Are there business development classes I can take that will better prepare me for entrepreneurship?
I am interested to hear if anyone recommends a certain course or class that can benefit my career as an entrepreneur. I am looking for courses for me to attend as well as classes I can recommend to my team members; some at different levels of beginner, moderate and advanced.
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Aug 29, 2016
John C Maxwell is the guru on leadership, so I would suggest reading his books
Aug 29, 2016
SCORE holds free webinars and low-cost local classes. Check with your state's Small Business Development Council also.
Aug 3, 2016
Yes, You can join in any 3months or 6months package management classes by any B-school. thanks. Search on Internet.
Aug 3, 2016
Hi Bryan,
The best places to look for business development classes are a Central Library with business workshops for business owners, alternatively contact colleges/universities about any evening classes.
However, in my experience I would look about doing a course through Lynda.com via LinkedIn or Udemy.com.
Hope my advice help and best of luck with your business venture.
Aug 3, 2016
There are excellent programs on entrepreneurship but since you don't reveal where you live, its hard to recommend something. I agree with the comments of avoid theory and I would also say avoid the book keeping and things like that. Be successful and hire people to do those things for you.
Jul 22, 2016
Yes, there are a lot and good ones. I had found Coursera, edx, MIT online, and few other platforms tremendous at helping you gain and improve specific skills, but entrepreneurship go way more far from concepts, books, and training. You have to apply what you understood in order to learn it better, share experience, connect with other in related fields, debate and critique results, and make your own impressions while adapting them as you wish and find fit.
Aug 3, 2016
Hi SOI , Its great to suggest but madam may be looking for real practial project like demo to get match with his venture. So we need more object of business. Thanks
Jul 15, 2016
imo, the best thing you could do is buy lunch for about ten people, one at a time, who you see to be running successful small businesses. #1 this will teach and/or show you the difficulties surrounding getting time with a decision maker, which is a great segue into the world of sales. Get these people talking about their sales and selling efforts. Everything else is commodity info you can find in Google.
For me, SCORE and similar organizations are pretty much a waste of time. While SCORE volunteers mean well, they all tend to come from largish companies that had lots of underlings and lots of revenue. For the most part, imo, they're all from businesses that existed and/or grew prior to the advent of what a small biz will see in today's set of conditions. Having sat through several of their "lectures", they seemed to be reciting something from a 1950s era business textbook. None of them understood online sales and none of them had much to say on selling. They did have nice networks of people they knew. Then they would hand out a bunch of SBA drivel that was outdated (but well meaning) like it contained the secrets to success. Maybe true from twenty years ago.
For the most part, and with some exceptions, anyone that can type a search using Google can acquire the same body of knowledge as what these SCORE retirees/people seem to offer. All nice and smart people, but I thought their experience and outlook was a generation old and based on largish cash flow positive companies. A far cry from a home based startup existing from sale to sale and project to project.
Unless things have radically changed in the last decade most gov't-sponsored entities, including classes, seem to consider small business anything under multiple millions of dollars in revenue. Government awareness and emphasis on helping the 1-2 person startup does not exist. They want (and they should) largish affairs that can prop up state and fed tax collections and thus allow them to show some ROI on what they spend on biz dev. 1-2 person startups does not work in their scheme, albeit well intended.
Spend your time and money on taking small biz people out to lunch. imo, you'll get more out of listening to their stories than anything organized by a public entity.
Jun 20, 2016
Most regions -- cities, counties -- have an educational program for small businesses tied in to the Small Business Administration. Google education for entrepreneurs or go to the SBA website to look up what's available for you.
I've been working with mine with excellent results.
Jun 19, 2016
Entrepreneurship is a strange beast. If you have a decent amount of basic education and knowledge, it simply is just better to jump straight in and start the company. The problems that are unique to you cannot be taught very well before. Join an accelerator or launch program similar to Founder Institute.
Sir, You are welcome to focous on specific classes of management for any particular small trade. For rest like big ventures high class consultants are there. thanks