Understanding and Managing Entrepreneurial Risks

This Course focuses on how the entrepreneur plans for the launch of a new business. The Course begins with a realistic look at entrepreneurship, including options from inheritance to startup, and analyzing the market ecosystem. It then moves into the entrepreneurial process and initial steps for forming a new venture, and finally to the analysis of five types of risk and the mechanics of writing of a business plan.

Faculty

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:

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

  • Write a specific milestone description, based on a given product/service, as part of planning for risk management.
  • Calculate a preliminary TAM and associated potential revenue over a specific time period.
  • Estimate the probable investment needed and the break-even and payback dates when you launch your business/idea.
  •  

Syllabus

Module Components:

Video Lectures:

  • Understanding the Different Kinds of Risks
  • Market and Competitive Risk
  • Financial and Management Risk

Readings:

  • Risk in Entrepreneurship
  • The Real Risks of Entrepreneurship
  • Entrepreneurs Are ‘Calculated’ Risk Takers
  • How to Sink a Start-Up

Case Study:

  • Choose Your Own Adventure (Continued-Part 2)

Quiz:

  • Understanding and Managing Entrepreneurial Risks

Support

Please email [email protected] for any support required with respect to the program, course or platform.