Entrepreneurship Track MBA Program Updated: August 2013

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1 Entrepreneurship Track MBA Program Updated: August 2013 Not Just For Founders! There Are Many Entrepreneurial Career Paths The MBA Entrepreneurship Track is designed for McDonough MBA students with a strong entrepreneurial interest, but that interest is not limited to being the founder of a company while in school. Students intended career path may be one of the following: Starting a company (or non-profit venture) immediately during/after school - or at some point later in their career Joining the management team of an existing start-up or emerging growth venture, including but not limited to those in the vibrant Washington, DC technology sector Being part of entrepreneurial efforts within a larger, existing organization (sometimes referred to as intrapreneurship ) A role that requires close interaction with and understanding of entrepreneurs, such as venture capital, consulting, investment banking, or private wealth management The Entrepreneurship Track is organized as a set of recommended courses from which students may choose depending upon their particular interests and schedule availability. Students may take them in any order and there are no prerequisites. While this document attempts to provide accurate and detailed information, course schedules and info are subject to frequent changes. Entrepreneurship Focus Courses The following courses have entrepreneurship as a primary topic and are highly recommend for entrepreneurial students. STRT 575: Entrepreneurial Consulting Clinic (Hunt, Mod 1 & Mod 3) STRT 576: Entrepreneurship Practicum (Hunt, Mod 4) STRT 580: Understanding Entrepreneurship (Reid, Mod 2, Mod 4) STRT 596: Developing the Concept (Gamble/Rosauer, Mod 1 & Mod 3) STRT 597: Preparing to Launch (Gamble/Rosauer, Mod 4) STRT 677: Launching the Venture (Wood/Hunt, Mod 3) FINC 576: Entrepreneurial Finance & Venture Capital (Dahiya, Mod 3) BADM 706: Startup Factory (Koester, ILE March, ILE July) Entrepreneurship Related Courses The following courses have a broader application but are recommended for students interested in entrepreneurship: ACCT 618: Law for Managers (Potter, Mod 1 & Mod 4) OPIM 668: E-Business (Sigman, Mod 2) FINC 575: Private Equity (Roux, Mod 2) MARK 551: Marketing Research (Wathieu, Mod 4) MARK 571: New Product Development (Leijon, Mod 2) MGMT 589: Advanced Oral Presentation (Hajduk/Heino, Mod 1 & Mod 4) MGMT 590: Managing Human Resources (Miceli, Mod 1) MGMT 670: Negotiations (Tinsley/Voss/Welber, Mods 1, 2, 3, 4) MGMT 679: Imagination and Creativity (Bies, Mod 2) STRT 615: Technology Strategy (Sacoccio, Mod 2 & Mod 4) STRT 624: Strategic Pricing (Mod 3)

2 Entrepreneurship Track MBA Program Updated: August 2013 Entrepreneurship Focus Courses by Mod Mod 1 Mod 2 Mod 3 Mod 4 Course # STRT 596 STRT 596 STRT 597 Developing the Developing the Preparing to Launch Concept Concept Jaye Gamble Jaye Gamble Jaye Gamble Jean Rosauer Jean Rosauer Jean Rosauer Course # STRT 580 STRT 677 STRT 580 Understanding Launching the Understanding Entrepreneurship Venture Entrepreneurship Jeff Reid Smith Wood Jeff Reid Course # STRT 575 STRT 575 STRT 576 Entrepreneurial Entrepreneurial Entrepreneurial Consulting Clinic Consulting Clinic Practicum Steve Goldenberg Steve Goldenberg Course # FINC 576 Entrepreneurial Finance & Venture Capital Sandeep Dahiya *2 sections Course # BADM 706 Startup Factory Eric Koester *Integrated Learning Experience: FT - March; EP - July

