Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Offered By: University System of Maryland via edX
Course Description
Overview
The Professional Certificate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship distills vast amounts of research in psychology, sociology, marketing, strategy, and finance into a practical how-to guide for aspiring and active startup entrepreneurs and corporate innovators. Our world-class, award-winning faculty present a whole new understanding of entrepreneurial ideas and actions. At its core, we present a powerful argument that anyone can be a successful startup entrepreneur or corporate innovator by thoughtfully examining themselves and the business opportunity. By harnessing these insights within our curriculum, we share how to create and transform your business ideas into new ventures that are lasting successes.
This experience is valuable for startup entrepreneurs and corporate innovators. Learners interested in developing and commercializing their own ideas into a product or service-based startup can do so in this Professional Certificate. For learners interested in acquiring the knowledge, competencies, and relationships to solve innovation challenges within established companies and organizations, this Professional Certificate is equally valuable.
Our innovation and entrepreneurship courses are designed to map the lifecycle of a new venture, with learners crafting their ideas throughout the four-course program. With an emphasis on actionable projects, learners can select and work on new business ideas or corporate ventures of their choosing, and apply the lessons learned to their own interests. This is valuable for for-profits, non-profits, social entrepreneurs, and government organizations.
The University of Maryland is a global leader in educating entrepreneurs and innovators, recently ranked as the #3 public university in this category by The Princeton Review. The team leading the Professional Certificate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship created and leads the Master of Professional Studies in Technology Entrepreneurship (the #1-ranked online master’s program in entrepreneurship by BestColleges.com), the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Living-Learning Program (Winner of the Outstanding Specialty Entrepreneurship Program of the Year by the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship), and over 20 courses in Innovation and Entrepreneurship serving over 5,000 full-time University of Maryland students annually.
Syllabus
Course 1: Identifying Entrepreneurial Opportunities
Learn today’s newest skills and tools for identifying and acting on entrepreneurial opportunities for startup companies and corporate innovations
Course 2: Creating Innovative Business Models
Build your capabilities to create a value proposition, team strategy, market strategy, and financial strategy to transform your ideas into a startup company or innovative corporate venture
Course 3: Marketing Innovative Products and Services
Learn essential marketing concepts and practical commercialization strategies to bring your new venture to market
Course 4: Financing Innovative Ventures
Demystify key financial concepts for creating a financial plan for your new venture to raise the right funding from the right partners at the right time
Courses
-
This course explores how anyone can be a successful startup entrepreneur or corporate innovator by thoughtfully examining themselves and the business opportunity. By harnessing these insights and cultivating an entrepreneurial spirit, you can create and transform an entrepreneurial idea into a new startup company or corporate venture.
Over 800,000 people have used The Opportunity Analysis Canvas that is the basis of this course. Designed by Dr. James V. Green, the lead faculty for this course, this unique model equips you to identify and analyze a new business opportunity that aligns with your startup entrepreneurship or corporate innovation interests.
The Opportunity Analysis Canvas distills vast amounts of research in psychology, sociology, and business into a practical how-to guide for aspiring and active entrepreneurs and innovators. The course presents a whole new understanding of entrepreneurial mindset and action. The course is structured as a nine-step experience segmented into thinking entrepreneurially, seeing entrepreneurially, and acting entrepreneurially.
-
This course will demystify key financial concepts to give aspiring and active entrepreneurs and innovators a guide for understanding their financials and securing funding. Assuming that our learners have no prior knowledge in accounting, economics, or finance, we will work from the ground up to:
● Examine the many financing options available to get your new venture funded
● Learn the basics of finance, valuations, dilution, and non-dilutive funding source
● Understand capital structure for new ventures, term sheets and how to negotiate them, and the differences between early-stage versus later-stage financing
● Develop an understanding of how to develop winning investor pitches, who and when to pitch, how to avoid common mistakes that limit the effectiveness of the pitch, and how to ‘get to the close.
Key questions answered within the course include:
● If and when to raise outside capital?
● What kind of investors invest by stage and where to find them?
● What are your fundraising options?
● What are the key components of the term sheet?
● How to perform company valuations?
● How to pitch to investors?
● What techniques help the entrepreneur ‘get to the close’?
-
This course was created to guide aspiring and active startup entrepreneurs and corporate innovators that feel...
- Overwhelmed by the tasks of creating a new venture
- Frustrated with finding the right team at the right time
- Disappointed by the widespread failure of bringing good ideas to market
It’s common to desire...
- Innovative approaches and tools to help create a startup company or corporate venture
- Intelligence on what customers really want, and are willing to pay for
- Insights on the big picture of crafting a startup company, and how the puzzle pieces fit together
This course will help you to...
- Understand the theory and practice of value creation
- Determine how to build the right team for your startup company or corporate venture
- Avoid wasting time with startup ideas with limited commercial potential
- Raise the right financial capital at the right time for the right purpose By the end of this course, you will be positioned to...
- Effectively design value propositions that directly align with your target customers’ interests
- Assemble and lead an well-comprised team to produce results that create value for your customers
- Pursue big ideas that really matter to customers
- Craft a financial model that minimizes risks and maximizing your success
-
Marketing innovative products and services occurs in an ever-changing environment, and requires rapid decision making with incomplete information. These innovations are introduced at increasingly frequent intervals, and there are high mortality rates for products and services, and the businesses themselves.
Our course provides a practical, how-to guide for navigating these marketing challenges to bring innovative new products and services to market. With learning modules on product strategy, go-to-market strategies, and growth strategies, you will build your skills in understanding and applying the latest marketing strategies and tactics. We’ll explore how to develop an informed marketing plan that aligns with customer needs based on real market research.
Learn the latest strategies for customer discovery, interviews and focus groups, product design, product development, content marketing, social media marketing, and marketing campaign management. The course will provide a balance between conceptual discussions based on readings of concepts and practices, and applied, hands-on analysis with real projects.
Taught by
Michael Pratt, Lola Koiki and James Green
Tags
Related Courses
Software as a ServiceUniversity of California, Berkeley via Coursera How to Build a Startup
Udacity Developing Innovative Ideas for New Companies: The First Step in Entrepreneurship
University of Maryland, College Park via Coursera Make an Impact: Sustainability for Professionals
University of Bath via FutureLearn Financial Modeling for the Social Sector
Philanthropy University via Acumen Academy