THIS SYLLABUS IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE AT THE INSTRUCTOR’S DISCRETION MGT B493 | CASES IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP | FALL 2015 TR 09:30-10:45AM @ MILLER HALL “IDEATION LAB” 111 INSTRUCTOR: JON ATKINSON, MBA. E-MAIL:
[email protected] TELEPHONE: OFFICE: (504) 864-7938 PERSONAL CELL: (504) 994-0786 (EMERGENCY ONLY) OFFICE HOURS (MILLER 345): BY APPOINTMENT PREREQUISITE COURSES: MGT -B245AND MKT -B280. OVERVIEW This class uses HBS (Harvard Business School) Case Method to explore various topics related to starting, growing, and “exiting” scalable, high growth, businesses. Focus is given to high profile successes and failures across a variety of industries with the goal of unlocking the “secrets” of Silicon Valley and other successful innovation clusters. How is value created and distributed by innovative, forward looking, often cobbled together, new businesses that ultimately have a meaningful impact on the everyday lives of large numbers of people? How and why do such businesses often fail spectacularly? How do aspiring entrepreneurs best equip themselves, build teams and management structures, and design products to compete in this winner take all environment? The case method puts the student in the driver seat, solving real problems, faced by real companies, often with limited information and uncertain outcomes. This trains students to be entrepreneurs or “intrapreneurs” increasing their confidence and making key decisions across a variety of functional areas. The class follows the themes promulgated by the “How to Start a Start-up” lecture series developed by Sam Altman, founder of Y-Combinator (YC), for Stanford University. This series of publicly available lectures features some of Silicon Valley’s best and brightest sharing in-depth lessons about specific topics and challenges they have faced as founders, investors and mentors working with high growth companies.