EPS - Entrepreneurship

EPS6300 Entrepreneurship, Analytics, and Strategy of the Firm
3 Blended Credits

This course provides an overview of the entrepreneurship method that will enable students to create, identify, assess, shape, and act on opportunities in a variety of contexts and organizations, while also introducing students to the use of analytics throughout the lifecycle of business applications. The method, called Entrepreneurial Thought and Action® (ET&A), is teachable and learnable, but is not predictable. This is a results-oriented course that emphasizes early action in order to test and refine new venture concepts. Topics will include: innovation uncertainty in the corporate environment, Design Thinking, Shareholder Value and EVA//Multi Business Strategy in Large Corporations, Industry Analysis, Ecosystems and Competitive Positioning and How Big Companies Make Decisions.

Prerequisites: Admission in to the MSBA program. CAM students should contact Graduate Academic Services to pursue enrollment in this course.

EPS6610: Entrepreneurship: Opportunity Discovery and Validation

1.5 Credits

This course introduces you to a methodology that we practice at Babson, called Entrepreneurial Thought & Action (ET&A). You will have several opportunities to practice the skills associated with this method, such as the ability to effectively pitch your ideas, enroll others on your entrepreneurial journey, and manage risk through a process of trial-and-error learning. You will also examine the importance of creativity and lateral thinking in this process, and develop your abilities as they relate to entrepreneurship. Through this process, you will become more adept at both recognizing and acting upon entrepreneurial opportunities. Lastly, you will integrate these skills to define, iterate, and communicate the feasibility of an early-stage business concept. 

EPS6610: New Venture Creation

3 credits

New ventures operate in environments marked by uncertainty, limited resources, and the constant need to create new value. Founders and entrepreneurial leaders must learn how to build capabilities, test assumptions, and develop systems that support growth without losing the flexibility that makes entrepreneurship possible. In this course, students examine different approaches ventures can take to build and strengthen their entrepreneurial capability as they move from idea to execution and early growth. We consider the challenges of building structures, processes, and management practices that support innovation while still enabling focus, speed, and learning. The course emphasizes how entrepreneurship can become an enduring capability within a growing business, not just a one-time startup effort. 

EPS6612: Entrepreneurial Finance

3 Credits

This course focuses on the financial challenges and funding options associated with starting, building, and growing a new venture. Students examine a range of financing sources available to entrepreneurs, including personal investment, co-founders and partners, friends and family, bootstrapping, commercial lending, angel investors, venture capital, and other sources of seed and growth capital. The course explores how entrepreneurs evaluate funding choices in light of the venture’s stage, goals, risk profile, and ownership implications. Students will also examine the financial viability of new business opportunities, develop financial plans for emerging ventures, and consider the financial management challenges that arise over the life of a business. Topics may include financing start-ups, managing cash and growth, financial planning for small and medium-sized enterprises, preparing for investment, and navigating major transition points such as rapid expansion, sale, or failure. 

EPS7200 Entrepreneurship & Opportunity

2 Credits

Entrepreneurship & Opportunity (E&O) – This course provides an overview of the entrepreneurship method that will enable you to create, identify, assess, shape, and act on opportunities in a variety of contexts and organizations. The method, called Entrepreneurial Thought & Action® (ETA), is teachable and learnable, but is not predictable. This is a results-oriented course that emphasizes early action in order to test and refine new venture concepts.

EPS7201 Strategic Innovation in Mature Organizations

3 Core Credits - Blended Miami Program Core Course

Corporations caught up in the web of commoditization and stagnation have come to realize that they need entrepreneurial capabilities to create new platforms of business that will be the promise of the future. Yet overall, these efforts have produced uneven success. Although entrepreneurs in organizations can benefit from the resources, experience, financial assets and networks of the large company, they are constrained by its bureaucratic practices. Recent evidence points to corporate leaders’ renewed attention to developing management systems that work with, rather than against intrapreneurs. In this course we will examine various approaches companies have taken to build this organizational capability. We examine five different approaches and consider the shortcomings or each. We will build the rationale for why innovation must become an organizational function if a company truly wishes to compete for the Future. We focus at the organizational level rather than the individual project level, seeking insights about how organizations can institutionalize structures and processes for entrepreneurship, even within a dominant culture of operational excellence that, of necessity, pervades most large established firms.

EPS7500 New Venture Creation

(Formerly Entrepreneurship)

3 Credits

This course integrates many of the concepts, tools and practices of entrepreneurship. Students will learn to be superior opportunity assessors and shapers, to understand the integration of people and process in entrepreneurship, to write, articulate and present a new venture execution plan, understand the alternatives and trade-offs in financing, starting and operating a venture, and gain a better understanding of their personal entrepreneurial capabilities. Students will engage in feasibility assessment, venture viability analysis and resource acquisition. Students will learn how to conduct rigorous business-planning, and also how to network for resources and to be able to communicate about a new venture in a confident, articulate and effective manner. The course builds on foundation concepts from the Opportunity and Entrepreneurship courses, and is designed for students seriously considering launching a new venture in a variety of contexts (e.g. corporate, family, organization, franchise) or students planning to work in an early-stage venture.

Prerequisites: EPS7200 or EPS7800

EPS 7509: AI Pioneers: Creating the Future of Business

3 elective credit

This experiential seminar explores the rapidly evolving field of artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential for creating new business opportunities. Students will learn about cutting-edge technologies in AI, such as machine learning, computer vision, neural networks, and natural language processing. We will also cover recent developments in the AI industry and the impact of venture capital investment on AI startups. Throughout the course, students will have the opportunity to experiment with AI technologies and develop their own innovative projects. By the end of the course, students will have a deep understanding of the current state of AI and the potential for new business opportunities in this field. This course is ideal for students interested in the intersection of entrepreneurship and technology.

