The entrepreneurial journey is typically filled with both exhilaration and despair, often in the same day. But this journey is not one that an entrepreneur should take unaccompanied. Most highly successful entrepreneurs have mentors who help them address the inevitable challenges they will face and make decisions in very uncertain environments.

This course will focus on the challenges entrepreneurs face in different startup situations and how mentors can help navigate them. Students will interact with entrepreneurs who have founded successful firms and entrepreneurs whose firms failed. These entrepreneurs will address questions such as the difficult situations they have faced, how they addressed them, whether they had a mentor to help, the different types of mentors needed for different stages in a startup, how to get the most out of a mentoring relationship, and how to end a mentoring relationship when it is no longer beneficial.

At the end of this course students should better understand:

1. different challenges in different stages of a startup;

2. how to find a mentor;

3. the role mentors can play in entrepreneurial success;

4. the different types of mentors who can help throughout the entrepreneurial journey; and

5. how to navigate the mentoring relationship.

The class will meet on March 10th, 17th, and 24th from 9:00 – 17:30. Mandatory attendance is 80%.

In an ideal world, class sessions would consist of guided, in-person conversations with many entrepreneurs from different backgrounds. Given the high likelihood of travel restrictions lasting through March, we will probably have guided video chats instead. Regardless of the format, students are expected to be active and engaged participants in all class sessions. You should come to class having listened to the assigned podcast episodes and/or read the assigned business plans.

The class will meet on March 10th, 17th, and 24th from 9:00 – 17:30.

Grades will reflect my assessment of students’ performance in the following assignments:

• Class attendance and participation (20%)
• Pre-session questions developed from assigned podcasts and readings (20%)
• Moderation of a class session with an entrepreneur (10%)
• Final report presenting an analysis of interviews with entrepreneurs and/or mentors (50%)

Disclaimer:  Although I intend for grades to be determined as follows, changes may be made for circumstances beyond our control.

All students are expected to adhere to the highest standards of academic honesty. In general, academic dishonesty is any behavior on the part of a student that is intended to cause the student to indicate a level of mastery of a subject that the student has not actually achieved, or any behavior that is intended to cause another student to indicate a level of mastery either higher or lower than that actually achieved. The most likely area in which academic dishonesty will occur in this class is falsifying your final interviews – either that you conducted them or misrepresenting the information in them. Sanctions for academic dishonesty will range from a “0” for the assignment up to an F in the class for egregious violations.