Entrepreneurship in Theory and Praxis

Catalog description

Brian Chesky didn't come from the hotel business (AirBnB). Travis Kalanick didn't come from transportation (Uber). Reed Hastings didn't come from the movie business (Netflix). More often than not, industries are disrupted from the outside. This is where the theory and practice of entrepreneurship meet to create wild opportunities, paradigm shifts in consumer behavior, and fundamental market dislocations or outright disruptions. It is also where unchecked behavior, growth at all costs, the pressures of venture capital or public markets to scale, scale, scale - create negative externalities, unintended consequences, regulatory capture, and a new class of trillion dollar enterprises and hundred-billionaire individuals that seemingly sit above nation-states and the rule of law. How do founders get there? How do you take a foundation in law or business, computer science, design, or even the arts, and strike out on your own? What makes for a good venture-backed idea or a bootstrapped one? How do you go from idea to MVP (minimum viable product), from MVP to Seed, to Series A, and then scale beyond that? How do you do it sustainably, that is, sustain yourself, respect the commonwealth, and stay true to the rule of law? What does a hard pivot look like, and what do you do when things go wrong, as they inevitably do? (And what does this jargon even mean?) Times are good, capital is cheap and you're a darling of the press - but what happens when venture dries up as it did just after the "Nuclear Winter in Crypto" or the "Netflix Correction" in the media industries, and you have a startup that has to do layoffs and live to fight another day? Finally, how might a solid understanding of these issues be relevant to you as a trusted advisor or aid you in your own entrepreneurial pursuits? These questions are at the heart of this course. Phase one of this course (Weeks 1-3) will…