Program Purpose

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Entrepreneurs seek to make the world a better place by creating valuable products and services that improve the lives of customers and add value to the economy. Entrepreneurs may create and start business ventures to bring these ideas to market, while others pursue these efforts as employees in companies ranging from startups to established firms. Still others may focus on acquiring, owning and managing business ventures of all sizes and types. No matter where they find themselves, entrepreneurs seek to discover problems and innovate to solve those problems.

Course Structure

Students who graduate with a degree in the Entrepreneurial Management major are required to take the following courses:

• ENT 386, Career Development and Student Mentoring: Introduction to the resources, services, and opportunities for career development available to business management majors. Specific projects include developing a career plan, refining interviewing and networking skills, and interacting individually with a mentor well-established in a directly relevant career.
• ENT 302, Legal Issues in Entrepreneurship: Legal risks faced by entrepreneurs. How to plan for and avoid legal problems including forming the business, legal liability, and protecting assets.
• ENT 401, Entrepreneurial Innovation: Finding and validating ideas for innovative new ventures with a focus on customer pain, elegant solutions, and markets.
• ENT 402, Entrepreneurship Analytics: Analysis of expected profitability of startups. Students collect and analyze data to find demand curves, cost curves, profit curves, optimal prices and competition in various competitive environments. Economic principles are used to make decisions about whether to launch new ventures.
• ENT 411, Creating New Ventures: Learning the critical skills to create a successful new venture by validating an initial idea and business model in the field. 
• ENT 436, Experiential Entrepreneurship:  Introduction to entrepreneurial strategy principles, frameworks and tools; mentored on-campus internship with growth-stage company (OCI application required); preference given to entrepreneurial management majors.

Students in the Entrepreneurial Management major are also required to complete one of the following courses:

• ENT 381, Entrepreneurship Lecture Series: Lectures about entrepreneurship by successful entrepreneurs.
• ENT 382, Technical Entrepreneurship Lecture Series: Lectures about technical entrepreneurship by successful entrepreneurs.

Students in the Entrepreneurial Management major are also required to take two entrepreneurship elective courses from the following:

• ENT 421, Financing New Ventures: Concepts and skills of entrepreneurship, emphasizing how new and emerging companies are financed. Applying functional tools to case situations.
• ENT 422, Managing Entrepreneurial Firms and Family Businesses: How to operate, grow, and exit new ventures and family-owned businesses following their creation and funding. Consulting project required.
• ENT 431, Innovation Practicum: Theory and practice of innovation, emphasizing the discovery and development of innovative ideas in interdisciplinary teams.
• ENT 432, Commercializing Innovation: Commercializing innovations in interdisciplinary teams to bring innovative solutions to customers in the market.
• ENT 434R, New Venture LaunchPad: Student entrepreneurs currently building a business will learn business best practices through mentored learning with a proven entrepreneur. Topics covered include product-market fit, sales systems, pitches, boards, employees, compensation, leadership, ethics, and fundraising.
• ENT 437, Entrepreneurship Capstone: Mentored consulting project to apply entrepreneurial management and innovation tools with a growth-stage company; preference given to entrepreneurial management majors.
• FIN 425, Private Equity and Venture Capital: Introduction to the private equity (PE) and venture capital markets, focusing almost exclusively on the American setting for these markets. Students will learn how PE and VC markets function, how PE and VC companies source their deals, and the valuation and forecasting models they use to make decisions. Exposure to examples of real-life transactions executed by PE and VC firms.
• GSCM 419, Customer Relationship Management: Methods and principles for effective management of customer relationships within service businesses. Analyzing customer-interactive processes with regard to strategic innovation, performance measurement and improvement, process efficiency, interactive job design, service marketing, and service quality assurance.
• MKTG 412, Professional Selling and Sales Management: Concepts of professional selling and sales management including personal selling skills; strategic role of personal selling; organizing, directing, controlling, and evaluating the sales force.
• MKTG 414, Entrepreneurial Marketing: Marketing strategies for start-up companies. Topics include marketing to investors, internal marketing, and how to market products/services without a marketing budget.
• MKTG 415, Internet Marketing of Products and Services: Integrates product, research, sales, and promotional strategy and concepts into an overall marketing plan for developing an Internet business.  Term project developing an Internet business required.
• STRAT 391, Strategy and Organization: Concepts and tools of strategic management, with an emphasis on the contribution of organizational behavior and theory in the development of sustainable competitive advantages.

