TB: (719)262-3510 (forwards to cell ) (719)963-0573
(719)262-3844
TB: M/W 12-1 & By appoitment
MB: By appoitment
Course Objective
This course will introduce the students to the process and stages of
entrepreneurship, especially for high-innovation entrepreneurship. Students
will be able to state a value proposition, analyze strenth and weakness of an opporunity, manage basic risk/opportunity
equations, and assess a business opportunity, construct a financial plan, and
contrsuct a rudimentary business plan.
Other objectives include:
Students will gain experience in selecting, reading and critically
evaluate ideas/opportunities.
Class will include significant "discussions", which will be a major
part of the grade. The class "time" will not all be lecture and
extended on-line discussions/blogging will be part of the process.
Class participation is a very important part of your grade. If you
are going to miss class you should contact us ahead of time via email
and probably provide a number I can call you to resolve the issue.
Everyone is expected to take part in class having done the reading,
written your reviews and taken part in a discussion group. When we
have visitors and you are unprepared, it will not be pretty. You
should always expect to be called upon to lead part of the discussion
in any class, critique any shared reading material, summarize your
individual reading material. Your group may want to prepare basic
materials so that any one of you can lead the discuss of your "groups"
comparative analysis.
Grading Scheme:
Item
Expected Weight
Final Weight
Class Participation
10%
10%
Individual Assignments
10%
10%
Team Presentations
40%
40%
Midterm
15%
15%
Final
25%
25%
For this class students who have an B+ or better before the final, cannot
have their grade lowered by the final, even if they don't show and get a 0.
If they don't do well on the final its 25% weighting will be spread equally
over the other items.
Each assignment/exam/team will be graded on a curve, and for each assignment
letter grades will be assigned (F=0 thru A+=4.33). A curve per assignment
will be used for all students (with assignments not turned in not affecting
the curve). In general each curves will have a mean between B- and B+,
depending on our assessment of the overall performance. Individual
"conceptual" assignments will have point values which reflect their relative
weight. Class participation grade will be based on our assessment of the
students voluntary contribution, plus their response to questions asked of them
during class. Interactions with the instructor outside of class (such as in
office hours) is also considered "class" participation.
Teams (and team grading)
Teams will be organized by sign-up. Initial teams will generally be 4
students (but may vary depending at instructos discression), until the "down
select", when those members of teams that don't make the initial funding cut
will be redistributed to other teams. Every team project will call for a
group report as well as a shorter individual report for each team member.
Each team assignment will be given a total number of points. Based on the
teams reports, each team will receive a total number of points. These points
will be shared, NOT NECESSARILY EQUALLY, among team members. The individual
report for a teach should address your contribution to the team and how you
feel the teams grade should be divided and why. Long term teams will be able
to "fire" members (based on a process to be described in class). Fired
student may find them selves on a team of 1 or 2.
WORKLOAD and HOMEWORK
We expect students to devote an average of 6-7 hours per week OUTSIDE OF
CLASS on the work for this class. When working on brainstorming or other
activities its difficult to estimate how much effort some student will need
to spend to achieve the results. Ineffective team work can dramatically
expand an hour exercise into much more.
A few lectures will have "guest" speakers who will present and then we will
lead the discussion of issues. Other classes will be lead by you, the
students. If reading is assigned, come to class having done the reading. We
are generally not going to "summarize it" for you, rather we will discuss it
or do things using it.
Technology Ventures, 2nd edition, 2006 by Richard Dorf, Thomas H. Byers