Alumni center at SDSU.

Graduate Entrepreneurship Courses

MBA with a Specialization in Entrepreneurship

Enhance your education by pursuing a MBA with a Specialization in Entrepreneurship from SDSU. Working closely with motivated students and experienced professors, you will be able to build upon core entrepreneurial competencies to prepare you to launch a successful endeavor of your own. Graduate-level courses incorporate both theoretical concepts and managerial skills to help students create strategies for decision making in various environments.  

Specialization programs at SDSU are designed around the following Program Level SLOs:

  • MBA Program Level Student Learning Outcomes
    • Develop the solid foundation in theoretical concepts and managerial skills needed to lead business organizations.
      • Apply concepts and decision models in financial, accounting, statistics, organizational behavior, finance, economics, marketing, and operations management to make business decisions.
  • Develop an awareness of the legal, ethical, and technological environment in which managers make and implement decisions.
    • Identify and critically analyze salient legal and ethical responsibilities of business issues.
    • Analyze the impact that information technologies have on the functional areas of organizations.
  • Develop an awareness of economic and cultural environments in which managers make and implement decisions.
    • Evaluate the impact that changes in the domestic and global environment have on the business climate.
    • Identify similarities and differences among cultural environments that impact organizational activities.
  • Acquire the capacity to formulate and communicate strategies to solve business problems and pursue opportunities.
    • Analyze a business problem in new and unfamiliar circumstances through the integration of relevant disciplines.
    • Formulate strategies to solve business problems and pursue opportunities.
    • Make professional oral presentations.
    • Write clear and effective formal reports

 

Completion of this course will give you the knowledge to understand everything from cash flow, working capital management, financial management and planning in regards to valuation analysis and the role of investors in startups.

    • SLOs  
      • Identify and explain the key elements - Opportunity, Competitive Position, and the Composition and Terms of Financing, i.e., Deal Structure - of the Value Based Entrepreneurial Management Framework.
      • Explain cash flow and working capital management, and financial analysis and planning as applied to startups.
      • Discuss valuation analysis and valuation issues as applied to startups.
      • Explain the role of investors - for example, angels VCs, vendors - in startups.
    • Faculty
      • Jaemin Kim
      • Nikhil Varaiya  

 

Upon completion of this course you will be able to conduct a feasibility study, understand financial requirements for starting a business and the fundraising process, and propose solution to business problems.

    • SLOs
      • Identify what a feasibility study is and knows how to carry out one (including knowing what the relevant information should be included in a feasibility study, how to search for them, how to structure your study in a written format and how to present it to a relevant audience).
      • Propose your own business ideas and present it to a relevant audience.
      • Use relevant criteria and models to screen opportunities effectively.
      • Read financial statements for new ventures and uncover key assumptions underlying financial statements.
      • Calculate the financial requirements and familiarize with fund raising process for starting a venture.
      • Communicate business models and present your feasibility study to various constituencies such as financial backers or resource holders.
      • Analyze a business case, propose a credible solution to a business problem and support your decision with strong arguments.
    • Faculty
      • Alex DeNoble
      • Congcong Zheng

This course will develop your skills to identify the financial opportunity of a venture, analyze a company's resources and abilities, understand and develop exit strategy as well as how to suitably fund each stage of the business.

    • SLOs
      • Identify, and appropriately communicate the financial opportunity for an entrepreneurial venture of any stage.
      • Articulate technological, operational and market risks with appropriate mitigation strategies.
      • Apply various frameworks to analyze a company's resources and abilities within each function of the organization to seize available market opportunity and take advantage of emerging market trends.
      • Construct an optimal path that optimally achieves milestones and anticipated investment exit strategy.
      • Use various forms of early stage financing to appropriately fund strategic plan outlined in the business plan.  
    • Faculty
      • Congcong Zheng
      • Ricardo Dos Santos
      • Mujtaba Ahsan

Upon completion of this course you will understand the complexity of managing the firm beyond startup, comprehend and grow investor relationships, as well as understand the various sources of funding.

    • SLOs
      • Identify key problems and issues encountered by entrepreneurs and investors in managing a growing organization.
      • Give examples of the types of activities and accomplishments which add to the valuation of a growing business.
      • Anticipate factors which influence investor evaluations of growing organizations.
      • Describe the various sources of capital associated with the progression of a company through its fundable milestones.
      • Evaluate the changing managerial skill requirements associated with the progression of a company through the growth lifecycle.
    • Faculty
      • Alex DeNoble

 This course will give you the skills to evaluate new venture opportunities to be pursued by an existing firm, understand the enablers and inhibitors of innovation within the corporation, and distinguish the difference between corporate entrepreneurship and startup.

    • SLOS
      • Evaluate a new venture opportunity that could be pursued by an existing organization.
      • Develop a plan for selling the new venture idea within the corporate decision making and resource allocation hierarchy.
      • Articulate the key roles played by various individuals within the organization who can support corporate new venture initiatives.
      • Give examples of key enablers and inhibitors of corporate innovation.
      • Differentiate between the challenges faced by corporate entrepreneurs and startup entrepreneurs.
    • Faculty
      • Alex DeNoble
      • Ricardo Dos Santos

 Successful completion of this course will allow you to develop the competencies to identify market opportunities, conduct technology based market research, procure licensing for early stage technology, and protect intellectual property.

    • SLOs
      • Identify potential market opportunities for an early stage technology.
      • Apply models of technology and market assessment in conducting technology based market research.
      • Utilize existing databases and other tools for conducting technology-based market research.
      • Identify the key issues associated with procuring a license for an early stage technology from a government laboratory and subsequently protecting intellectual property.
      • Prepare a commercialization analysis for an early stage technology.
    • Faculty
      • Kimberly Davis King
      • Alex DeNoble

This course will develop your skills in understanding the effect of culture on business, evaluating the entrepreneurial opportunities in countries abroad, and developing market entry plans.  

    • SLOs
      • Discuss contemporary theoretical and practical developments in the area of international entrepreneurship.
      • Appreciate the effect of national cultures on business dealings and communication.
      • Systematically evaluate entrepreneurial conditions in various countries.
      • Identify, describe and assess entrepreneurial opportunities in the global environment.
      • Devise a plan for foreign market entry by a small venture or a medium-sized entrepreneurial firm.
      • Assess the impact of globalization trends on entrepreneurship in the U.S. and around the world.
      • Integrate international business and entrepreneurship concepts gained in other courses and apply them in analyses of cases based on complex, real-life situations.
    • Faculty
      • Martina Musteen