Entrepreneurship and New Ventures

Entrepreneurship and new ventures for managers in Canada, including CCPC status, the small business deduction, SR&ED and IRAP, the lifetime capital gains exemption, government-backed loans and the start-up crowdfunding exemption: entrepreneurship as the pursuit of opportunity under uncertainty, with Knight's distinction between risk and uncertainty, causal and effectual reasoning and the power law of venture returns, opportunity recognition and screening with bottom-up estimates of total, serviceable and obtainable markets, customer discovery through problem interviews that focus on past behaviour and commitments, lean experiments, minimum viable products and price tests with thresholds set in advance, business models and the business model canvas, unit economics with acquisition cost by channel, lifetime value, payback, breakeven, burn, runway and the J-curve, building a founding team with roles, equity splits, vesting and leaver terms, legal structures, intellectual property and founder and partner agreements, financing from bootstrapping and customer funding through angels, accelerators, venture capital, debt, government programs and crowdfunding, valuation, SAFEs, the option pool shuffle, cap tables, liquidation preferences and term sheets, and pitching and running a fundraising process, ending in a capstone launch plan for Second Ascent, a multi-brand gear repair venture spun out of Cedarline Outdoor's repair service, with runnable Python examples.

MBA-602 3 credits 12 lessons · 4 h 38 min ▶ Video lessons coming soon

Offered by HSM University · MBA Core

This is the Canadian version of this course. See the American version.

What you'll learn

Explain entrepreneurship as the pursuit of opportunity under uncertainty, distinguish risk from uncertainty, and apply causal and effectual reasoning to early venture decisions.
Recognize and screen opportunities using sources of innovation, timing, fatal flaws and bottom-up estimates of total, serviceable and obtainable markets.
Plan and conduct customer discovery interviews that focus on past behaviour, code the results with honest error bars, and treat commitments as stronger evidence than statements.
Design minimum viable products and experiments with success thresholds set in advance, use actionable metrics and cohort analysis, and decide whether to persevere or pivot.
Describe, compare and test business models with the business model canvas and the value proposition canvas, including revenue models, partners and platform options.
Analyze unit economics, including contribution per unit, acquisition cost by channel, lifetime value, payback, breakeven, burn, runway and the J-curve of cumulative cash.
Build a founding team with clear roles and decision rights, split equity deliberately, and use vesting, leaver terms and acceleration to protect founders and investors.
Choose a legal structure and tax status for a venture, put intellectual property and founder agreements in place, and structure contracts and equity for corporate partners.
Compare financing sources, including bootstrapping, customer funding, angels, accelerators, venture capital, debt, government programs and crowdfunding, and size a raise to milestones.
Calculate pre-money and post-money valuations, build a cap table through SAFE conversion and a priced round, model liquidation preferences, and negotiate key term sheet provisions.
Structure and deliver an investor pitch that leads with evidence and traction, prepare for questions and due diligence, and run a compressed fundraising process.
Integrate the course into a staged launch plan with scenarios, financing, ownership, risks and stakeholder decisions, and evaluate corporate spin-off choices.

Course content

12 lessons · 4 h 38 min total · final exam

1 What entrepreneurship is: opportunity, uncertainty and the entrepreneurial method 26 min · quiz
2 Opportunity recognition and idea generation 24 min · quiz
3 Customer discovery and problem interviews 23 min · quiz
4 Lean experimentation and the minimum viable product 22 min · quiz
5 Business models and the business model canvas 22 min · quiz
6 Unit economics and the path to profitability 22 min · quiz
7 Building the founding team and equity splits 22 min · quiz
8 Legal structures, intellectual property and founder agreements 23 min · quiz
9 Financing a venture: bootstrapping, angels, venture capital and government programs 24 min · quiz
10 Valuation, term sheets and the cap table 24 min · quiz
11 Pitching and the investor story 22 min · quiz
12 Capstone: launching a venture from Cedarline's repair service 24 min · quiz
E Final exam 20 questions

Requirements

Recommended background. You can start any course at any time.