Courses
The Stanford Technology Ventures Program delivers entrepreneurship and innovation courses in both functional and cross-discipline areas. The diagram below shows courses in these areas at undergraduate and graduate levels. For the latest information on each course, visit explorecourses.stanford.edu. For a list of STVP’s recommended courses offered by other academic units, see affiliated courses.
Undergraduate Courses
Graduate Courses
Special thanks to Fenwick & West for generously sponsoring STVP courses
taught by adjunct professors. 
| Number | Name / Description | Quarter |
|---|---|---|
| ENGR 140 A,B,C [undergrad] |
Leadership of Technology Ventures (Byers : 8 or 9 units) This is an intensive three-part sequence for students selected to the Mayfield Fellows Program. Management and leadership within high technology startups, focusing on entrepreneurial skills related to product and market strategy, venture financing and cash flow management, team recruiting and organizational development, and the challenges of managing growth and handling adversity in emerging ventures. Other engineering faculty, founders, and venture capitalists participate as appropriate. Recommended: accounting or finance course (MS&E 140, ECON 90, or ENGR 60). Sponsored by Fenwick & West |
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| ENGR 145 [undergrad] |
Technology Entrepreneurship (Eesley (Win), Kosnik (Sum): 4 units) How do you create a successful start-up? What is entrepreneurial leadership in a large firm? What are the differences between an idea and true opportunity? How does an entrepreneur form a team and gather the resources necessary to create a great enterprise? This class mixes mentor-guided team projects, in-depth case studies, research on the entrepreneurial process, and the opportunity to network and ask questions of Silicon Valley's top entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. For undergraduates of all majors who seek to understand the formation and growth of high-impact start-ups in areas such as information, green/clean, medical and consumer technologies. No prerequisites. Limited enrollment. Sponsored by Fenwick & West |
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| MS&E 140 [undergrad] |
Accounting for Managers and Entrepreneurs (MS&E 240) (Stanton: 3-4 units) Non-majors and minors who have taken or are taking elementary accounting should not enroll. Introduction to accounting concepts and the operating characteristics of accounting systems. The principles of financial and cost accounting, design of accounting systems, techniques of analysis, and cost control. Interpretation and use of accounting information for decision making. Designed for the user of accounting information and not as an introduction to a professional accounting career. |
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| MS&E 175 [undergrad] |
Innovation, Creativity, and Change (Katila (Win): 3-4 units) Problem solving in organizations; creativity and innovation skills; thinking tools; creative organizations, teams, individuals, and communities. |
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| MS&E 178 [undergrad/grad] |
The Spirit of Entrepreneurship (Roizen (Aut), Roizen (Win), Staff (Spr): 3 units) Is there more to entrepreneurship than inventing the better mouse trap? This course uses the speakers from the Entrepreneurial Thought Leader seminar (MS&E472) to drive research and discussion about what makes an entrepreneur successful. Topics include venture financing, business models, and interpersonal dynamics in the startup environment. Students meet before and after MS&E472 to prepare for and debrief after the sessions. Enrollment limited to 50. Sponsored by Fenwick & West |
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| MS&E 180 [undergrad] |
Organizations: Theory and Management (Eisenhardt (Aut), Siino (Spr): 4 units) Preference to MS&E majors. Classical and contemporary organization theory; the behavior of individuals, groups, and organizations. Limited enrollment. Students must attend first session. |
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| ME 208 [undergrad] |
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. |
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| ENGR 245 [grad] |
Technology Entrepreneurship and Lean Startups (Blank, Feiber, Miura-Ko: 3-4 units) Apply emerging entrepreneurship principles including the popular “lean startups” and “customer development” frameworks to prototype, test, and iterate your product while discovering if you have a profitable business model. Work and study in teams or, in rare cases, alone. Proposal and team required to apply. Proposals can be software, physical good, or service of any kind. Projects are treated as real start-ups, so work will be intense. Perquisite; interest and passion in exploring whether a technology idea can become a real company. Sponsored by Fenwick & West |
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| MS&E 270 [grad] |
Strategy in Technology-based Companies (Eisenhardt: 3-4 units) Introduction to the basic concepts of strategy, with emphasis on high technology firms. Topics: competitive positioning, resource-based perspectives, co-opetition and standards setting, and complexity/evolutionary perspectives. Limited enrollment. |
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| MS&E 271 [grad] |
Global Entrepreneurial Marketing (Kosnik, Novitsky, Smith: 4 units) Skills needed to market new technology-based products to customers around the world. Case method discussions. Cases include startups and global high tech firms. Course themes: marketing toolkit, targeting markets and customers, product marketing and management, partners and distribution, sales and negotiation, and outbound marketing. Team-based take-home final project. Limited enrollment. Sponsored by Fenwick & West |
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| MS&E 273 [grad] |
Technology Venture Formation (Lyons, MacLean: 3-4 units) Open to graduate students interested in high-technology entrepreneurship. Examines key components of starting a venture-scale high-tech business: Opportunity Assessment, Market Sizing, Go to Market and Distribution Strategy, R&D and Ops Plans, Venture Capital, Legal considerations and Team building. Teaching team includes serial entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. Student teams write and present a business plan to top tier venture capitalists. Enrollment limited. Recommended: 270, 271, or equivalent. Sponsored by Fenwick & West |
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| MS&E 276 [grad] |
Entrepreneurial Management and Finance (Byers, Lin: 3 units) For graduate students 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. |
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| MS&E 277 [undergrad/grad] |
Creativity and Innovation (Seelig: 4 units) Factors that promote and inhibit creativity of individuals, teams, and organizations. Creativity tools, assessment metrics, and exercises; workshops, field trips, and case studies. Each student completes an individual creativity portfolio and participates in a long-term team project. Enrollment limited to 32. Sponsored by Fenwick & West |
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| MS&E 280 [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 cases and related discussion. Enrollment limited; priority to MS&E students. |
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| MS&E 283 [grad] |
Scaling up Excellence in Organizations (Rao, Sutton: 4 units) A problem for every manager is to make 'good' behaviors spread quickly and to shrink 'undesirable' behaviors quickly. This course provides you practical frameworks to accomplish these managerial goals. We will examine issues such as scaling Idea generation, scaling knowledge sharing, scaling the adoption of ideas across firms, scaling change in global firms. We will be using a newly written series of cases for this course and also draw on guest speakers. |
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| MS&E 371, 372, & 376 [grad] |
Doctoral Research Seminars ([371] Katila (Win), [372] Eesley (Win), [376] Eisenhardt (Aut) ): 2-3 units [MS&E 372 not offered for 2011-12 academic year] Doctoral research seminars, limited to Ph.D. students. |
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| MS&E 472 [undergrad/grad + open to public] |
Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Seminar (Byers, Kosnik, Seelig: 1 unit) Entrepreneurial leaders share lessons from real-world experiences across entrepreneurial settings. ETL speakers include entrepreneurs, leaders from global technology companies, venture capitalists, and best-selling authors. Half-hour talks followed by half hour of class interaction. Required web discussion. May be repeated for credit. Sponsored by Draper Fisher Jurvetson |
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