ENT-Technology Entrepreneurship Courses

ENT 270. The Entrepreneurial Mindset. 3 Hours.

The course instills an entrepreneurial mindset by teaching students high-impact entrepreneurship concepts, transformational entrepreneurial paradigms, and bold professional practices. Risky and uncertain environments, personal authenticity and confidence, project failure and success, creativity, stimulating and leading growth, building a team, and making money and impact are among the topics.

ENT 320. Entrepreneurial Accounting and Finance. 3 Hours.

Students will learn how key principles of accounting and finance relate to entrepreneurial career paths and how these functions relate to each other in the context of entrepreneurial ventures. The course covers a diverse range of topics within this realm, including financial statements, assembling a team of advisors, entrepreneurial investing, building a business case, company valuation, pro forma statements, and entrepreneurial fundraising.
Prerequisites: ENT 270 [Min Grade: C] and (BUS 310 [Min Grade: C] or FN 310 [Min Grade: C])

ENT 350. Social and Community Enterprise. 3 Hours.

Entrepreneurial ventures often perform outside non-profit or for-profit realms and can make impact in economic, social, and natural environments simultaneously. These social enterprises feature novel business models and unique environments such as technology-based communities, institutional and legal contexts, public good scenarios, monopoly situations, and market failure cases where traditional for-profit ventures fail but social enterprises thrive.
Prerequisites: ENT 270 [Min Grade: C]

ENT 421. Entrepreneurial Marketing and Sales. 3 Hours.

This course helps students identify, validate, and engage entrepreneurial opportunities in market settings. Based on individual-level sales and firm-level marketing concepts, students learn to formulate business ideas, build business models, and transact business. Students also learn to analyze markets and conduct research in industrial settings, entrepreneurial sectors, and other environments.
Prerequisites: (MK 303 [Min Grade: C] or BUS 311 [Min Grade: C]) and ENT 270 [Min Grade: C]

ENT 422. Entrepreneurial Strategy and Operations. 3 Hours.

This course explores strategic decisions that early-stage entrepreneurs face when building and growing their businesses. From a very practical and experiential perspective, students learn how to formulate new venture business models, research competitive environments, examine venture assumptions, develop strategic plans. They also learn how to structure new ventures, conceptualize supply and value chains, and measure venture performance.
Prerequisites: ENT 270 [Min Grade: C]

ENT 424. Entrepreneurial New Product and Service Development. 3 Hours.

Students will learn how entrepreneurs develop various types of innovations (e.g., technological, mechanical, algorithmic, process, etc.)into new products or services ready to enter markets or community environments in the context of entrepreneurial ventures. This course begins by focusing on the output of innovation activity - innovations themselves - and clarifies the process of developing them into market-ready product or service applications.
Prerequisites: ENT 270 [Min Grade: C]

ENT 425. Entrepreneurial Engagement Seminar. 3 Hours.

This course revisits selected entrepreneurship concepts from ENT 270, adds a model of strategic entrepreneurship, and undertakes team-based outreach consulting projects, with entrepreneurial ventures in the Birmingham region. The entrepreneur clients appraise the effects of the team deliverables on their ventures, which assists with grading. The course yields unmatched networking experiences and real-world practical application of entrepreneurship concepts.
Prerequisites: ENT 270 [Min Grade: C]

ENT 426. Practicum in Commercialization. 3 Hours.

This course offers qualified students the chance to gain first hand experience in product commercialization while receiving academic credit. Students work in cross-disciplinary teams with senior engineering students to develop a commercialization plan corresponding to an original product design.

ENT 445. Entrepreneurial Internship. 3 Hours.

Standard internship with entrepreneurial business or organization. Junior standing and 2.0 minimum overall GPA. Must be currently enrolled in the Collat School of Business as a degree-seeking student or declared minor in business.

ENT 450. I-Corps Lean Startup. 3 Hours.

Student teams will execute the Lean Startup approach to develop a business model following the highly successful I-Corps methodology. This is a team-based course where students will spend the semester exploring the viability of a new business venture. Students will be organized into startup teams and be expected to fully execute all areas of the business model canvas by testing their business assumptions through customer/stakeholder interviews. Students must apply for enrollment with the instructor. This course has a major group project component.

ENT 499. Directed Study in Entrepreneurship. 3 Hours.

Supervised project in a specific area of entrepreneurship. This is an experiential course for completion of a minor in entrepreneurship. Course may be online or face-to-face.