Entrepreneurship Basics
Entrepreneurship Basics 3 | 2018-19
This Course uses a fictional business to allow the learner to settle deeply into an entrepreneur’s shoes. Using the business as a realistic context, the learner is challenged to raise funding from a range of sources to launch the company, move the company successfully from a startup to a rapidly expanding “Phase 3” firm, and analyze the business’s innovative position in the market.
Faculty
Prof. Al Osborne
Professor
Alfred E. Osborne, Jr. is senior associate dean of UCLA Anderson. In this role, he oversees a variety of key areas and initiatives within the school, including development, alumni relations, marketing and communications, corporate initiatives, and executive education.
Dr. Osborne is also professor of Global Economics and Management and founder and faculty director of the Harold and Pauline Price Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. The Price Center serves to organize faculty research, student activities and curricula related to the study of entrepreneurship and new business development at UCLA Anderson including the Management Development Entrepreneurs Program. He has been at UCLA since 1972.
Prof. George Abe
Professor
George Abe is a lecturer and Faculty Director of the Strategic Management Research (SMR) Program at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. His teaching responsibilities include entrepreneurship, business plan development and field study program advisories. SMR is the field study program, required of all Executive MBA students.
He was Business Development Manager for the UCLA Office of Intellectual Property, which is responsible for patent protection and commercialization of UCLA research.
Previously, he was a venture partner with Palomar Ventures, a VC firm in Santa Monica, California. Before Palomar, he was a Business Development Manager at Cisco Systems. Prior to that he was with Infonet Services Corporation (NYSE:IN, now BT) where he designed Infonet’s IP data service.
From 1998 until 2006, he was a member of the board of directors of Switchcore AB, a publicly traded fabless semiconductor designer in Sweden. He has also held board of director positions with various startup companies and not-for-profit organizations.
He is the author of Residential Broadband, which presents an analysis of high-speed residential networking, published by Cisco Press.
Education
B.A. Mathematics, UCLA
M.S. Business, Quantitative Methods, UCLA
Course Learning Objectives:
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
- Approach fundraising with confidence and a clear view of available options, including friends/family, through crowdfunding, and investors.
- Engage knowledgeably with venture capitalists, knowing what they can provide and what they expect in return.
- Consider the impact of various types of innovation, including market disruption, on your entrepreneurial venture and its culture.
Syllabus
Module Learning Objectives:
As a result of participating in this module, you will be able to:
- Evaluate options for friend and family fundraising, based on a set of facts about a business, and determine if each should be approached.
- Propose a plan for raising funds through crowdsourcing, based on a set of facts about the business.
- For a business that is expanding, create a plan for seeking additional funding from angel investors and/or corporate strategic investors.
Module Components:
- Video Lecture 1: Overview & Very Early Stage Funding
- Video Lecture 2: Not-So-Early-Stage Funding: Approaching Strangers
- Video Lecture 3: Investors
- Reading 1: Bootstrapping Business Start-ups: A Review of Current Business Practices
- Reading 2: Crowdfunding of Small Entrepreneurial Ventures
- Assignment: 3-Dazzle Boutique
- Check for Understanding Assessment
Module Learning Objectives:
As a result of participating in this module, you will be able to:
- Explain the workings of a venture capital firm, including an example of how profits are divided among all the participants and a company’s founders.
- Write an elevator pitch to use in seeking funding from venture capitalists.
- Answer common questions an investor asks during the fundraising process.
Module Components:
- Video Lecture 1: Venture Capital Fundraising
- Video Lecture 2: Fundraising Process
- Video Lecture 3: Improve Your Chances of Raising Money
- Reading 1: Angels, Venture Capitalists or the Crowd: Who Should Fund Your Startup?
- Reading 2: Why 99.95% of Entrepreneurs Should Stop Wasting Time Seeking Venture Capital
- Reading 3: Steve Case: ‘The Team You Build Will Define the Company You Build
- Reading 4: 6 Tips for Overcoming a ‘No’ When Seeking Funding
- Assignment: 3-Dazzle Boutique, continued
- Check for Understanding Assessment
Module Learning Objectives:
As a result of participating in this module, you will be able to:
- Create a set of action steps to move an organization facing a Phase 2 crisis of direction into Phase 3, where rapid expansion can occur.
- Analyze the current culture of an organization to find its strengths and weaknesses as it moves through change.
- Propose innovations for a given business in each of five key areas: product/service, technology, production/processes, markets/distribution channels, and business model.
Module Components:
- Video Lecture 1: Five Phases
- Video Lecture 2: Focus on Culture
- Video Lecture 3: Definition of Innovation
- Reading 1: Managing Growth – 5 Phases of Growth
- Reading 2: Startup Key Stages
- Reading 3: The challenges of growing a business – and how to meet them
- Assignment: 3-Dazzle Boutique, continued
- Check for Understanding Assessment
Module Learning Objectives:
As a result of participating in this module, you will be able to:
- Determine if a specific innovation is empowering, sustaining, or efficiency, and explain your position.
- Propose at least five specific efficiency innovations in the context of a specific business.
- Analyze a given market innovation to determine if it is “disruptive” and defend your position on the question.
Module Components:
- Video Lecture 1: The Process of Innovation
- Video Lecture 2: Disruptive Innovation
- Reading 1: Disruptive Innovation for Social Change
- Reading 2: Disruptive Genius
- Assignments: 3-Dazzle Boutique, continued
- Check for Understanding Assessment
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