Course Descriptions

Academics / Majors and Minors / Entrepreneurship and Innovation / Course Descriptions

Entrepreneurship and Innovation Courses

ENTP 110: Design Thinking & Problem Solving

What are the tools and mindset required to be an innovator and an entrepreneur? This introductory course in innovation, design thinking, and entrepreneurship leads students through the processes used for finding problems worth solving, mobilizing the resources to solve them, and defining meaning for one's work in the world. No prerequisites. Students who have taken ENTP 120 cannot take ENTP 110.

ENTP 140: Brand You

ENTP 140: Brand You: Building & Monetizing Your Personal Brand. Central to the class experience are the essential questions: What is the Brand of YOU? How might you craft, communicate, and commercialize your brand via social media platforms? Branding helps us be seen the way we want to be seen. In this course, students will learn how to use marketing and brand-building tactics in the service of their own goals and will be challenged to identify and pursue new professional opportunities. As part of their work in this course, students will create assets related to their developing brand, which may include social media content and a personal website. ENTP 140 is designed for athletes, freelancers, artists, musicians, and individual entrepreneurs who are looking to grow their careers. No prerequisites. (Under the Forester Fundamental Curriculum, this course meets the Speaking requirement.)

ENTP 220: Fundraising & Sales

Central to the class experience is the essential question: How can mastering the skill of asking improve every aspect of our lives? In this course, in addition to learning how to ask, students gain an understanding of how asking is an essential tool to identify and solve problems. Through hands-on exercises, students focus on developing the leadership traits that make successful salespeople and fundraisers with an emphasis on resilience and empathy. The course highlights the differences between fundraising for nonprofit entities and selling in corporate and entrepreneurial environments. Prerequisite: ENTP 110 and Sophomore standing.
cross listed: BUSN 220

ENTP 230: Design for Product Market Fit

How do you know if you have a good and viable solution for a problem? How do you build the creative confidence needed for a 21st-century problem solver? How do you learn quickly and develop your unique insights and points of view to remain relevant and competitive? How do you demonstrate the level of rigor that gives your proposed solution credibility? This is an activity-based deep dive into Design Thinking (mindset, skills, and tools) as an entrepreneurial problem-solving philosophy. Students learn to frame, explore, test, and iterate their ideas before offering them as solutions. This course aims to uncover and understand humans' unmet and often unarticulated needs as the starting point for viable, sustainable, and accessible new products, services, experiences, and policies. This course focuses on understanding, framing, discovering, and validating novel and innovative solutions. Students practice and hone their critical thinking skills through empirical observation, analysis, and creative exploration.

ENTP 250: Small Bus Leadership & Management

(Small Business Leadership and Management.) What knowledge, skills, and discipline are required to successfully start and run a business? This course explores leadership and management, and how the differences impact the purpose and market, as well as the financial, and operational health of a small business. Students learn to use data and set micro-level goals to gain an understanding of the tools, systems, and processes required to run a profitable ongoing entity. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing.

ENTP 255: Nonprofit Leadership & Management

What knowledge, skills, and discipline are required to successfully start and run a nonprofit venture? This course explores nonprofit leadership and management, and how the differences impact the mission, governance, financial, and operational health of a nonprofit. Students learn to use data and set micro-level goals to gain an understanding of the tools, systems, and processes required to measure impact and build a sustainable nonprofit entity. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing.

ENTP 260: Develop, Protect & Monetize IP

(Developing, Protecting and Monetizing Intellectual Property.) How does one protect an idea or invention? This course provides the foundations for protecting innovations and inventions (intangible assets) and monetizing those through the sale or license of the asset or through a new venture created to market the asset. Students explore the financial and social impact of each path from the perspective of the creator. This course is taught through case studies, reading, client or student projects, and exposure to industry professionals. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing.

ENTP 325: Digital Marketing & Analytics

How can being consumer-focused and data-driven improve results? Entrepreneurs, social leaders, professionals, and individuals need digital brand-building skills and marketing acumen to sell themselves and their ideas, products, and services. This course takes a human-centered approach to teaching how end users and their buying decisions are influenced by digital media. The course teaches design thinking, digital tools, web analytics, and growth hacking frameworks through a combination of exposure to industry professionals, readings, and client projects. Prerequisite: ENTP 110 or BUSN 225. (Under the old GEC, this course meets the Social Science requirement.)
cross listed: BUSN 325

