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Courses

Stanford Technology Ventures Program offers entrepreneurship and innovation courses. See which courses are best for you based on your student level. You can also see STVP's list of affilliated entrepreneurship courses located below.

Special thanks to Fenwick & West for generously sponsoring STVP courses
taught by adjunct professors.


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Number	Name / Description	Quarter
ENGR140 A,B,C [undergrad/coterm]	Leadership of Technology Ventures (Byers : 4,2,2 units) This is an intensive three-quarter sequence of courses for students who have gained admission to the Mayfield Fellows Program. It is a work/study program that offers an in-depth analysis of high-technology start-up companies. Enroll: 12 Sponsored by Fenwick & West
ENGR145 [undergrad/coterm]	Technology Entrepreneurship (Byers, Blank, Eesley, Kosnik : 4 units) Technology Entrepreneurship-For juniors, seniors, and coterminal students of all majors who seek to understand the formation and growth of a high-impact enterprise including concepts essential to the entrepreneurial process and the role of the individual and team in achieving success. Case studies, lectures, workshops, and a team project. No prerequisites. GER:DB-SocSci. Enroll: 60 Sponsored by Fenwick & West
MS&E175 [undergrad/coterm]	Innovation, Creativity, and Change (Katila (WIN) : 3-4 units) This course centers on creativity and innovation in organizations. We examine how individuals can innovate in organizations, and the challenge of building an innovative organization. Enroll: 40	(Not offered in 2009-2010)
MS&E178/278 [undergrad/grad]	The Spirit of Entrepreneurship (Blank : 3 units) This course teaches students to think like a successful entrepreneur by learning how analyze key parts of a variety of startup business models. We'll use the speakers at the Entrepreneurial Thought Leader seminar (MS&E472) as the source of the companies we will explore. Enroll: 40 Sponsored by Fenwick & West
MS&E180 [undergrad/coterm]	Organizations: Theory and Management (Eisenhardt (Aut), Hinds (Sor) : 4 units) Classical and contemporary organization theory; the behavior of individuals, groups, and organizations. No prerequisites.
ME208 [seniors/grad]	Patent Law and Strategy for Innovators and Entrepreneurs (Schox : 2 or 3 units) The course will provide a foundation to understand the patent system, and strategies to build a patent portfolio and avoid patent infringement. Students will learn how to conduct their own patent search and how to file their own provisional patent application on an invention of their choice. Although listed as a ME course, the course is not specific to any discipline or technology.
MS&E270 [grad]	Strategy in Technology-based Companies (Eisenhardt, Katila : 3-4 units) This course covers primary strategy paradigms with particular emphasis on challenges of strategy in rapidly changing, highly uncertain technology-based industries. Enroll: 60
MS&E271 [grad]	Global Entrepreneurial Marketing (Kosnik, Novitsky, Smith : 4 units) This course investigates the unique challenges of worldwide marketing in new ventures. It is designed to equip the engineer or scientist with the basic entrepreneurial marketing skills needs to launch and lead a new high growth, high-technology venture in the global marketplace. Enroll: 80 per term Sponsored by Fenwick & West
MS&E273 [grad]	Technology Venture Formation (Lyons, MacLean : 3-4 units) This course provides a learning experience that simulates the process of starting a high-tech company. Students work in teams on a business plan for a start-up and present it to a panel of experienced Venture Capitalists. Course instructors, experts themselves in new venture creation, present the key issues involved in evaluating market opportunities, designing profitable business models, producing a solid business plan, raising capital, addressing legal considerations and developing a winning team. Enroll: 48 Sponsored by Fenwick & West
MS&E276 [grad]	Entrepreneurial Management (Byers, Lin : 3 units) For graduate students only with a preference for engineering and science majors. Emphasis on managing high-growth ventures, especially those based on technology products and services. Students develop a set of skills and approaches to becoming effective entrepreneurial managers. Topics include turning opportunities into reality, raising capital and financial management, venture operations and organizational administration, handling growth and adversity. Limited enrollment. Prerequisites: MS&E 140 and ENGR 60, or equivalents. Enroll: 48
