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Cases in Entrepreneurship | Fall 2015 Tr 09:30-10:45Am @ Miller Hall “Ideation Lab” 111

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Cases in Entrepreneurship | Fall 2015 Tr 09:30-10:45Am @ Miller Hall “Ideation Lab” 111 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. The Y-Combinator community has produced over $30 billion dollars of business value since 2005. OBJECTIVES This course is designed as an elective course in the management major with the following objectives in mind: Improve contextual awareness of how innovative companies develop, are structured, and generate value in the 21st century economy. Develop confidence making reasoned decisions under conditions of extreme uncertainty. Understand how innovation driven businesses fit within the context of an industry and global market dynamics. Explore real start-up culture and how to avoid common pitfalls and misconceptions. Apply scalable business concepts to personal passions and career paths across a variety of in- dustries Start-up culture is built around continuous learning and self-motivation to pursue personal excellence. This class just scratches the surface of the available resources. Motivated students will find ample resources to do a deeper dive on topics of interest and opportunities to get plugged into the local 1 | P a g e THIS SYLLABUS IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE AT THE INSTRUCTOR’S DISCRETION entrepreneurship community through other Loyola programs. It is the hope that the content of this course will inspire some students to pursue their own world changing entrepreneurial journey. COURSE MATERIALS AND TOOLS Required “Reading:” “Built to Sell” by John Warrillow – (Bookstore/Amazon) Harvard Business Review Coursepack Cut/Paste Text Link: https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/access/37602081 How to Start a Startup Lecture Series by Sam Altman Cut/Paste Text Link: http://startupclass.samaltman.com (Official Version) Failure to purchase, read, and adequately prepare required materials prior to the assigned class will adversely impact your grade. Suggested/Encouraged/Optional Reading: “Remedial” Texts and Handbooks (Hint: Hopefully you have these already…): “Start-up Owner’s Manual” by Steve Blank (Bookstore/Amazon) “Business Model Generation” by Alexander Osterwalder (Bookstore/Amazon) “Star Pupil” Advanced/Interesting Reading: “Zero to One” by Peter Thiel (Full Text) (Amazon) “Articles” by Paul Grahm (Blog) Proscribed Reading by Sam Altman (Various Sources by Lecture) Recommended “Cliff Notes” (…Really. Someone else has already taken notes on this class for you… Please be a good creative citizen and pay something.) “The first 30%: Distilled Wisdom from Start-up Experts” by “Rahul” (Link) 2 | P a g e THIS SYLLABUS IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE AT THE INSTRUCTOR’S DISCRETION Optional reading is entirely and by definition “optional.” These are materials that are available to you at your discretion. Healthy curiosity regarding the subject matter of the course will improve the quality classroom dialogue for all participants, which has the potential to improve grades. If you are serious about this space, it is highly recommended that you dive into these materials. There is no wrong place to start. This is also not a definitive list. Use “the Google,” and don’t be afraid to spend money on books, they are cheaper than paying a professor to tell you what to read. CLASS COMMUNICATIONS E-mail and Blackboard “Announcements” are used frequently to send reminders, schedule changes, etc. It is your obligation to check email and Blackboard daily and to ensure that your inbox does not fill up. E-mail is generally the best way to reach me. GRADES Grades are heavily based on classroom participation and overall preparedness for each class. Students are also assessed on individual and group written work. As a symposium style class there are no traditional “tests,” however the instructor reserves the right to use “pop quizzes” as a proxy for class participation if students are not adequately prepared. There are no “extra credit” assignments. If you are doing poorly in the class, you should spend your time improving your performance on future assignments, not doing additional work. Personal improvement and demonstration of effort will be considered in final grades. LETTER GRADE RANGE A 94.6 - 100 A- 90 – 94.5 B+ 87.5 – 89.9 B 82.6 – 87.4 B- 80 – 82.5 C+ 77.5 – 79.9 C 72.6 – 77.4 C- 70 – 72.5 D+ 67.5 – 69.9 D 65 – 67.4 F 0- 65 Please study the table below and following descriptions carefully, noting the percentage of your grade that will be determined by each component and the requirements for achieving full marks: COMPONENT % OF GRADE Contribution to Class Discussion/Case 30% Preparedness Case Response/Write-Ups 40% Simulation 5% 3 | P a g e THIS SYLLABUS IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE AT THE INSTRUCTOR’S DISCRETION Case Research Project 15% Case Discussion Leadership 10% PARTICIPATION, BEHAVIOR & ATTENDANCE (30% OF GRADE) ATTENDANCE. Attendance is required. This course is discussion-driven and your success depends on in- class activities. Poor attendance reflects negatively on you and deprives the rest of the class of your perspective and insights. If you know about an unavoidable absence in advance (e.g. job interview), please let me know via e-mail. Please give your team members the same notice and courtesy regarding attendance/absences. BEHAVIOR. My expectations of you are relatively simple: arrive on time, be well prepared and behave as you would in a lively business meeting. Side conversations and ringing cell phones are unacceptable in class and will hurt your grade. Always be respectful of others’ opinions, even if you disagree with them. Also, although it is acceptable to use your laptop or tablet for note-taking, use of social media, games or other software unrelated to class will result in your ejection from class. PARTICIPATION. The character of this course naturally lends itself to active exchange between participants. To recognize those whose comments and questions benefit us all, a part of your grade is based on contributions made in class. Both quantity and quality are relevant and, although consistent contribution is ideal, a few points of genuine insight may go a long way. Sharing perceptions and ideas with others is crucial for learning and for understanding how the diverse opinions that you are likely to encounter in an organization are articulated and debated. You will find yourself presenting and testing new ideas that are not wholly formulated and assisting others to shape their ideas as well. You should be prepared to take some risks and be supportive of the efforts of others. Grades for participation will be based primarily on my discretion and will generally follow the criteria outlined below: BELOW EXPEC- MEETS EXPEC- INADEQUATE EXEMPLARY TATIONS TATIONS (B LEV- (D/F LEVEL) (A LEVEL) (C LEVEL) EL) Misses over 6 ATTENDANCE Misses 3-5 classes Misses 1-2 classes Misses no classes classes Proactively and Student never Few contributions regularly contrib- contributes to to class discus- utes to class dis- Provides invaluable LEVEL OF EN- class discussion; sion; Seldom vol- cussion; Initiates “incite” to class discus- GAGEMENT fails to respond unteers but re- discussion on is- sions to direct ques- sponds to direct sues related to tions questions class Does not listen Does not listen when others Listens and appro- Listens without inter- carefully and LISTENING talk, interrupts, priately responds rupting and incorpo- comments are of- SKILLS or makes inap- to the contributions rates/expands on the ten nonresponsive propriate com- of others contributions of others to discussion ments Contributions Contributions are Contributions promote RELEVANCE OF Contributions are are off-topic or sometimes off- deeper analysis of the CONTRIBUTION always relevant distract class topic or distracting topic 4 | P a g e THIS SYLLABUS IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE AT THE INSTRUCTOR’S DISCRETION from discussion Is not adequate- Has read the mate- Is consistently well- ly prepared; rial but not closely Student has read prepared; Frequently Does not appear or has read only and thought about PREPARATION raises questions or to have read the some of the as- the material in ad- comments on material material in ad- signed material in vance of class outside the assignment vance of class advance ASSIGNMENTS All assignments must be posted to Blackboard and two printed copies brought to class.
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