Graduate Business Entrepreneurship (GBEN)

GBEN 401 Business Plan I 2 Credits

This course focuses on the need to validate that a market exists for a new product or service. As a project-based course, students work independently on a venture of their own choosing. They are challenged to make use of primary market research methods to identify demand determinants and test for the presence of first-time buyers. Students search available databases and gather information to estimate market size and growth potential.

GBEN 402 Business Plan II 2 Credits

This course focuses on the need to create a business plan to launch a new enterprise. As a project-based course, students work independently on a venture of their own choosing. Emphasis is given to all the elements needed to commercialize a new enterprise from a marketing, sales, operations, technology, facilities, and financial perspective. The presentation format of the business plan receives close attention as a tool to attract potential investors.
Prerequisites: GBEN 401

GBEN 403 Anatomy of Entrepreneurship 1 Credit

This course focuses on the personality traits and characteristics of a founder. The leadership style and management of a startup are highlighted as the venture moves through various stages of development. Real-life situations are brought into the classroom and students are challenged with decision-making in a startup environment marked by enormous uncertainty and rapid change. Students learn the critical role of the founder in attracting investors and raising capital.

GBEN 404 Market Opportunity 1 Credit

This course focuses on entrepreneurial marketing and the methods employed by emerging growth companies to successfully penetrate and disrupt markets. Speakers and cases illustrate branding strategies, selling approaches, pricing alternatives, and digital marketing tactics peculiar to startups who are constrained by scarce resources and saddled with expertise in the hands of a few.

GBEN 405 Intellectual Property 1 Credit

This course focuses on IP strategy and valuation with emphasis on the technology-driven startup. Early stage companies must demonstrate proof-of-concept to their investors, a huge milestone that verifies the potential of real-world application. Speakers and cases deal with the harsh trade-offs of IP decision-making and the constant need to raise capital to accelerate technology development.

GBEN 406 Performing Due Diligence 1 Credit

This course focuses on due diligence as a creative and time-sensitive process that can open or close doors for startups. Speakers and cases illustrate what potential investors or acquirers do to validate the accuracy, integrity, and completeness of information provided before finalizing an investment decision. Students learn performing due diligence is a labor-intensive investigative process that unfolds in stages where the results also speak to the credibility of the entrepreneur.

GBEN 407 Startups & Pivots 1 Credit

This course focuses on the need to pivot, or shift direction, when market conditions and revenue shortfalls dictate major change. Speakers and cases highlight what startups do to breathe new life into a troubled venture. Students learn how founders raise capital under adverse circumstances in order to buy time to re-configure product, transition to another market and type of customer, and test a new business model.

GBEN 409 Financial Forecasting 1 Credit

This course focuses on the use of pro forma financial statements and projections to value and finance an early stage company. Cases illustrate key assumptions and various scenarios that figure into a multi-year forecast. Business models are evaluated for their profit potential during a period of expansion and growth. Students learn the art and science of valuing a startup.

GBEN 410 Financing Startups 1 Credit

This course focuses on the separate but overlapping worlds of angel investors, venture capitalists, and strategic investors. Their funding role, investment objectives, and market behaviors are analyzed in capital raises for seed through late stage companies. Cases give attention to venture capital and their term sheets. The course culminates in a simulated deal negotiation involving students.

GBEN 412 Going Public 1 Credit

The course focuses on the initial public offering [IPO] or how the venture capital-backed company moves from being privately-held to publicly-held. Major emphasis is placed on the role of the investment banker and the workings of the Securities & Exchange Commission [SEC]. Actual IPOs traded on the NYSE or NASDAQ are dissected from every angle before, during, and after a company goes public.

GBEN 413 Integrative Experience/New Venture Internship 1-4 Credits

Only students enrolled in the Entrepreneurial concentration may elect one of these hands-on, project-orientated s. Integrative Experience must meet the requirements of formal independent study and involve a new venture situation with a startup or existing company. Students employed in a New Venture Internship may also qualify for credit if the same requirements are satisfied.

GBEN 414 Ventures in Brand Licensing 1 Credit

This course focuses on the art and science of building new enterprises by utilizing licensing strategies to leverage the power and influence of brands. A wide cross-section of deal structures and negotiation strategies are explored. Key elements of a licensing contract are dissected from a market, economic, and legal perspective. The approach to learning is hands-on with speakers, interactive exercises, and real-life situations shedding light on the emergence of brand licensing as an alternative path to new venture creation.

GBEN 415 LehighSiliconValley 1-3 Credits

Immersion study-abroad-like program focused on venture capital-backed companies and the paths taken to start, build, and exit an enterprise. Offered in the hub of entrepreneurship, Silicon Valley, live cases draw on seasoned practitioners from all reaches of the venture community. Students strategically analyze and evaluate startups, lead discussion, and assess team performance in recommending go-forward strategies. Emphasis on real companies, real players, and real situations in real time create a highly charged learning environment. Winter term. Includes pre-trip sessions. Competitive admission. Program fees.

GBEN 424 Entrepreneurship & Innovation: From Idea to Opportunity 3 Credits

Thought about starting a business but wonder where to begin? focuses on the idea stage of new venture creation where discovery plants seeds of future enterprises. Student projects, case studies and speakers introduce personal, interpersonal, financial, and legal challenges startups encounter. Drawing on research on entrepreneurial decision-making, students learn to think and behave entrepreneurially. Participants "kick the tires" on their own and others' just-emerging ideas and improve them. For those interested in starting a business sometime in their lives.

GBEN 492 Special Topics 1-3 Credits

GBEN 497 1-3 Credits

Repeat Status: Course may be repeated.