MS&E277 [undergrad/grad]	Creativity and Innovation (Seelig : 4 units) This course focuses on creativity and innovation of individuals and groups within organizations. The course uses experiential methods, case studies, workshops, field trips, and team projects, supported by guest speakers and readings. The goal of this course is to identify factors that promote and inhibit innovation by exploring a wide range of examples in individuals and organizations. Enroll: 32 Sponsored by Fenwick & West
MS&E278	See MS&E178
MS&E280 [grad]	Organizational Behavior and Management (Sutton : 3-4 units) Organization theory; concepts and functions of management; behavior of the individual, work group and organization. Emphasis is on case and related discussion. Enroll: 65 (Priority to MS&E students)
MS&E285 (CEE151/251) [undergrad/grad]	Negotiation (Christensen : 3 units) This class is an introduction to the varieties of negotiation styles and processes in order to help students negotiate more effectively in the workplace. Students will analyze the negotiating process through frequent exercises, live and field examples, individual and small group reviews. It will be in workshop format integrating intellectual and experiential learning using readings, presentations, and discussions. Interested students need to apply for the course. Enroll: 50 Sponsored by Fenwick & West
MS&E287 [grad]	Prototyping Change in Entrepreneurial Firms (Dunn, Sutton : 3-4 units) In this small, team-based, multidisciplinary class, students will apply the design process to specific organizational practices, particularly in start-up organizations. Examples of such practices include performance feedback/evaluation, employee onboarding, the design of jobs and company communication. The targeted practices will be treated as prototypes and student groups will be expected to implement and test their ideas, not just propose them. The course will provide hands-on experience in collaboration and design, in the context of tackling real problems in real organizations. To apply, send a resume and and a brief statement of why you should be in the class to bobsut at stanford dot edu and ddunn at stanford dot edu by 12/10/08. Enroll: 12
MS&E371 [Alternate years]	Doctoral Research Seminar on Innovation and Strategic Change (Katila : 2-3 units) Current research on innovation strategy. Topics: scientific discovery, innovation search, organizational learning, evolutionary approaches, and incremental and radical change. Recommended: course in statistics or research methods. Enroll: 10 (Enrollment limited to Ph.D. students.)
MS&E372	MS&E 372 Entrepreneurship Doctoral Research Seminar (Eesley : 3 units) Classic and current research on entrepreneurship. Limited enrollment, restricted to PhD students. Prerequisites: SOC 363 or equivalent, and permission of instructor.(Enrollment limited to Ph.D. students.)
MS&E376 [Ph.D.]	Doctoral Research Seminar on Strategy and Organization (Eisenhardt : 3 units) This seminar examines a variety of theoretical perspectives on strategy including debates surrounding the origins of competitive advantage, resource and knowledge-based views, complexity theory, transaction-cost economics, agency theory, and entrepreneurship. The seminar also aims to develop skills that are useful when pursuing an academic career, such as synthesizing research, understanding research designs, and building theories. Enroll: 10
MS&E472 [undergrad/grad + open to public]	Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Seminar (Byers, Kosnik, Seelig : 1 unit) This lecture series brings in industry leaders to share the lessons of experience with the Stanford community. Speakers include world-class entrepreneurs, CEOs, investors, and authors. Enroll: 200
Ph.D. Seminar [Ph.D.]	STVP Ph.D. Research Seminar STVP organizes a quarterly informal brown bag lunch seminar to discuss current research topics in the areas of strategy, organization theory, and entrepreneurship in technology-based companies. Speakers include students and faculty members of the center plus colleagues from other departments at Stanford.

