IEC/BCC* Weekly Objectives

Week 1: Course Overview

• How do I succeed at an internship?

• What will make my experience more beneficial? 

• What will make me more valuable to my firm?

Week 2: Entrepreneurial Leadership

• What is the difference between a leader and a manager?

• How does leadership in an entrepreneurial firm differ from a large corporation?

• What is a Company’s DNA?

• What leadership theories exist in the literature?

• What are the principles of leadership?

• What are the factors that determine leadership style?

Week 3: Marketing – Developing Your Personal Branding

• What is a “personal brand” and how can it help you succeed?

• What are the key elements of a personal brand?

Week 4: Entrepreneurial Ethics

• What ethical challenges can interns and founders face?

• What frameworks exist that can help you when facing an ethical dilemma at work?

Week 5: The Business Model Canvas + The Value Proposition Canvas

• What is a “business model canvas”?

  • Discuss the nine sections of the business model canvas.

• What is the value proposition canvas?

• What are the customer pains, gains, and jobs?

• What are pain relievers and gain creators?

• Who is a customer?

• What is the environment map?

Week 6: Hypothesis-Driven Entrepreneurship; Understanding Customers and Customer Discovery; and Growth of Entrepreneurial Firms

• What is hypothesis-driven entrepreneurship? 

• What are the criteria for good hypotheses?

• What do we mean by build-measure-learn?

• How do you conduct interviews?

• What are customer discovery, customer validation, customer creation, and company building?

• What challenges does an entrepreneurial firm face as it grows?

• What are the primary considerations of growth?

• What concepts and frameworks from Organization Behavior can be applied to entrepreneurial firm growth in the real world?

Week 7: Basis of Social Power + Developing Your Voice

• What are the five bases of social power and why do they matter?

• What is reward power?

• What is coercive power?

• What is legitimate power?

• What is referent power?

• What is expert power?

Week 8: Workplace Culture and Ideological Diversity

• What ideas do your teammates have that you do not?

• How do you learn them?

• How do you get others to open up?

• How do you learn how to learn from others?

• What are the big lessons from this course?

• Why do certain requests to those around you have a greater effect than others based on how you phrase it?

Course Learning Objectives — 

1. To understand the level of responsibility and accountability expected of members of an entrepreneurial team.

2. To develop communication skills to navigate the challenges of a start-up.

3. To identify professional contacts and networking opportunities within entrepreneurial organizations.

4. To set and achieve management goals through self management.

5. To elevate oneself to a leadership position.

*BCC lessons are modified to include real-life customer/vendor interaction commensurate with having a job.