ENTP 340: Inclusive Innovation

While entrepreneurs top the list of Forbes richest Americans, diversity does not. Why are women, people of color, and other groups persistently excluded from entrepreneurial resources? How might we make entrepreneurship more inclusive to drive disruptive innovation, help people reach their full potential, and propel positive economic growth? This course surveys the deeper (and often hidden) causal factors that have contributed to and reinforced entrepreneurial exclusion. We examine disparities at the macro- and micro-level (i.e., gender, race, sexuality, geography, ability, age) through case studies, reading, hands-on activities, and student research projects. Students propose their own reasoned and researched solutions to address the business case for access and inclusion not as a charitable cause but as an economic imperative. The course concludes with students pitching their solutions on how to empower an underrepresented group, increase access to high-quality tools to find problems worth solving for this group and the resources to solve them, and create new channels for revenue from a previously underserved and ignored market. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing. (Under the Forester Fundamental Curriculum, this course meets the Domestic Pluralism and Experiential Learning requirements.)
cross listed: ETHC 339, GSWS 339, LNAM 340

ENTP 350: Intrapreneurship: Innov in Organiz

(Intrapreneurship: Innovation in Existing Organizations) Innovative corporations, institutions, and social organizations require entrepreneurial-minded teams who can identify and create new opportunities, new products, greater value, and more meaningful relationships with their customers. Operationalizing innovation within organizations requires substantial challenges including navigating bureaucracy, risk aversion, political conflicts, intolerance of failure, and lack of leadership support. Through hands-on group exercises, case studies, and real-world experience, students learn to apply Design Thinking and Value Proposition Design frameworks to develop, test, and create value within existing organizations, and learn how to do so in a team-based environment. Prerequisite: One of the following four courses--ENTP 220, ENTP 250, BUSN 225, or BUSN 245. (Under the Forester Fundamental Curriculum, this course meets the Experiential Learning requirement.)
cross listed: BUSN 380

ENTP 355: Innovation in Chicago

Chicago is home to many innovative nonprofit organizations solving problems that impact our local, national, and global communities. In this seminar, students explore different approaches to problem solving through direct engagement and virtual field trips (interviews) to some of Chicago's leading social innovators which may include: P33, the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture, Interfaith Youth Core, Matter (the health care counterpart to the 1871 incubator), A Better Chicago, and others. This course provides students with the opportunity to: 1) understand how to identify and measure social impact, 2) learn methods and frameworks to stimulate change, 3) use social media as an effective means for story-telling, 4) visually communicate qualitative and quantitative information including the use of digital photography, videography and graphic design, and 5) cultivate essential life - and career - focused skills such as leadership, communication, and creative thinking; all of which can be applied to their interests, internship, and areas of study. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing.
cross listed: LOOP 355

ENTP 360: Global Social Entrepreneurship

How does social entrepreneurship affect local and global economics and culture? Social entrepreneurs identify problems that negatively impact a specific demographic and mobilize the resources to solve the problem. The process of social entrepreneurship involves taking direct action and measuring the impact of the solution against a stated mission. This course uses case studies, readings, and lectures to analyze the impact of social ventures while identifying social and environmental problems that are still in need of better solutions.Prerequisite: Any of the following: ENTP 110, ENTP 120, ECON 110, SOAN 110, POLS 110, POLS 120, RELG 118, or permission of instructor. (Under the Forester Fundamental Curriculum, this course meets the Global Perspectives requirement. Under the old GEC, this course meets the Social Science and Cultural Diversity requirements.)
cross listed: BUSN 360, IREL 316

ENTP 370: New Venture Design

How does one transform a concept into a sustainable business or nonprofit venture? This course is a capstone class to be taken after significant coursework in ENTP. The course takes students through the process of transforming a business or social concept into a mission-led commercial or nonprofit entity. We explore aspects of how teams and resources can be efficiently deployed for sustainable new venture creation. Students define a revenue model, create a plan, establish success metrics, and drive action for a new venture. Prerequisites: ENTP 220; and junior or senior standing; or permission of the instructor. (Under the Forester Fundamental Curriculum, this course meets the Speaking requirement.)

ENTP 470: New Venture Launch

How can entrepreneurs rapidly prove their model, scale their venture, and create an infrastructure to accommodate growth? This course is for students who are working on an existing business or social venture projects. Students design organizational structures, define roles and responsibilities, expand their network of stakeholders, and take action to further develop their venture. Weekly topics and case studies will be applied to the students' own work. Prerequisite: ENTP 370. (Under the Forester Fundamental Curriculum, this course meets the Senior Studies requirement.)