3 Detailed Course Descriptions of Entrepreneurship Focus Courses Mod 3 Courses STRT 575 Entrepreneurial Consulting Clinic Mod 3, Mondays pm, Alyssa Lovegrove, Steve Goldenberg Like all CEOs, founders of startups need to juggle a variety of competing demands on their time and resource. In the case of early stage companies, however, with small teams and limited resources, these tradeoffs can be even more acute. The entrepreneurial consulting clinic provides students with a unique opportunity to experience first hand the challenges faced by entrepreneurs. Teams of students will be matched to commercial and social sector startups around the DC metro area, and will act as consultants brought in to address a specific issue. Class time will be split between time at or with the client, and classroom discussion. Lectures will focus on both consulting technique (defining the scope building an effective client relationship, making a strong presentation) and on the strategic and tactical challenges of managing and growing a startup. Projects can span any number of strategic and operational areas; typical examples of past projects include: Expansion into new verticals or markets How to scale (personnel, premises, marketing/sales plans) How to best deploy limited cash/resources Developing a case for support/pitch for additional investment. Taught by Professor (successful entrepreneur and angel investor) with help from Alyssa Lovegrove (McKinsey consultant, entrepreneur) and Steve Goldenberg (entrepreneur), this course is useful for aspiring entrepreneurs, aspiring consultants, and anyone interested in simply learning more about the challenges faced in entrepreneurial companies. STRT 596 Entrepreneurship: Developing the Concept Mod 3, Wednesdays pm J.S. Gamble, Jean Rosauer Use this no risk time in school to test the waters of an entrepreneurship or investor path. This includes those who have taken the Startup Factory - you ve dipped a toe, now go for a swim. 596 is a lab class where you ll work in teams developing your idea or one of your teammate s ideas into a viable business. The final class: pitching to real investors. Many students report that this was one of their most memorable classes. Several of the teams formed in 596 have gone on to build their businesses after graduation. At a minimum you ll learn how to spot a good investment and how to innovate in a company, big or small. You ll answer: How do I turn a business idea into a revenue-generating business? What do investors look for? How do I find out what customers really want? How do I make money doing something I love? Would I enjoy working in a startup? How can I bring entrepreneurship into a big company? The course is taught by adjunct professors J.S. Gamble, co-founder of Blu Venture Investors, and Jean Rosauer, a consultant to growth CEOs and angel investor two coaches in your corner with different perspectives. Successful Entrepreneur guests share their realworld experiences so you can learn from their success; and just as important, their mistakes!

4 How is this different than Startup Factory? We encourage you to bring your start-up factory ideas and see if they really can be viable businesses. You ll learn more in-depth about start-up sales, marketing, channels and innovation. How is this different than 597 and 677? 596 is about finding a business that has a great shot at being a success. 597 and 677 assume you have a robust business idea. 597 is another lab class where you ll work in teams to plan your go-to-market strategy, legal structure and funding options. In 677, you ll work individually to plan for your first year of operations and your exit strategy. STRT 677 Entrepreneurship: Launching the Venture Mod 3, Tuesdays pm Smith Wood, You ve got your great idea and your business plan outline. Now what?! Launching the Venture emphasizes pragmatic skills in entrepreneurship, particularly in the critical first year period when many businesses fail. The topics covered include: Setting up the company, including legal/tax structure, and business partner/investor agreements Getting your critical first sales really going (and adjusting when you don t meet proformas) Day-to-day operational management Raising capital hands-on practical strategies and tactics Contingency planning (you WILL have a first year crisis!) Planning for exiting/harvesting events (e.g., sale of company, merger, IPO) Surviving meetings with the Board of Directors/ investors We bring in several successful entrepreneurs as guest lecturers, as well as an experienced venture attorney. Your perspective in this course is that of the CEO of a business that has progressed beyond the business plan stage and has now launched. Many of the exercises in the class revolve around a business concept or venture idea that you must formulate. Students may use ideas from other courses (e.g., STRT 596/597) or any other sources of ideas that you may want to pursue. This course is taught by Adjunct Profs (Smith Wood and ) who have started, operated, invested in, and cashed-out of many entrepreneurial businesses. FINC 576 Entrepreneurial Finance and Venture Capital Mod 3, 2 sections Tues/Thurs ; Tuesdays pm Sandeep Dahiya Every year thousands of new ventures are started, and a nearly equal number of existing businesses are closed down. Almost all of these ventures are single founder/employee type of ventures where the founder has neither the desire nor the possibility of creating a significant business organization. A small fraction of such ventures however hold the promise to grow into large businesses. In this course we will focus heavily on such promising ventures. The reason for this focus is self-evident: business that are unlikely to grow fast have little or limited need for external financing-making such ventures irrelevant for a course titled Entrepreneurial Finance & Venture Capital. This course is designed to illustrate challenges faced by an entrepreneur in financing and growing a new firm. Exploiting a promising opportunity frequently requires an entrepreneur to marshal scarce resources, especially external capital. The course will focus almost exclusively on issues relevant to the financing of entrepreneurial ventures. We shall devote significant amount of time on understanding the role of Venture Capital (and to a lesser degree on Angel Investors) in financing new start-ups. The course requires and reinforces the skills needed to analyze a business with a strong emphasis on financing deal terms and valuation techniques. The course concludes by examining the harvesting of entrepreneurial ventures whereby the entrepreneur and the financiers realize the returns for their effort. The course is driven almost exclusively by case studies, many of which are based on startups or young firms. Professor Sandeep Dahiya, who brings a unique combination of real-world business experience and tenure-worthy research, is frequently cited as one of MSB s best teachers.