Prerequisites: None

EPS7539 Future Trends in Entrepreneurial Ventures
3 Credits

Changing industry and market forces create scalable, emergent markets for new ventures. Entrepreneurs and Corporate Innovators who can grasp future trends have a distinct advantage in being able to focus their efforts where opportunities and markets converge. In this course, we will scan the future in Three Areas (Business and Economic, Technology, and Organization) that are further expanded into twelve dimensions. The goal of this course is to create an understanding of how to develop entrepreneurial and innovative vision and action in order to scan, identify, and test future customer needs; design products and services to meet those needs; and build support from the entrepreneurial eco-system including investors and business partners. Students will develop an understanding of the future that applies to her/his own innovation leadership vision; identify Key Future Factors that allow innovative leaders to address customer needs currently unmet; and develop an action approach to scale an opportunity with an assessment of future trends and markets.

EPS7553 Organizational Entrepreneurship: Putting Your Entrepreneurial Capabilities into Practice
1.5 Elective Credits

This course is situated at the nexus of you and the capabilities and behaviors necessary to be entrepreneurial within an organization.  Students will explore the foundations of driving entrepreneurial success within various types of organizations.  Focusing on your individual entrepreneurial capacity, students will learn how to be entrepreneurial in any setting, whether it be corporate, non-profit, family, government, or other types of organization. The course emphasizes the application of entrepreneurial leadership and Entrepreneurial Thought & Action (ET&A) principles, particularly within large existing organizations. Students will engage with research from Fortune 500 companies, popular press books, case studies, role plays, and other relevant materials.

For more information watch this video.

Prerequisites: None

EPS 7554 Entrepreneurship, Analytics, and Strategy of the Firm
3 Blended Credits

This course provides an overview of the entrepreneurship method that will enable students to create, identify, assess, shape, and act on opportunities in a variety of contexts and organizations, while also introducing students to the use of analytics throughout the lifecycle of business applications. The method, called Entrepreneurial Thought and Action® (ET&A), is teachable and learnable, but is not predictable. This is a results-oriented course that emphasizes early action in order to test and refine new venture concepts. Topics will include: innovation uncertainty in the corporate environment, Design Thinking, Shareholder Value and EVA//Multi Business Strategy in Large Corporations, Industry Analysis, Ecosystems and Competitive Positioning and How Big Companies Make Decisions.

Prerequisites: Admission in to the MSBA program. CAM students should contact Graduate Academic Services to pursue enrollment in this course.

EPS7800 Entrepreneurship
2 Credits (Core MBA)

If you have taken and passed EPS7200, you cannot register for EPS7800, as these two courses are equivalent

Through the Entrepreneurship components of the course, you will explore and practice the concepts of creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship, and how these three concepts come together to create the future. You will examine the importance of creativity in this process, and how it fosters an innovative and entrepreneurial approach to identifying, solving and acting on management challenges. You will build an ET&A toolkit to create and evaluate entrepreneurial opportunities, marshal resources, and form teams driven by creativity, leadership, and smart action. You will explore questions about value exploration and value appropriation - for yourself and for others in society. In sum, this course is a journey through the fuzzy front-end of early-stage entrepreneurial activity. This course is not intended to be a complete overview of entrepreneurship. It makes no effort to deal with all the complex issues of entrepreneurial practice. Topics such as managing growth, franchising, entrepreneurial finance, corporate entrepreneurship, family entrepreneurship, or buying businesses are not covered in the course. Other courses offered during your MBA program go into greater depth in many of these issues. This course is an immersion experience for finding, creating, and evaluating early-stage opportunities for value creation. It also expands your horizons about how to determine what is valuable not only for yourself, but for others across people, organizations, and society in new and creative ways.

MBA7601 Special Topics: Entrepreneurial Growth
3 Elective Credits

This course provides students insight into the challenges and opportunities that arise as a company grows. It provides students with concepts and frameworks necessary to facilitate entrepreneurial management in organizations of all sizes and types. It is relevant to individuals interested in managing growth in their own companies as well as those growing an existing company.

Prerequisites: None

MBA7602 Special Topics: Social Innovation
3 Elective Credits

We are living in a world where societal expectations of business have shifted and the lines between business, government, and the social sectors are being blurred. Businesses are called upon to create both economic and social value in new ways. This course addresses issues related to the social, economic, and environmental responsibilities of business. The topic of sustainability is also addressed.

MBA 7605: Special Topics: New Venture Creation

3 Credits Miami MBA

This course integrates many of the concepts, tools and practices of entrepreneurship. Students will learn to be superior opportunity assessors and shapers, to understand the integration of people and process in entrepreneurship, to write, articulate and present a new venture execution plan, understand the alternatives and trade-offs in financing, starting and operating a venture, and gain a better understanding of their personal entrepreneurial capabilities. Students will engage in feasibility assessment, venture viability analysis and resource acquisition. Students will learn how to conduct rigorous business-planning, and also how to network for resources and to be able to communicate about a new venture in a confident, articulate and effective manner. The course builds on foundation concepts from the Opportunity and Entrepreneurship courses, and is designed for students seriously considering launching a new venture in a variety of contexts (e.g. corporate, family, organization, franchise) or students planning to work in an early-stage venture.