Students in the Entrepreneurial Management major are also required to take one entrepreneurship capstone course.  A course used in this requirement will not double count in the elective requirement above:

• ENT 432, Commercializing Innovation: Commercializing innovations in interdisciplinary teams to bring innovative solutions to customers in the market.
• ENT 434R, New Venture LaunchPad: Student entrepreneurs currently building a business will learn business best practices through mentored learning with a proven entrepreneur. Topics covered include product-market fit, sales systems, pitches, boards, employees, compensation, leadership, ethics, and fundraising.
• ENT 437, Entrepreneurship Capstone: Mentored consulting project to apply entrepreneurial management and innovation tools with a growth-stage company; preference given to entrepreneurial management majors.

Undergraduate Catalog

Major Academic Plan (MAP)

Learning Outcomes

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Students in the Entrepreneurship emphasis of the Business Management major acquire the knowledge and, more importantly, develop the skills and competencies necessary to engage in entrepreneurship throughout their lives.  Whether through starting new ventures or managing in existing firms, Entrepreneurship students solve problems through innovation.

Entrepreneurial Mindset & Lifelong Learning

Embrace a mindset of creation, growth, and learning-viewing innovation as a disciplined process of experimentation and a calling to bless others throughout life.

Strategic Innovation & Market Insight

Analyze and respond to customer needs, market dynamics, and competitive conditions through strategic positioning, interdisciplinary innovation, and go-to-market planning.

Evidence-Driven Venture Creation

Design, test, and refine early-stage ventures through lean experimentation, data analytics, and iterative validation using real-world evidence.

Collaborative Teamwork & Communication

Collaborate in diverse teams with humility, mutual respect, and shared ownership, while communicating ideas persuasively to customers, investors, and collaborators.

Faith-Informed Ethical Stewardship

Lead ventures with Christ-centered integrity by aligning decisions with gospel values such as service, humility, truth-seeking, and stewardship of people, ideas, and resources.

Evidence of Learning

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Strategic Innovation & Market Insight

Direct Measures:

All entrepreneurship students apply the principles of innovation in the two required classes of the emphasis.  Direct evidence of innovation includes:

• Student grades in the required courses and in the electives that focus on inovation
• Student scores on specific projects that emphasize innovation

 

Indirect Measures:

1. External rankings of the undergraduate Entrepreneurship program
2. Performance of students in entrepreneurship competitions at BYU and throughout the world
3. Success of students (and graduates) in securing funding for new ventures
4. Success of graduates in launching startups throughout their careers

 

 

 

Evidence-Driven Venture Creation

All entrepreneurship students start multiple new ventures as part of their entrepreneurship education.  Direct evidence of creating new ventures includes:

1. Student grades in the required courses and in the electives that focus on creating new ventures
2. Student scores on specific projects that emphasize creating new ventures
3. New ventures that were not launched because they were deemed to be bad ideas
4. New ventures that were launched because they survived the scrutiny of feasibility analysis

 

Indirect Measures:

1. Success of graduates in launching startups throughout their careers
2. Success of students (and graduates) in securing funding for new ventures

Faith-Informed Ethical Stewardship

 Direct Measures

1. Assess how students integrate Gospel principles, ethical reasoning, and stewardship perspectives when evaluating opportunities and making business decisions.

2. Measure students' ability to lead with humility, integrity, and service while viewing entrepreneurship as part of their faith and discipleship journey.

3. Evaluate students' adherence to ethical standards in the use of data, protection of intellectual property, and the creation of ventures with positive community impact.

Indirect Measures

1. Analyze trends in alumni employment or entrepreneurial ventures that reflect ethical, socially responsible, or faith-aligned practices-even though these outcomes emerge after graduation.
2. Track external recognition, such as rankings, partnerships, or community feedback, that signal the program's reputation for producing ethical, faith-informed entrepreneurs.

    

 

 

Entrepreneurial Mindset and Lifelong Learning

Direct Measures

 

1. Evaluate student assignments, prototypes, or business models that demonstrate disciplined experimentation, iteration, and problem-solving.

2. Assess written reflections where students articulate personal growth, lessons learned from failure, and how they view entrepreneurship as a lifelong calling.

3. Use assignments, presentations, or capstone projects to measure students' adoption of a growth mindset and ability to apply entrepreneurial frameworks and principles of continuous learning.

Indirect Measures

1. Observing students voluntarily joining clubs, pitch competitions, or entrepreneurial workshops 
2. Tracking how often students seek out mentors, collaborate with peers, or engage in informal learning communities as evidence of self-directed, lifelong learning tendencies
3. Noting alumni involvement in startups, innovative roles, or community ventures over time

 

 

 

Learning and Teaching Assessment and Improvement

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All learning outcomes data are reviewed by the Entrepreneurship faculty each year.  These faculty are focused on collecting more and better data on the performance of students with respect to the learning outcomes.  They are also focused on improving the learning of students by requiring more rigorous testing and evidence in their work on new venture projects throughout the curriculum.  Based upon recommendations by the Entrepreneurship faculty, we change and improve the content, teaching methods, and assessments of students and their learning.