Instructors

Description

Overview

Learn how to address systemic social and environmental problems AND generate financial returns. Choose a problem based on your personal “why”. Form a diverse team and interview stakeholders. Interact with experienced impact entrepreneurs and investors. Create and present a compelling pitch deck over time. Emerge with greater confidence as a leader, transferrable professional skills, and maybe even a social impact venture!

Learning Outcomes

Students will emerge from this course with the following outcomes:

Entrepreneurial Mindset:

• Expanded self-awareness and discovery of your personal purpose
• A bias to pro-actively innovate solutions to problems
• Seeing success as learning through iterations and “failures”
• Greater self-confidence and self-reliance
• Know how to craft valuable questions and actively listen
• Your own authentic and empathetic leadership style
• Interpersonal and team collaboration skills

Entrepreneurial Skillset:

• Know how to research, analyze, and define problems worth solving using primary and secondary market research
• Understand how to engage stakeholders, conduct interviews, and adapt based on feedback
• Know how to assess market opportunities from a size and impact standpoint
• Know how to develop MVPs and generate the build-measure-learn feedback loop
• Understand marketing and sales techniques for acquiring customers
• Understand how to capture value with a viable business model
• Know how to use financial models to inform strategic planning and decision making
• Understand how to define and track social and environmental impact
• Understand the fundamentals of venture creation, operations, and funding options
• Pitching skills in all forms for various audiences

Course Topics and Objectives

Students will learn how to:

• Explore who they are, what they care about, and why they are drawn to social Entrepreneurship
• Ask important questions, listen carefully, challenge assumptions, broaden self-awareness, lead with authenticity and vulnerability, “fail fast”, embrace being “wrong”, and work effectively as a team member
• Analyze and define a specific social and/or environmental problem worth solving
• Cultivate possible solutions and refine one into a product
• Engage with and interview stakeholders to improve understanding of the problem and viability of solutions
• Size the market opportunity associated with the problem and differentiate it from the current market alternatives
• Characterize the target customer or beneficiary based on their persona and Jobs to be Done
• Design and develop a minimally viable product (MVP) based on clear value propositions and get customer feedback on it
• Structure a pilot project that tests critical assumptions
• Craft a revenue model, sales strategy, and financial model for a pilot project that can scale
• Define social and environmental impact goals and metrics based on standardized assessments used by impact investors
• Grasp the essentials of company building, bootstrapping, governance, fundraising, investment types, and investor types
• Present an impact investment opportunity to investors