How to Start Your Own Business

This course focuses on developing an entrepreneurial mindset, providing insights to reframe thinking and make initial business startup decisions. It emphasizes the attributes and perspectives of an entrepreneurial mindset, guiding learners through a transformative process in their approach to business and general thinking.

This module explores the generation of business ideas and the evaluation of their market potential. Learners will build a resource inventory, pursue market opportunities aligned with their passions, and prioritize ideas with the greatest potential for commercial success.

Learners will complete a business model summarizing assumptions, systematically test and validate these assumptions, and use them to generate financial projections. The course emphasizes the importance of planning and provides a foundation for future actions through a business model approach.

Addressing critical issues for business owners, this module focuses on creating and evaluating financial documents, completing regulatory procedures, protecting intellectual property, and developing a management team to build a strong foundation for business success.

Preparing for the capstone experience, this module guides learners through the final preparation for launching a business. It focuses on mindset concepts, addressing aspects that impact business value, developing market connections, and providing a checklist of operational issues for business launch readiness.

In this capstone course, learners will apply the concepts and skills learned throughout the specialization to launch an actual business. The experience gained will build confidence and execution capabilities, enabling them to repeat the process and launch future startups with increased proficiency.