5 Mod 4 Courses STRT 576 Entrepreneurial Practicum Mod 4, Tuesdays pm A hands-on introduction to the challenges of managing a successful entrepreneurial, seed stage investment raise, taught from the perspective of the investor rather than the entrepreneur. In this class, students work in pairs and shadow a local angel or venture capital investor, and analyze the issues/daily decisions that arise. Like STRT 575, course time is split between lecture/class discussion and time on site with the sponsor/investor. For the practicum side of the class, over the course of six 3-hour sessions students will observe an investor s daily routine and keep a diary of the challenges, issues, successes and vagaries of the investor s day-to-day routine. Each student team and sponsor will also agree on a project or other deliverable that the students can provide to the sponsor at the conclusion of the course. For the classroom portion of the class, lectures will focus on seed stage investment philosophies, term sheet development, the necessity for portfolio diversification, post-investment management of the investment and other intrinsic aspects of maximizing the investment (from the investor s perspective). Students will also hear from active investors about their lessons learned. STRT 597 Entrepreneurship: Preparing to Launch Mod 4, Mondays pm J.S. Gamble, Jean Rosauer Have a business idea and want to be ready to launch it after graduation (or sooner!)? Want to see what it would take to launch a business, even if that s later in your career plans? 597 teams typically have a business idea and want to get ready to launch. Ideas can come from Startup Factory or 596, or from previous experience outside of MSB. You can bring your own idea, or join a team with classmates who have ideas you like. Four MSB Teams launched their new businesses from STRT 597 in the last 2 years. Course topics include: What is my go-to-marlet plan (what is a go-to-market plan?!) How do I achieve that all-important first revenue? Which financial model will be compelling to investors? What are my funding options and which is best for my particular business? What is my legal strategy? You ll meet successful entrepreneurs, a lawyer that speciallizes in early-stage companies and at least one early-stage CFO. The course is taught by adjunct profs J.S. Gamble, co-founder of Blu Venture Investors, and Jean Rosauer, a consultant to growth CEOs and angel investor two coaches in your corner preparing you for success from different perspectives. Successful Entrepreneurs, a Lawyer and a CFO share their real-world experiences to help guide you. How is this different than Start-up Factory and 596? 597 takes up where 596 leaves off (and 596 takes up where Start-up Factory leaves off, or with a brand new concept). How is this different than 677? 597 is a lab class where you ll work in teams to plan your funding and launch. You do not need an idea of your own, you can join a team and serve as the CEO, CFO, CMO or COO for an idea you are excited by. In 677 you work individually on your own business to plan for your first year of operations, with every student wearing a CEO hat.

6 STRT 580 Understanding Entrepreneurship Mod 4 Tuesdays/Thursdays pm Jeff Reid Understanding Entrepreneurship questions fundamental assumptions about entrepreneurs to get to truth behind what it really means to lead an entrepreneurial life. This course will challenge students to explore and adopt an entrepreneurial mindset, forming a skill and a baseline critical to not just entrepreneurial pursuits but any career path. Note: This course is NOT a How To course. We will NOT cover topics related to how to start a business, such as how to write a business plan, how to raise money, etc. Those topics are covered in other courses such as: BADM 706, STRT 596, STRT 597, and STRT 677. This course emphasizes understanding the overall concept of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs, with a heavy emphasis on reading and personal reflection. This course will explore the concept of entrepreneurship in three primary ways: Entrepreneurship as a concept that is ill-defined and often misunderstood Entrepreneurship as a crucial driver of regional, national, and global economic development Entrepreneurship in the context of the student s own life and career plans The course centers around guest speakers who will not to simply tell their own entrepreneurial story, but instead to present an Entrepreneurial Thesis Statement on which they have particular expertise, and lead a discussion about that statement. Each Thesis Statement will fall under the main themes of the course, and will often include suggested readings. The final deliverable is an Entrepreneurial Life Plan, which is both a personal reflection of how you want to live your life and also an exploration of how entrepreneurship may (or may not) fit into your plans. Taught by Professor Jeff Reid, founding director of the Georgetown Entrepreneurship Initiative, many past students have said that this course fundamentally changed their life. Integrated Learning Experience BADM 706 Startup Factory March ILE, July ILE Eric Koester This course allows students to learn about and experience the process of how startups are built utilizing the Lean Startup Method. A startup is a temporary organization designed to discover a scalable business model. Today s early-stage entrepreneur is utilizing proven methodologies to quickly iterate, pivot and modulate into that model by using tools and techniques from concept validation, customer discovery, agile engineering and lean development. The Startup Factory will compress that startup discovery period into an intensive week-long program built around action-based learning for small teams applying these techniques to real-world business concepts. Course Objectives: Identify, qualify and pitch the value of a prospective new business opportunity. Utilize customer interviews, customer discovery and customer development methodologies to validate key premises of a business model. Utilize lean startup, agile engineering and rapid prototyping to develop minimum viable products for customer development and business model validation.