An introductory course designed to familiarize the students with the world of small business and entrepreneurship by exploring the foundational concepts of creativity and innovation. Attention is given to leveraging intellectural capital by enhancing innate creativity and support the generation of creative and innovative ideas while, at the same time including an overview of the other aspects of the entrepreneurial process such as opportunity recognition, entrepreneurial marketing, practical use of financial statements analysis of small business and small business financing.

Finance for Small Businesses and Entrepreneurial Ventures takes a three-pronged stage-sensitive approach to introduce financial thinking, tools, and techniques adapted to the realm of entrepreneurship and small business ownership. The course emphasizes the differences between large corporations and Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) relative to funding, risk assessment, and management. Topics include introduction to financial tools, financial markets, and instruments, and management of short term assets and liabilities.

Applied Information Systems for Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses (3). Success as an entrepreneur or small business owner depends on the availability of relevant, accurate, and timely information. This course teaches fundamental business planning and accounting concepts while developing skills to implement a cloud-based, technology enabled small business accounting system.

A work experience in an operating business where the student, under academic and firm management supervision, participates in actual managerial functions (40 work hours per semester credit hour) Student must keep executive diary of work experiences and submit frequent reports to academic supervisor. All internships practica, and other external learning experiences are supervised by JSU faculty (?), who also assign grades in the courses. Credit, 3 semester hours. PREREQ: Written proposal and consent of Internship Coordinator, Department Chair, and JSU Faculty member.

Using marketing research methods, students will develop a marketing plan for a proposed or existing business concept. Topics include opportunity analysis, strategy and marketing mix development, and business model creation including franchising and acquisition.

This class is well suited for students whose entrepreneurial venture is in science, engineering, mass communication, history, arts, music, etc. This course will address topics and problems related to new ventures in the technology and art industry, with emphasis on distribution, publishing, performance and intellectual property rights, agents, personal managers, and contracts. Students will be required to develop an entrepreneurial initiative for this course.

This course examines organizational approaches (for-profit and nonprofit) that emphasizes both urban and social mission and effectiveness. Students learn how to recognize social impact opportunities, how to reconfigure products and services for underserved markets, and how to develop urban or social enterprise models that are sustainable and scalable. Students will be required to develop a urban, social or non-profit entrepreneurial initiative for this course.

This course is designed to prepare the entrepreneurship student for the role of practicing entrepreneur by providing meaningful experiences to simulate the process of starting a firm. The course combines theory with practice by giving the student the opportunity to launch the business plan which has been developed in previous course work and within the constraints of a classroom let the student experience the many problems and unexpected outcomes that accompany let the student experience the many problems and unexpected outcomes that accompany successful firm creation. The Lean Launch Pad approach as adopted in the Stanford University Technology Ventures I-corp program will be taught in phase I. The customer discovery process will be used to develop strategies in marketing, finance human resource management and strategic planning.

This course is designed as a continuation of ENTR 485 to prepare the entrepreneurship student for the role of practicing entrepreneur. The development of the enterprise begun in 485 will continue to a more advanced level and ideally lead to early stage launch depending upon the data gathered and analyzed in the previous course. A recommended course of action and implementation plan is expected with data driven justification and resource allocation decisions designed to provide satisfactory investor outcomes.

This course will explore the unique challenges and opportunities present in managing a family business. Topics will include: the decision to join the family firm, establishing credibility as a son or daughter, the stages of family business growth, strategic planning in the family firm, dealing with non-family managers, and succession. (S)