Affiliated Courses

Number	Name / Description	Quarter
ENGR 60	Engineering Economy (Chiu, Weber : 3 units) Engineering Economy provides an introduction to intertemporal economic decision making using discounted-cash-flow analysis, decision trees, and expected utility theory. The course also introduces some of the decision biases observed for boundedly rational decision makers. Topics covered include cash-flow analysis, choice among economic alternatives, effects of depreciation and taxation, decision analysis, value of information & options, and decision biases.
ENGR 150Q/250 [undergrad/grad]	Saving Lives in the Next Pandemic (Behrman : 1-6 units) This project seminar will seek innovative solutions for educating and organizing individuals and neighbors to create resilient communities in the event of a pandemic, exploring the use of technologies that were not available in the past. The team will be working with leading public health experts and technologists, and with organizations seeking innovative solutions to this challenge. The implementation of a successful innovation by these organizations would have the potential of saving many lives.
CEE159/259 [undergrad]	Career Skills (Clough : 2 or 3 units) Each class will cover a specific career skill (about 1/3 of the classes will be facilitated by industry speakers). Students may request a job interview from the guest speakers or a longer list of affiliated industry representatives. The objective of the class is to help students develop a better understanding of career options, find a good personal match, and develop the skills required in that industry segment. The class discussions and papers required after each class will help students improve critical thinking, writing, and listening skills.
EE203 [undergrad/grad]	The Entrepreneurial Engineer (Melen : 1 unit) Seminar furthers the knowledge base of prospective entrepreneurs with an engineering background. Contributions made to the business world by engineering graduates. Speakers include Stanford (and other) engineering and M.B.A. graduates who have founded large and small companies in nearby communities. Also, contributions from EE faculty members and other departments, including Law, Business, and MS&E). SCPD online videos of presentations.
MS&E288 [grad]	Creating Infectious Action (Dearing, Rodriguez, Sutton : 3-4 units) This small and intense project-based class is built around two team efforts to “spread” positive behavior, which will be bolstered by exposure to, and coaching from, industry experts and academics. Learning how to become a better design thinker will be a major focus of this course. Students will apply the “build to think” philosophy of the d.school and create prototypes of everything from viral marketing campaigns to entire businesses.
GSB S353 [grad]	Entrepreneurship: Formation of New Ventures (Chess, Reiss, Leslie, Rachleff, Foster, Ellis) This course addresses the issues faced in starting a new venture. It is offered for students who at some time may want to undertake an entrepreneurial career by pursuing opportunities leading to partial or full ownership and control of a business as well as those who want to understand the entrepreneurial process as a background for other careers. The course deals with case situations from the point of view of the entrepreneur/manager rather than the passive investor. It takes the perspective of a general manager who must understand and lead an entire enterprise. Many cases involve visitors, since the premise is that opportunity and action have large idiosyncratic components. Students must assess opportunity and action in light of the perceived capabilities of the individuals and the nature of the environments they face. The course is integrative and will allow students to apply many facets of their business school education. The examples will be drawn from a variety of different settings, principally in high tech (consistent with the interests and backgrounds of the instructors). Two sections spring quarter taught by Rob Chess and Peter Reiss are designed to be 50% 1st-year MBA students and 50% non-MBA students and will be geared toward medical devices and healthcare. One section in the autumn has 15% of the seats reserved for engineering students. The GSB hopes this will lead to the formation of some S356 teams.
GSB S356 [grad]	Evaluating Entrepreneurial Opportunities (3 units) The primary objectives of the course are to sharpen students' skills in opportunity evaluation; help them understand the tasks, decisions, and knowledge that are required to turn an idea into a sound business opportunity; and provide a setting for integration and extension of knowledge of the functional areas through the development of a comprehensive plan for a new business. The course is organized around a project. The initial phase will be dominated by identifying a business opportunity. This will be followed by the evaluation and development of a detailed business plan for pursuing the opportunity, and a presentation to a panel of faculty, venture capitalists, and entrepreneurs. Admission to S356 is done by team application due December 1, 2008.   See the detailed course description for more information.
