PGP PRO 2021-22 | Managing Growth of Entrepreneurial Venture

This Course uses a fictional business to allow the learner to settle deeply into an entrepreneur’s shoes. Using the business as a realistic context, the learner is challenged to raise funding from a range of sources to launch the company, move the company successfully from a startup to a rapidly expanding “Phase 3” firm, and analyze the business’s innovative position in the market.

Faculty

Prof. Al Osborne

Prof. Al Osborne

Professor

Alfred E. Osborne, Jr. is senior associate dean of UCLA Anderson.  In this role, he oversees a variety of key areas and initiatives within the school, including development, alumni relations, marketing and communications, corporate initiatives, and executive education.

Dr. Osborne is also professor of Global Economics and Management and founder and faculty director of the Harold and Pauline Price Center for Entrepreneurial Studies.  The Price Center serves to organize faculty research, student activities and curricula related to the study of entrepreneurship and new business development at UCLA Anderson including the Management Development Entrepreneurs Program.  He has been at UCLA since 1972.

Prof. George Abe

Prof. George Abe

Professor

George Abe is a lecturer and Faculty Director of the Strategic Management Research (SMR) Program at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. His teaching responsibilities include entrepreneurship, business plan development and field study program advisories. SMR is the field study program, required of all Executive MBA students.

He was Business Development Manager for the UCLA Office of Intellectual Property, which is responsible for patent protection and commercialization of UCLA research.

Previously, he was a venture partner with Palomar Ventures, a VC firm in Santa Monica, California. Before Palomar, he was a Business Development Manager at Cisco Systems. Prior to that he was with Infonet Services Corporation (NYSE:IN, now BT) where he designed Infonet’s IP data service.

From 1998 until 2006, he was a member of the board of directors of Switchcore AB, a publicly traded fabless semiconductor designer in Sweden. He has also held board of director positions with various startup companies and not-for-profit organizations.

He is the author of Residential Broadband, which presents an analysis of high-speed residential networking, published by Cisco Press.

Education

B.A. Mathematics, UCLA
M.S. Business, Quantitative Methods, UCLA

Course Learning Objectives:

  • Approach fundraising with confidence and a clear view of available options, including friends/family, through crowdfunding, and investors.
  • Engage knowledgeably with venture capitalists, knowing what they can provide and what they expect in return.
  • Consider the impact of various types of innovation, including market disruption, on your entrepreneurial venture and its culture.
  • Evaluate options for friend and family fundraising, based on a set of facts about a business, and determine if each should be approached.
  • Propose a plan for raising funds through crowdsourcing, based on a set of facts about the business.
  • For a business that is expanding, create a plan for seeking additional funding from angel investors and/or corporate strategic investors.
  • Explain the workings of a venture capital firm, including an example of how profits are divided among all the participants and a company’s founders.
  • Write an elevator pitch to use in seeking funding from venture capitalists.
  • Answer common questions an investor asks during the fundraising process.
  • Create a set of action steps to move an organization facing a Phase 2 crisis of direction into Phase 3, where rapid expansion can occur.
  • Analyze the current culture of an organization to find its strengths and weaknesses as it moves through change.

Syllabus

Learning Objectives:
  • Evaluate options for friend and family fundraising, based on a set of facts about a business, and determine if each should be approached.
  • Propose a plan for raising funds through crowdsourcing, based on a set of facts about the business.
  • For a business that is expanding, create a plan for seeking additional funding from angel investors and/or corporate strategic investors.
Module Components:

Video Lectures:

  • Overview of Very Early Stage Funding Mechanisms
  • Not-So-Early-Stage Funding: Approaching Strangers
  • Bringing in and Managing Early Investors 

Readings:

  • Bootstrapping Business Start-Ups
  • Crowd-funding of Small Entrepreneurial Ventures

Case-Study:

  • 3-Dazzle Boutique 

Quiz:

  • Funding a New Venture
Learning Objectives:
  • Explain the workings of a venture capital firm, including an example of how profits are divided among all the participants and a company’s founders.
  • Write an elevator pitch to use in seeking funding from venture capitalists.
  • Answer common questions an investor asks during the fundraising process.
Module Components:

Video Lectures:

  • Venture Capital as a source of Funds
  • The VC Fundraising Process
  • Improve Your Chances of Raising Money from VC

Readings:

  • Angles, VCs, or the Crowd: Who Should Fund Your Start-up?
  • Why 99.95% Of Entrepreneurs Should Stop Wasting Time Seeking
    Venture Capital
  • Steve Case: ‘The Team You Build Will Define the Company You Build’
  • Six Tips for Overcoming a ‘No’ When Seeking Funding

Case-Study:

  • 3-Dazzle Boutique (Continued-Part 1) 

Quiz:

  • Raising Venture Capital
Learning Objectives:
  • Create a set of action steps to move an organization facing a Phase 2 crisis of direction into Phase 3, where rapid expansion can occur.
  • Analyze the current culture of an organization to find its strengths and weaknesses as it moves through change.
  • Propose innovations for a given business in each of five key areas: product/service, technology, production/processes, markets/distribution channels, and business model.
Module Components:

Video Lectures:

  • Understanding the Five Phases of Organizational Growth
  • Focus on Culture to Ensure Sustainable Growth
  • Defining Innovation in the Context of Venture

Readings:  

  • Managing Five Phases of Growth
  • Startup – Key Stages of Growth
  • Challenges of Growing a Business

Case-Study:

  • 3-Dazzle Boutique (Continued-Part 2)

Quiz:

  • Driving Organizational Growth in a New Venture

Support

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