Stanford MBA teaches you how to Start a Company

Before selecting an Entrepreneurial MBA program, research thoroughly about the various courses available in the curriculum. Analyse how the curriculum can add value for your start-up. If you are planning to start a tech company, go through the courses that will provide a strong foundation for your entrepreneurial venture. A mix of Business Fundamentals, tips on managing teams, raising funds (VC) and the real-world experience that the instructor can offer is critical.

We hate to say this. But PHD’s and Academicians add very little value in an Entrepreneurial MBA program. Although they are excellent in interpreting trends and analysing Businesses Case Studies, the real-world experience is what adds value in an Entrepreneurial MBA course.

One course that has gained quite a lot of attention is the CS 182: Start-up course in Stanford MBA 2012 Spring Class.

Stanford is known to provide a great number of resources for entrepreneurs like the Entrepreneurship Corner that has over 2000 free videos and podcasts, featuring successful entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Reid Hoffman, to name a few.

First of all, what makes this course interesting is the focus it has on relevant entrepreneurial topics. The topics are planned in such a way that the students will get a clear overview on “How to Build and Grow a Company”.

Here are the topics covered in CS182: Startup course:

1) The technology revolution of the 20th century and prior eras
2) The economics of business
3) Founding a start-up
4) The importance of team vision and passion
5) Long-term strategic planning
6) Building a successful founding team
7) Financing and the VC perspective
8) Secrecy vs. openness
9) Recruiting
10) Managing growth
11) Marketing
12) Regulation and other operational topics.

Assignments: Assignments are designed to explore key concepts at greater depth, using real-world and hypothetical example companies.

Case Studies: Inner accounts from the early days of start-ups including PayPal, Google and Facebook will be used as case studies.

Real World Experience: The class will be taught by entrepreneurs who have started companies worth over $1B and VCs who have invested in start-ups including Facebook and Spotify.

Prerequisites: Introductory calculus and statistics ( Math 41 and ENGR 155C, or equivalents); basic modeling skills in student's preferred coding language (e.g. C++, Java, Matlab, Excel).

Superstar Lecturer
What makes the course really interesting apart from the well thought out topics is the Guest Lecturer. This year, Peter Thiel will be the Guest Instructor. If you are not aware of Peter, here is a bio.

“Peter Thiel is best known as the Co-Founder of Paypal. He along with Elon Musk and Max Levchin revolutionized the e-commerce industry in 1998 with the introduction of Paypal. It was the first successful online financial account, apart from the ones offered by Banks. Paypal has over 100 million active users. In 2002, he sold PayPal to eBay for $1.5 Billion USD.

Peter is also a successful venture capitalist. In 2004, he made the first outside investment in Facebook, which has now nearly 1 Billion active members. He Co-Founded and Manages Founders Fund, a leading VC firm that has helped tech companies like LinkedIn, Yelp, Zynga and Spotify. He also has interest in Healthcare industry, with his investments in companies like Practice Fusion and ZocDoc, and by funding the longevity research of Dr. Cynthia Kenyon and the SENS Foundation.

Peter Thiel earned a B.A. in philosophy from Stanford University and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. He co-produced the film Thank You for Smoking. He also established and funds the Thiel Foundation"

Recommendations: We would recommend researching about all the instructors, professors, guest lecturers and other resources provided by the Business School, before joining an MBA program. For Entrepreneurial MBA program, extra research has to be done on the eco-system, support and networking opportunities that you will receive through the program.  Try to contact the current student and get inside information on the quality of the lecture and the real-world experience that they are gaining from the program.

Most Business Schools have student blogs. You can extract lot of information from these blogs, like the lecture details, classroom experience, extra-curricular and more importantly, whether they are happy with the school. Although students will hesitate to explicitly say whether the MBA program is good or not, the tone of the blogs will give you sufficient hints.

Here is a good example of the value that Stanford MBA is providing for startup Entrepreneurs. Blake, the Co-Founder of Amicus Labs, gives us excellent notes on Peter Thiel’s 2012 lectures. For MBA aspirants researching about startup modules in various Entrepreneurial MBA program, here are the links to the notes, prepared by Blake.

Class 1: The Challenge of the Future

Class 2: Party Like it’s 1999?

Class 3: Value Systems

Class 4: The Last Mover Advantage

Class 5: The Mechanics of Mafia

Class 6: Thiel's Law

Class 7: Follow The Money

Class 8: The Pitch

Class 9: If You Build It, Will They Come?

Class 10: After Web 2.0

Class 11: Secrets

Class 12: War and Peace

Class 13: You Are Not A Lottery Ticket

Class 14: Seeing Green

Class 15: Back to the Future

Class 14: Seeing Green

Class 17: Deep Thought

Class 18: Founder as Victim, Founder as God

Other Stanford GSB Resources for Entrepreneurship

1) Center for Entrepreneurial Studies

2) Stanford Graduate School of Business Summer Institute for Entrepreneurship

3) Stanford GSB Entrepreneur Club