Entrepreneurship Minor
Starting in Fall, 2015, we will be offering an entrepreneurship minor to Cal Lutheran undergraduates not enrolled in the School of Management. Students from across the campus will take courses together and work on inter-disciplinary teams to formulate and pursue start-up ideas. The minor is earned by taking three core courses and two electives.
Core Courses
- ENT101: Creativity and Innovation: The Art of Transforming Knowledge into Ideas That Can Change the World — This course is for students who want to realize their potential as creative thinkers and problem solvers and to tackle challenges that have a global impact. In this course, you will learn to see what others do not see, to challenge what exists, to imagine what could be, and develop the skill sets to make your vision a reality. This course is designed to inspire and prepare you with the skills to combine innovation, creative thinking, and sound entrepreneurship principles to turn ideas into business ventures, design innovative products and services in existing companies, or channel a passion for public service into practical solutions to the world’s most pressing social, economic and environmental problems. By analyzing and understanding problems from a human perspective and applying the principles of entrepreneurship to bring them into existence, you will leave with a set of tools for developing truly innovative and disruptive ideas that can change the world. No Pre-req. Open to all students.
- ENT301: The Analytics of Value Creation — This course focuses on the transition from business concept to the evaluation of the technical and market “doability” of the project. Feasibility involves reevaluating core assumptions of the original business model through customer feedback and prototype development. The course explores ways that entrepreneurs reiterate their businesses, making adjustments as new information is generated thereby insuring product-market fit. The course also looks at the assembly of critical human, financial and social capital in the venture creation process. There is an experiential component that involves interviewing potential customers, business partners and other venture helpers. Pre-req: ENT101. Sophomore standing required.
- ENT401: New Venture Realization — This is a culminating experience where students would move a business idea from feasibility into implementation. Students would either be involved in the development of a business plan for an independent venture, or would work in an internship on an entrepreneurial project.
Electives
- ENT420: Agile Product Development — Techniques for defining product features based on customer need, prioritizing, and refining into minimum viable product (MVP).
- ENT421: Entrepreneurial Marketing & Selling — Techniques for marketing (prospect acquisition) and selling (persuading and negotiating).
- ENT422: Entrepreneurial Finance — Elaboration on the aspects of finance most relevant to entrepreneurship: forecasting, cash management, capital sources.
- ENT423: Legal Aspects of Entrepreneurship — Elaboration on the aspects of the law most relevant to entrepreneurship: incorporation, intellectual property, employment law, customer and supplier contracts.
- ENT424: Growth-Stage Venture Management — Once a start-up discovers a viable business model, achieves product-fit, and acquires its first customers, attention turns to scaling the business rapidly, This course will teach how to plan, organize and control rapid business growth.
- ENT482: Special Topics in Entrepreneurship — Studies in specific industries or activities that are of interest to our geographic area, student body, or adjunct instructor. The current course BUS482 Entrepreneurial Thinking will be retired as part of this proposal.