The MOOC Revolution: The Best MBA Electives For Free

Entrepreneurship 101: Who Is Your Customer?

School: MIT Sloan

Source: edX

Link: Entrepreneurship 101

Start Date: March 18, 2014 (6 Weeks)

Workload: 4 Hours Per Week

Instructor: Bill Aulet

Credentials: Professor Aulet is a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan, where he teaches courses like New Enterprises and Applications of Advanced Entrepreneurial Techniques. In addition, he serves as the Managing Director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, which supports student entrepreneurship at MIT’s five schools. Before entering academia, Professor Aulet was an entrepreneur who raised over $100 million dollars to fund his ventures, which created hundreds of millions of dollars in market value. He is the author of Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup and was recently awarded the Adolf F. Monosson Prize for Entrepreneurial Mentoring at MIT.

Graded: A Certificate of Achievement will be awarded to students who successfully complete the course.

Description: Using a case study method, this course will conduct reviews of MIT entrepreneurs in markets ranging from 3-D printers to mobile electronics. Students will learn how to go from formulating ideas to profiling customers who will buy the irsolution. Students will also complete practical exercises and steps to help them prepare their idea for market.

Review: None

Additional Notes: Unlike many MOOCs, you can view the videos for this course on your schedule. The University of Maryland also offers a course called “Developing Innovative Ideas for New Companies: The First Step in Entrepreneurship.” It was ranked the #1 Entrepreneurship course on Coursera and the #8 overall business course on Coursera according to CourseTalk.  It is available here. The University of North Carolina has What’s Your Big Idea available through Coursera, while Udacity offers a “How To Build A Startup” course that is available here.

In addition, Stanford University makes a wide range of free entrepreneurship courses available online through its NovoEd platform. These courses include: Technology Entrepreneurship, Financing and New Ventures, and Financial Analysis of New Ideas. To access the NovoEd platform, click here.

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