Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation Concentration

Objectives

The Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation concentration offered to candidates enrolled in the University of Kentucky MBA program will deliver on the following core objectives:

• Understand business opportunity identification, concept development and validation in an ever-changing virtual world
• Practice hands-on development of a business concept, a business plan and perform a business pitch in a regional new venture competition
• Research in-depth financial principles to both familiarize and discover ways to fund, scale and manage a new venture/small business, including managing intellectual property

Courses

Candidates will have the option of taking all the entrepreneurship electives to complete the full concentration or can take any of the courses individually as an elective while enrolled in the UK MBA program. The four elective courses that comprise this concentration are:

• MBA 645 Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation I - This Fall elective course is a graduate-level overview of entrepreneurship and new venture creation. Students will examine key issues associated with the discovery and development of entrepreneurial opportunities. Community experts will present their stories and emphasize challenges and strategies to drive their companies through the entrepreneurial process. 
   
• MBA 647 New Venture Finance - This elective course focuses on the fundraising process for high-growth technology start-ups. Students will learn about the market participants, vocabulary, processes and risks that are unique to the start-up funding ecosystem. Substantive discussions of term sheets, valuation, cap tables, investor universe, modeling and the fundraising process will be complimented with case studies and guest lectures by local investors and CEOs. 
   
• MBA 648 Law & Business of IP Management - This elective is a broad course covering (from the perspective of the in-house IP manager, engineering business unit leader or other executive) the critical areas of IP portfolio management in a variety of business settings in the global economy, including methodologies to evaluate, value and create value from that IP. 
   
• MBA 646 Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation II (Capstone) - This elective course is a continuation of MBA 645, and will give a more in-depth overview of entrepreneurship and the business start-up process. Students will experience the start-up process from idea generation to company formation, investment and commercialization as a case study. 

Faculty

Learn from distinguished faculty that have all been successful entrepreneurs who have obtained the required industry knowledge in their respective careers and are bringing that expertise into the classroom.