Entrepreneurship 101: Who is Your Customer?

Entrepreneurship 101 prepares you for the MIT Global Entrepreneurship Bootcamp!

The bootcamp is a one-week, intensive entrepreneurship education program that challenges you to start a company in 5 days. The Bootcamp offers you the unique opportunity to be mentored by MIT faculty and MIT alumni entrepreneurs and investors as you begin your new entrepreneurial journey.

This course is not only for those planning to attend the Bootcamp. If you have a business idea and don't know how to move forward, this course will help you immeasurably whether you continue to the Bootcamp or not.

As you’ll learn in this course, to go from idea to business, you’ll need a paying customer. Sound daunting? It’s OK – there is a systematic methodology for you to get a paying customer. Specifically, upon completion of Entrepreneurship 101, you’ll have the skills to:

• Conduct Market Segmentation
• Select your Beachhead Market
• Develop an End User Profile
• Calculate your Total Addressable Market Size
• Understand your Customer Persona

Entrepreneurship 101 is based on case studies of MIT startup companies and their founders. Through them you’ll get exposed to innovations in mobile apps, 3D printing, power electronics, international development, watchmaking, and more. In the process you will learn how to interview potential customers, understand the crucial difference between top-down and bottom-up market analysis, and develop a strategic framework for deciding what markets to pursue for your product or service.

This course is particularly useful for:

• Corporate entrepreneurs building a new product line;
• Scientists and engineers commercializing a new technology;
• Entrepreneurs whose innovations have created radically new markets.

This course is equally valuable to educators, particularly former entrepreneurs, who are beginning to teach entrepreneurship. In addition, the course is relevant for policymakers who work to energize the innovation ecosystems in their regions.

In the Verified track, the MIT course team composed of Faculty, Teaching Fellows, and Alumni Mentors will review, grade and provide feedback on your assignments. In addition, we will review and provide feedback on your business plan, which has been a frequent and emphatic request for in the past that we are now excited to meet. In the Verified track you will also be enrolled in weekly review and discussion sessions.

Finally, it is great to take Entrepreneurship 101 as a team, for the course will give you a common framework to make decisions, laying the foundation for your long-term success.

Image: Marius Ursache