First Year (Required Curriculum)

During the first year at HBS, all students pursue the same course of study called the Required Curriculum. By studying under a common curriculum, students build a solid, broad foundation of general management concepts and skills across all key disciplines, including entrepreneurial management.

The Entrepreneurial Manager

Entrepreneurial managers transform opportunities into companies and institutions that make a difference in the world. In their successful “pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled,” they make decisions under conditions of profound uncertainty and do so while balancing great risks against potentially attractive rewards. Moreover, they operate without the benefit of well-defined processes for making such choices and with few resources. As a consequence, entrepreneurial companies offer an ideal platform for understanding the challenges facing a general manager.

Building on the foundation laid by other RC courses, The Entrepreneurial Manager (TEM) will provide students with an understanding of issues facing entrepreneurs and an exposure to the skills involved in addressing them. We will explore how executives should approach making critical decisions during the different phases of an entrepreneurial company's life. Starting from the vantage point of the individual , we will put ourselves in the shoes of decision makers ranging from technology entrepreneurs to venture capitalists, from real estate developers to inventors. TEM will give students the opportunity to hone their skills in identifying and testing business opportunities, decomposing complex business problems, determining what decisions the responsible business executive must make, and establishing a ‘burden of proof’ standard for making those decisions. We will also introduce a range of specific tools—including business model design, lean testing, and customer and channel analytics—that are particularly relevant to entrepreneurs, as well as introduce students to the fundamentals of entrepreneurial finance and governance. The course will provide insight as to how the interests of other important constituencies— employees, potential and actual investors, business partners, suppliers, and distribution channels—constrain and contribute to an entrepreneur’s ability to create value.

The Entrepreneurial Manager will examine how individuals convert knowledge, aspiration, and insight into action.

 
 

Second Year (Elective Curriculum)

During the second year students choose from a range of elective courses, enabling them to integrate the functional skills learned in the first year into an understanding of the firm as a total enterprise. There are a variety of entrepreneurship related elective courses to choose from.

 
Course Title Faculty Name Term Quarter Credits
The Coming of Managerial Capitalism: The United States Tom Nicholas Spring 2020 Q3Q4 3.0
Contemporary Developing Countries: Entrepreneurial Solutions to Intractable Problems (University-wide Course) Tarun Khanna Fall 2019 Q1Q2 3.0
Entrepreneurial Failure Thomas Eisenmann Fall 2019 Q1 1.5
Entrepreneurial Finance (also listed under Finance) Jim Matheson, Paul Gompers Fall 2019, Spring 2020 Q1Q2, Q3Q4 3.0
Entrepreneurship and Global Capitalism (also listed under General Management and Business, Government & the International Economy) Geoffrey Jones

Fall 2019 Q1Q2 3.0
Field Course: Entrepreneurial Sales and Marketing (also listed under Marketing) Frank Cespedes, Mark Roberge Fall 2019 Q1Q2 3.0
Field Course: Entrepreneurship through Acquisition Application Only (also listed under Finance) Richard Ruback, Royce Yudkoff Spring 2020 Q3Q4 3.0
Field Course: Field X (also listed under Finance) Randolph Cohen Fall 2019 Q1Q2 3.0
Field Course: Field Y: Projects in Business Management Application Only (also listed under Finance) Randolph Cohen Spring 2020 Q3Q4 3.0
Field Course: Product Management 101 Application Only Julia Austin Fall 2019 Q1Q2 3.0
Field Course: Product Management 102 Application Only Julia Austin Spring 2020 Q3Q4 3.0
Financial Management of Smaller Firms (also listed under Finance) Richard Ruback, Royce Yudkoff Fall 2019 Q1Q2 3.0
Founders' Journey Shikhar Ghosh Fall 2019 Q1Q2 3.0
Investing - Risk, Return, and Impact (also listed under Finance) Shawn Cole, Vikram Gandhi Spring 2020 Q3Q4 3.0
Launching Technology Ventures Jeffrey Bussgang, Sam Clemens Fall 2019 Q2 1.5
Law, Management and Entrepreneurship (also listed under General Management) John Batter Fall 2019 Q1Q2 3.0
Launch Lab/Thesis 2 (also listed under General Management) Beth Altringer, Krzysztof Gajos, Thomas Eisenmann Spring 2020 Q3Q4 3.0
Making Markets Scott Duke Kominers Spring 2020 Q3Q4 3.0
Managing the Future of Work William Kerr, Christopher Stanton Spring 2020 Q3Q4 3.0
Managing Technology Ventures Jeffrey Rayport Fall 2019 Q2 1.5
Public Entrepreneurship (also listed under General Management) Mitchell Weiss Fall 2019 Q1Q2 3.0
Sales Management and Strategy (formery Personal Selling and Sales Force Management) (also listed under Marketing) Doug Chung Spring 2020 Q3Q4 3.0
Scaling Technology Ventures Jeffrey Rayport Spring 2020 Q3Q4 3.0
Tech Sales Mark Roberge, Lou Shipley Fall 2019 Q1Q2 3.0
Venture Capital and Private Equity Nori Gerardo Lietz Fall 2019 Q1Q2 3.0