of entrepreneurial success and failure. I present a lot of some
"cookbook" material based upon my business experience and that of others,
especially Mudders. We will have a
number of visitors in this class who will come will come and tell insightful
stories and offer insights based upon experience.
You will simulate an
entrepreneurial start-up by developing and pitching team projects at the end of
the semester.
Because this is a seminar
course, there are no exams. Your grade will be based upon written work (a
business plan) and active class participation (more about that is
explained below and will be explained in the first lecture). In case you're
reading this fast, let me write it again: I expect active class
participation. Very active! Additionally, unlike my other classes, full time class attendance is
absolutely mandatory. Although I will forgive missed attendance for
illness or necessary appointments (like job interviews) you must otherwise
attend every session of this class.
During the last five weeks of
class, you will be divided into teams of
five and given the task of developing the plans for a start-up
enterprise. The final result will be a written business plan and your team will
present a verbal project proposal to outside visitors. You will receive both an
individual and team grade for this effort. As the project is developed,
individual team members will make progress reports. Details on this assignment
will be provided in class.
Reading
Reading in this course is
essential. There are two texts assigned for this course: (1) Engineering You
Start-up: A Guide for the High-Tech Entrepreneur, by James A. Swanson and Michael
L. Baird, 2nd edition, Professional Publications, ISBN 1888577916
(code S&B in course calendar), (2) Advanced Selling Techniques, by
Brian Tracy, ISBN 0684824744. IMPORTANT NOTE: I am using the second
book, by Tracy, for the first time, because the book I used last year is now
out of print. Because I didn’t discover this until August, Huntley Bookstore
will be stocking the first book listed, but not Tracy. Therefore we will order
Tracy’s book individually or collectively through Amazon (it’s $4 cheaper that
way anyway).
Review the course
calendar for the reading assignments. You are expected to have completed
the assigned reading for each week prior to the beginning of
class on Monday for that week. Each Monday, with few exceptions,
we are going to discuss that reading.
On that day, one or two students will be chosen randomly to lead
the discussion and your grade will depend, in part, upon how well you do that.
Failure to be prepared will result automatically in a low grade.
Grades
One third of your grade will be
determined by your class participation in discussions and presentations,
including the discussion of the readings assigned for each week, as described
in the paragraph above. When you speak and submit written assignments, I write
things down and I remember what you've done. (This is the way it is done in a
corporation and in the kinds of public contact one makes when one is an
entrepreneur - you don't take tests in real life, except for when you're
getting your driver's license).One third of your grade will be determined by
the grade given for your team's business plan, which is due at the end of the
semester. One third of your grade will be determined by the team grade
that I give your team based upon your end-of-semester oral presentation.
Visitors
As time permits, I try to bring
visitors from the entrepreneurial community into class to talk to you and tell
you their stories. These include alumni and trustees who have started and
succeeded at business and financiers who fund and sometimes manage
entrepreneurial startups. At the end of the course, when you make your team
presentations, one or two of the listeners will probably be venture
capitalists. These visitors play a very important role in this class and they
provide a wonderful opportunity for students to meet people who work with
business startups.
Now go look at the course calendar..