Intro to Entrepreneurship Online Class Gives You a Taste

I have developed an online class called Intro to Entrepreneurship.  The objective of this class is to give students and exposure to many of the facets of owning and operating a business.  By the end of the class, students should know whether or not they have the desire to learn and do everything necessary to be successful small business owners.  This "Welcome to Intro to Entrepreneurship" article gives students (and you) some of the details of how the class works.
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Welcome to Intro to Entrepreneurship

I believe we all have an innate desire to figure out a skill that we can turn into a product or service that is unique and desirable and that people; i.e. customers, will pay money to receive. From the time of the American Revolution up until the Industrial Revolution, most commerce took place between individual and small groups of entrepreneurs providing goods and services needed by others in the community. After the industrial revolution, people trended toward the factory, trading the independence of individual business ownership for the steady paycheck of working for others. Indeed, during the last 50 years, our society has done everything it can to drum the entrepreneurial spirit out of our young people telling them to “go to school and get a good job”. For a long time, the “good job” meant a lifelong career where one could work for the same company and retire with a nice comfortable pension. In today’s world, that kind of job longevity is gone; the pensions are gone. Today, young and old alike are beginning to look to small business ownership as a way to “break free”, surviving by making customers in the marketplace happy rather than some mid-level manager boss.

It takes much more than a single area of knowledge or skill to make a successful business. In this class, we’ll explore the other areas of skill and expertise necessary to compliment a specialized skill to make a business a success. Some of you will be more determined than ever to start a new business and make it work. Some of you may decide that using your specific skills in the employment of others is a better fit for your personal style and temperament. For all, the course will be a good overview of what it takes to make a small business work.

For those of you that forge ahead, the Successful Entrepreneur program can provide knowledge and skills in most areas of the “business pie”, giving you a much better chance for success than learning the “business pie” the hard way over 6 – 8 years.

Intro to Entrepreneurship will provide a broad overview of the “business pie” and what all is involved.

· Where to Begin

· What to Do and Sell

· Who and Where are Your Markets?

· Who Are You?

· How to Map Out Your Future

· How Much Do You Need?

· How to Market Your Products and Services

· The Importance of Good Customer Service

· How to Behave Ethically

· Planning Your Web Site

· Launching and Promoting Your Web Site

· How to Manage and Grow

· Lessons from Leaders

Generally, each one of these topics will comprise a Lesson folder in Angel. Additional ancillary topics will be added to the Lesson folders as they are available. Each Lesson folder* may include, but not necessarily be limited to:

· On-Line Discussion (or Discussion Board): You will provide two responses to the topics presented; first one due by Saturday at midnight following the Thursday assigned. After Saturday, midnight, take a look at what other class members have written and respond with a follow-up before the following Wednesday at midnight.

· Exercises: Express and explore your feelings about various business topics as presented in the chapters of the book. I’ll be the only one to see your exercise answers. Except for the last exercise assignment of the semester, exercise answers will typically be due within two weeks of the assignment date.

· Quizzes: To make sure you read and review the chapters in the book, quizzes will generally be made up of multiple choice questions covering the topics of the assigned chapters. Quizzes are “open source” (i.e. you can look up the answers in the book or course materials). Questions are written in such a way that you won’t be able to answer successfully without knowing or reviewing the information in the book or reference materials.

· Final Exam: This compilation of the quizzes, the Final Exam, is also open source and also written in a way that you will need to review the material to answer correctly.

All these items and the scoring formulas are included in the syllabus.

*The syllabus refers to “topic folders”. Consider “topic folders” and “lesson folders” to be synonymous.

About the Simulation

"Micro Business" is an online simulation that allows each student to make decisions about start up and daily operations to get a feel for running their own business. The program will compile financial results over a period of time with regard to them amount of profit made after each day of operation.

About the Text

“The Small Business Start-Up Workbook” was written by Cheryl D. Rickman as a result of her experience with a web design start up business in Britain. She augments her knowledge with that of other leading British entrepreneurs and her chapters cover exactly what needs to be covered. Other than the few instances where the Brits use different terms (They say “ring up” we say “call”.) her experience and advice will suit us well.