ME377 [grad]	Experiences in Design Thinking (2-3 units) A series of immersive experiences in innovation and design thinking, this course will blur the boundaries between technology, business, and human values. Drawing students and faculty from all areas of the university (business, earth sciences, education, engineering, humanities and sciences, law, and medicine), it is a unique forum for learning that prepares participants for real world innovation and for spring d.school courses on social entrepreneurship, experience prototyping, and business prototyping. Instead of conventional classroom formats, the class is comprised of hands on exercises and projects, rich in frameworks and methods that support breakthrough thinking.
MS&E430 (CS247B) [undergrad/grad]	Contextual and Organizational Issues in Human Computer Interaction (Hinds, Winograd : 4 units) The nature of technology and information systems in corporations, schools and homes is rapidly changing from supporting work to enabling new forms of work, learning, and play. This course focuses on the context of technology in use. It is intended to provide insight and experience into issues within work and consumer settings that influence the use of technology. Students will develop skills in: observing technology in use; identifying constraints and tradeoffs on designs within the context of use; and using models of work and other activity as guides to interface design. In addition, students will develop skill in working on interdisciplinary design teams. This course should appeal to students interested in the design of interaction between people and technology, although designers of all stripes will benefit. (Restricted enrollment: Preference given to CS and MS&E Master's students who have completed CS247A and students who have taken HCI or Product Design courses such as CS147A.) Enroll: 50
MS&E478 (EE402A) [grad]	US-Asia Technology Management Center Public Lecture Series (Dasher : 1 unit, S/NC) These highly acclaimed lectures feature prominent speakers from industry and academic disciplines throughout the world. The audience is given the opportunity to ask questions and also meet and talk with the speaker during an informal reception. The lectures are available for credit to registered Stanford students and open to the public for free admission.
MS&E479 (EE402T) [undergrad/grad]	Entrepreneurship in Asian High-Tech Industries (Dasher : 1 unit, S/NC) This seminar addresses (a) current-year trends and opportunities in the creation and growth of start-up companies in major Asian economies, and (b) patterns and challenges of entrepreneurship in Asia.  Speakers include distinguished practitioners from industry (entrepreneurs, investors, inventors, consultants, etc.), as well as government and academic specialists
MED272 A, B ME374 A, B [grad]	Biodesign Innovation: Needs Finding and Concept Creation (Makower, Yock, Zenios, Milroy, Melton, Brinton : 2 units) This two-quarter course series provides students with skills essential for the development of new biomedical technologies and enables them to take the critical first steps in invention, patenting, early prototyping and development of new concepts. Read more...
ECON101 [undergrad/grad]	Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship (Gould : 5 units) We will discuss (in an economic context) the following materials in two modules: Venture Capital and Operational Issues, which inevitably overlap and connect with each other. By necessity, we will also end up covering some significant aspects of the laws of each of these areas to the extent that they inform the economics and/or relevant business practices. We may, at times, end up in realms that are distinctly NON-ECONOMIC (e.g. psychology, marketing, law, personal dynamics, mild engineering, organizational behavior, common sense.) More than anything else, this course is supposed to provide some illustration of how the venture capital and entrepreneurship businesses are REALLY done‚ and it would be naive and unwise to pretend that economics can explain EVERYTHING, though it does certainly tell us a good bit or this course would not be offered in an Economics Department. Enroll: 30
EE353 [grad]	Business Management for Electrical Engineers & Computer Scientists (Gibbons, Siegel) This course focuses on broad areas of business management by studying leading computer, high tech, and Silicon Valley firms and their best practices. The course introduces frameworks and tools for analyzing the decisions which these companies face. We explore corporate strategy, new product development, marketing, sales, distribution, customer service, financial accounting and human behavior in business organizations. Enroll: 60
CEE 142A/ CEE 242A [undergrad/grad]	Sustainable Development (Christensen : 3 units) This course examines the importance of ecological and socialequity benefits, and how tradeoffs among a variety of interests can be effectively managed. Students will gain an understanding of sustainability issues in the real estate environment, and will use frameworks to negotiate differences that arise in complex multi-party processes. We will analyze case studies of specific developments including buildings, neighborhoods and international projects. The course is very interactive, and students will have the opportunity to negotiate on behalf of different interest groups in a variety of development projects. No prerequisites.
