Course description
The concentration in Entrepreneurship and New Venture Management helps students develop the skills needed to work effectively within a small business or to start or acquire and manage a business of their own.
Students learn to assess their personal aptitude and potential for small business, find and evaluate business opportunities, secure essential funding and organize and manage such functional business areas as manufacturing, marketing, accounting, and finance. Courses are offered in entrepreneurship, starting and managing new businesses, small business finance, and planning and growing new ventures.
The Entrepreneurship and New Venture Management concentration also helps students prepare for careers in sales management, banking, public accounting and other areas relevant to the small business environment.
The Entrepreneurship and Innovation Concentration has four areas of core strength: running and growing family businesses primarily in the retail and services industries; technology startups; corporate entrepreneurship in established corporations; and social entrepreneurship. The program offers a rich set of courses and many exciting corporate residencies in small companies in the Boston area. The professors are entrepreneurs, innovators and accomplished researchers. Our faculty have either started companies, been investors in startups, or have operating experience in high growth ventures. This makes our courses very "real world." The Northeastern Center for Family Business, directed by Ted Clark, provides connections between business owners, faculty, and students for a wide range of activities.
Whether you wish to major in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, take courses that complement your chosen concentration, or take a fun, enriching elective, come see us. Even if you don’t wish to start your own company, entrepreneurial thinking is valued by every CEO running a company, either large or small.
Students who major in Entrepreneurship and Innovation have the opportunity to choose from two different tracks:
• Starting and growing owner-managed business, including family businesses
• Starting and growing larger-scale venture capital backed businesses, global in scale
While all students take the same initial three courses for basic skills development common to both tracks, the final capstone project course differs. The Entrepreneurial Owner-Managed capstone is designed for students seeking traditional bank financing to start their own business, expand a family business, or buy into a franchise. The Entrepreneurial Growth Ventures capstone teaches students the strategy, product or service design, and venture financing needed to start and grow high growth companies. Northeastern has great success in both vectors: our own Family Business Center has over eighty company members, and EMC, as just one example, was an NU startup.
