Overview
This is a program on entrepreneurship, by entrepreneurs, for everyone. It gives students the Silicon Valley insiders’ view of startups, as its lecturers and guest speakers share their extensive experience in launching, growing, and funding successful start ups.
The lecturer’s proceeds from this course will be donated to nonprofits in the education space.
Lectures, readings, discussions, and quizzes will cover core concepts along the startup life cycle:
- VALIDATE: Idea and business validation (Why? Why Now? Why You?); Market sizing and analysis.
- RECRUIT: Recruiting and incentivizing cofounders and advisors; attracting and retaining a great team.
- BUILD: User-centric design and efficient product development to Minimal Viable Product (MVP) launch and beyond.
- FUND: Bootstrapping; accelerators and incubators; angel and seed financing; raising venture capital.
- SCALE: Applying Lean Startup Methodology to achieve Product-Market Fit; Growth hacking strategies for sales and customer acquisition; distribution partnerships; scaling to liquidity events (M&A and IPOs).
**** Guest speakers include the entrepreneurs and investors behind some of the biggest Silicon Valley successes in Fintech, Edtech, Gaming, Fashion, Healthtech. Gig Economy, Sustainability, B2B and B2C SaaS, Media & Entertainment:
- Sal Khan (Khan Academy)
- Steve Chen (Co-founder, YouTube)
- Connie Chen (Andreessen Horowitz)
- Aaref Hilaly (Bain Capital)
- Patrick Lee (Co-founder, Rotten Tomatoes)
- Osman Rashid (Co-founder, Chegg)
- Holly Liu (Co-founder, Kabam)
- Hasan Rizvi (CPO, Doma – IPO 2021)
- Marla Beck (Blue Mercury- acquired by Macy’s)
- Jahanzeb Sherwani (CEO ScreenHero – acquired by Slack)
- Jasmine Crowe (CEO, Goodr)
- Umaimah Mendhro (CEO, Vida Fashions)
- Amy Coveny (Quake Capital)
- Ahmed Khaishgi (CEO, Squaretrade – acquired by AllState)
- Charles Huang (Co-founder, Guitar Hero)
- Carlos Cashman (CEO, Thras.io)
This program will give you the skills and confidence to:
- start and help scale tech and non-tech startups
- start or join social impact ventures (social entrepreneurship)
- bring startup thinking and values to research and academic institutions, small- to-midsize enterprises (SMEs), and large corporations (intrapreneurship)