MS&E 474 (GSBGEN 547) [undergrad/grad]	Business and Environmental Issues (Plambeck, Sweeney : 2 units) This speaker seminar examines the overlap and synergies between the business and environmental fields. Weekly speakers include leaders from both the for-profit and non-profit sectors. Past speakers have included business executives, alternative energy experts, environmental consultants, and professors. Group assignments build on concepts presented during the weekly 90-minute class discussions.
HRP 351 (GSBGEN 351) [undergrad/grad]	Innovation and Management in Health Care (Zenios, Chess : 4 units) The workings of the major institutions such as hospitals, health insurance companies, HMOs, Medicare and Medicaid, federal regulators, and the medical establishment. National health expenditures and alternative models for healthcare financing and delivery. Trends in treatment innovations provided by biopharmaceuticals, medical devices, and surgical procedures; delivery innovations facilitated by information systems and new processes. Policy and business challenges raised by these innovations and the health care ecosystems they promote.
MS&E 274 [undergrad/grad]	Dynamic Entrepreneurial Strategy (Tse, Edison : 3 units) Primarily for graduate students. How entrepreneurial strategy focuses on creating structural change or responding to change induced externally. Grabber-holder dynamics as an analytical framework for developing entrepreneurial strategy to increase success in creating and shaping the diffusion of new technology or product innovation dynamics. Topics: First mover versus follower advantage in an emerging market; latecomer advantage and strategy in a mature market; strategy to break through stagnation; and strategy to turn danger into opportunity. Modeling, case studies, and term project.
ME 265 [undergrad/grad]	Technology Licensing and Commercialization (Hustein : 3 units) How to profit from technology; processes and strategies to commercialize functional or artistic inventions and creations (not limited to mechanical engineering). Business and legal aspects of determining what can be owned and licensed, how to determine commercial value, and what agreements are necessary. Contract and intellectual property law; focus is on provisions of license agreements and their negotiation.
ME 421 [undergrad/grad]	European Entrepreneurship and Innovation Thought Leaders (Lee, Leifer, Prinz, Pate-Cornell : 1 unit) Presented in cooperation with several European governments and industry partners, this seminar showcases CEOs/founders of leading European startup companies, venture capital firms, technology corporations and university incubators. Stanford is partnering with numerous European governments - including Finland, Estonia, Denmark and Norway - to offer this unique view into the state of entrepreneurship, angel and venture capital, legal and regulatory frameworks, and technology innovation in Western, Central and Eastern Europe, and Russia. Sectors covered will include IT/software, clean tech (renewable energy, environment and semiconductors), medical devices, transportation and life sciences. Particular attention will be paid to the many differences in entrepreneurial cultures and incentives in Europe vs. Silicon Valley, and the unique challenges faced by industry and academic entrepreneurs in Europe. The lectures are available for credit to registered Stanford students, with no prerequisites. Open to the public for free admission. Grading: S/NC
ME 233 [undergrad/grad]	Make it Big: Crossing the Entrepreneur’s Gap (Theeuwes : 3 units) Students learn to take novel designs into entrepreneurial production and prepare for market production. Education, resources, and community are provided to help students cross the gap, founding ideas and making them real, in volume. Topics include entrepreneurial production methods and initiation, vendor selection and engagement, cost, design transfer, quality and testing, manufacturing planning and execution. Course prepares students for leadership roles in entrepreneurial as well as large production-oriented companies.  Case studies, regular project reviews, final presentation, and industry interaction.

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