Introduction to entrepreneurship/IENT101/About

Course Name:

In this course you'll review the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs and apply techniques for generating ideas to initiate a market analysis and supporting due-diligence assessment for a startup business.

What will I learn?
Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:
 * Define entrepreneurship
 * Identify the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs
 * Review the advantages and disadvantages of small business ownership
 * Conduct a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis
 * Examine the key questions an entrepreneur should answer before starting a business
 * Review techniques for generating ideas
 * Complete a due-diligence survey for a business idea
 * Distinguish between market research and market intelligence and explain the situations in which each approach should be used
 * Describe the basic steps of market research and corresponding purposes for each step
 * Describe competitive intelligence
 * Review types of market exchanges and partnerships

What's involved?
This micro-course is offered online for independent study or you can join an international community of learners in gaining a better understanding of becoming an entrepreneur. There are four learning pathways, each containing numerous resources and activities.

The learning pathways are:
 * The nature of entrepreneurship
 * What makes a successful entrepreneur?
 * Entrepreneurs as small business owners
 * Before starting your own business

What prerequisites should I have, if any?
Anyone is free to participate in this course. An internet connection and basic web-browsing skills are recommended, with the ability to create a blog and microblog account (instructions and self-study tutorials provided.) You are requested to keep a personal learning journal, as reflection has been shown to markedly increase learning.

You will need to be proficient in English language (reading, writing and listening) to participate successfully in this course.

This is one of three micro-courses which together make up the Introduction to Entrepreneurship course. Each micro-course can be studied independently, but we recommend study in the following order because the later micro-courses draw to some extent on knowledge, skills and resources developed in the earlier ones:



All the micro-courses can be accessed and consulted freely online.

What assessment options do I have?
There are various options for assessment and certification of participation. Please refer to the Assesssment Overview for full information.