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Entrepreneurship II: Preparing for Launch

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign via Coursera

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Details

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Provider

Coursera
Pricing

Paid Course
Languages

English
Certificate

Certificate Available
Effort

16 hours 31 minutes
Sessions

Self-Paced
Level

Beginner
Subtitles

Arabic, French, Portuguese, Italian, German, Russian, English, Spanish, Thai, Indonesian, Kazakh, Hindi, Swedish, Korean, Greek, Chinese, Ukrainian, Japanese, Polish, Dutch, Turkish, Hungarian, Bengali, Pashto, Urdu, Azerbaijani, Farsi

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Overview

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This course builds on previous concepts and outlines strategies and tactics for forming, financing, and launching a new venture. Topics to be addressed will include building the new venture’s initial management team, identifying and reaching out to early customers, developing financial plans, raising startup and initial growth financing, and preparing for and managing rapid growth. You will be able to: - Develop an understanding of what is required in a new venture - Create a plan to identify and approach your first customers - Build financial projections for the new venture - Understand how to raise equity capital for the new venture - Monitor the health and scalability of a new venture This course is part of Gies College of Business’ suite of online programs, including the iMBA and iMSM. Learn more about admission into these programs and explore how your Coursera work can be leveraged if accepted into a degree program at https://degrees.giesbusiness.illinois.edu/idegrees/.

Syllabus

Course Orientation and Module 1: Validation

In this module will become familiar with the course, your classmates, and our learning environment. The orientation will also help you obtain the technical skills required for the course. We will then focus on go-to-market strategies.

Module 2: Economics

This module examines the financial logic of a new venture. Learners study unit economics, cost structure, cash flow, pricing, and financial projections to assess whether a business model is economically viable. The module also shows how to use financial models to identify key assumptions, test scenarios, and communicate a venture’s economic story to investors and other stakeholders.

Module 3: Raising Capital

This module examines how ventures are financed and how financing choices shape the venture itself. Learners study equity investment, term sheets, valuation, fundraising dynamics, and alternative financing paths such as bootstrapping, debt, crowdfunding, grants, and hybrid instruments. The module also explores who gets funded, how race, gender, and geography affect access to capital, how AI and collapsing costs are changing the financing landscape, and how to think like an investor.

Module 4: Managing Growth

This module explores how ventures grow, scale, and eventually exit. Learners examine different growth trajectories, the operational demands of building a repeatable engine, organizational culture, the founder’s evolving role, founder-CEO fit, venture exit paths, and the meaning of success in entrepreneurship.