Entrepreneurship Essentials Course

Master a proven framework for building and financing new ventures, make your entrepreneurial dreams a reality, and speak the language of the start-up world.

Entrepreneurship Essentials introduces you to the entrepreneurial journey, from finding an idea, to gaining traction in the marketplace, to raising capital for your venture. You will learn an overarching framework—People, Opportunity, Context, Deal—to evaluate opportunities, and manage start-ups, and finance ventures. This framework has been taught to thousands of Harvard Business School MBA students over the past 30 years.

Entrepreneurship Essentials explains how entrepreneurs run structured experiments to validate ideas and refine business strategies. You will dive deep into the numbers of how entrepreneurs and their investors make financial decisions to create value and grow their operations. Whether you are a current or aspiring entrepreneur or someone who is looking to gain an understanding of how businesses are built, you will walk away from Entrepreneurship Essentials with the ability to:

• Identify an opportunity
• Evaluate an idea and assess the market
• Appreciate the risks and rewards of entrepreneurship
• Leverage experiments to validate your idea and refine your business strategy
• Discover the key financial decisions any entrepreneur must make in the early stages of a new venture
• Understand the process of raising capital and how to speak to investors
• Learn from successful entrepreneurs and leading venture capitalists, as well as peers

The HBS Online Advantage

• World-class faculty
• Edge-of-your-seat online learning
• Global peer collaboration and networking
• Real-world, case-based learning

Eligibility

• Aspiring entrepreneurs

Benefits

• Harvard Business School Online offers a unique and highly engaging way to learn vital business concepts. Immerse yourself in real challenges faced by a diverse group of finance experts, including Rick Childs, Managing Member of 625 Ground Lessor LLC; Mike Even, former Global CIO for Citigroup Asset Management; Chris Hohn, founder of the Children’s Investment Fund; Henrik Poulsen, Chief Executive Director and Chief Investment Officer of PFA Asset Management; Dwight Scott, President of GSO Capital; Nikos Stathopoulos, Partner at BC Partners and Member of the BC Partners Executive Committee; and Matt Wilson, Co-Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of Oaktree Capital Management. Step into their shoes and wrestle with the same issues they faced, while engaging with fellow learners from around the world.

Application process

Join here.