New Ventures and Entrepreneurship BU5850 Course Description

College of Business Administration
BU5850 New Ventures and Entrepreneurship
Spring 2014 at Waterville Valley
Abbreviated Syllabus
(Subject to Revision – the complete syllabus will be available on Moodle for enrolled students)
Course Description
BU5850 New Ventures and Entrepreneurship is an executive-level workshop course. It is designed for people
with a near-term interest in starting a new business, although MBA students with the long-term goal of
creating their own businesses are certainly welcome. The course is designed to minimize your reading load, all
of which precedes our weekend together. The seminar sessions focus on entrepreneurship as a process. In the
course you will go through the steps of developing your own business plan, from the defining of your
“Concept Kick-Start” through opportunity assessment, market planning, organizational design, operations
planning, resource estimation, financial forecasting, and the presentation of your plan to a potential investor.
The Pre-Work requires readings, field research for your plan. The seminar contains case studies, guest
lecturers, presentations by you and your classmates and workshop sessions. The goal is collaborative … to help
each other launch successful ventures.
Instructor:
Ray England; Phone: 535-2610 E-mail: rengland1@plymouth.edu
Plymouth State University; Hyde Hall, Plymouth, NH 03264
Texts and Equipment:
1. Gerber, Michael E. The E-Myth Revisited. HarperCollins, New York, ISBN 978-0-88-730728-7. (A newer
edition of this title is fine, but not the book E-Myth Mastery, which is assigned to SBA teams.)
2. Business Plan Pro, ISBN 978-0-07-733065-X*
3. Cases and other readings will be passed out as needed, or posted in Moodle.
4. A working PC.
*Note: Business Plan Pro is a software package. I have provided the ISBN of the 15th Anniversary Edition, Version 11, distributed as
the McGraw-Hill Academic Edition. Any available version at Version 11 or higher should do fine for our purposes. Mac users may
have to buy a special edition.
BU5850.WV – Spring 2014
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Outputs:
This is your workshop course. You are doing it for yourself, and for your future business. The only written
output will be your business plan, to be delivered as a word file via e-mail to me, on or before Midnight,
Friday, April 4th 2014.
During our weekend sessions at WV, you will be called upon to describe your project, your prior research
findings, and your planning progress to the seminar, from whom you will receive feedback and advice. You will
also be expected to contribute orally to our discussions. There will be workshop time at the seminar to modify
and edit your plan and to ask questions of the instructor regarding any aspect of your business plan. The
software package includes business planning financial models and examples.
Grading:
This course is really not about your grade. It is about your business plan. But, as grades are needed to give you
credit for your efforts, grading will be weighted on two variables: your final business plan 75%, and class
participation 25%.
Ray England
BU5850 New Ventures and Entrepreneurship
Course Schedule and WV Agenda (Subject to Change):
Date
Pre-Work:
March ‘14
to
March 21
‘14
Topics
Entrepreneurship:
Introduction, Process, EMyth Reading, Individual
Research into your
business idea and its
market.
Readings
The E-Myth
Revisited
(Entire book)
Work Assignments
Identify your chosen business. Examine this idea, and
determine the market area you will address: local, regional,
national, or global. Become familiar with the Business Plan
Pro CD and its financial template. Be sure to view the
introductory movie, as I found it a helpful 9.2 minutes. Start
drafting your plan. Prior to March 7, 2014, send to me via
e-mail a 1 page Executive Summary of your Business Plan
(i.e. Description of the Business Venture, the type of
Product / Services along with a financial “Overview Sheet”
to test your business model)
The following assignments are to be done prior to, and in preparation for, the dates shown:
Day 1:
March 21
AM: Presenting Our
Business Ventures
PM: Case on business
planning, Meeting An
Entrepreneur (TBA)
Eve: Entrepreneurship
Speaker (TBA)
BU5850.WV – Spring 2014
Write out your business idea. Where and what business will you start? Define
your target customer. How will you reach that customer? Define your business
system. Prepare a financial “Overview Sheet” to test your business model: Who
will pay you how much for what? Why will they want to pay you? How much
sales volume will it take for you to achieve your target income? Etc. Prepare to
present this idea to the seminar, and to discuss the financial feasibility of the
business.
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March 22
March 23
March 24
to
April 4th
AM: Small Business
Financing and Legal
Concerns (Speakers TBA)
PM: Business Planning
Workshop
Evening: Group reflection &
workshop.
Begin revising and improving your business plan. Continue tuning up the financial
plan.
Oral Presentations (The
Plan and the elevator
speech).
Saturday evening prep: Tune your draft business plan. Then, prepare to present
your plan in 15 minutes or less, starting with a 30-second “elevator speech”
designed to make us all want to hear more.
(During our afternoon session we will work together on using the financial
models).
Complete your written plan. Keep it business like, remembering that “business like” means “calm, factual,
clear, brief and honest.” Your plan should be well laid out, easy to follow, and convincing. If you are seeking
outside financing, your plan should tell the potential investors what is in it for them. When it is complete, but
not later than midnight on April 4th, e-mail me your completed plan as a Word file Called “Business Plan –
Your Name - Date” in the e-mail subject area. I will confirm receipt.
I leave you with these thoughts:
“Happiness is a positive cash flow.”
“The number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I can fail and keep on trying.”
-Tom Hopkins
“You have everything you need to build something bigger than yourself.”
-Seth Godin
BU5850.WV – Spring 2014
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