Venturing 101
Venturing 101 is a free set of short, online courses that provide an overview of the venture process.
- This program is for students, beginning entrepreneurs and anyone interested in learning the basics of venturing. If you are a UA faculty or staff member and would like to incorporate the V101 curriculum into your course/program please contact SVP@forge.arizona.edu
- Anyone is eligible to register. You do not have to be a UArizona student to register for Venturing 101.
- The courses include short activities, videos, examples, self-assessments, and reflection prompts. Courses are non-credit, but participants can receive a virtual badge for completing courses 1 - 7
- All courses are online. Attendees who want to learn more about the course topics are invited to attend one of our in-person events.
- There is no cost to register for Venturing 101.
- The courses are completed at your own pace. Courses take approximately 3-4 hours each to complete. You can complete as many courses as you choose. If you wish to receive a completion badge, you must complete courses 1 – 7
If you have already enrolled, access V101 through Community D2L here.
Specific learning outcomes include, participants should be able to:
- Identify personal interests, values, strengths, talents, and skills
- Identify a clear problem to address
- Research customer needs, pain points, likes, dislikes to compose a clear customer profile
- Generate a solution that addresses customer needs
- Identify ways to communicate their solution to customers
- Identify the key operational cost components for their startup
- Research potential funding opportunities for a venture
- List key success metrics to evaluate success
Course topics include:
Course 1: Getting Started with a Venture
Duration: 4 hrs, 20 mins.
Participants explore their past experiences and identify times they have been entrepreneurial and resourceful. They learn about what skills and dispositions contribute to an entrepreneurial mindset, and they are introduced to the Lean Canvas business model for organizing a venture.
Course 2: Ideation, Problems, & Solutions
Duration: 3 hrs, 30 mins.
Participants learn about the design thinking process and how to identify problems and opportunities, ideate solutions, and build collaboration skills.
Course 3: Customer Development
Duration: 6 hrs, 30 mins.
Participants learn and explore ways to validate their solutions through talking to people and identifying customer needs. Additionally, participants learn about the value of active listening skills, interviewing skills, and how to bring what they learned together into a value proposition statement.
Course 4: Failure & Resilience
Duration: 3 hrs.
Failure is an inevitable part of the venture process and in this course participants explore how failure is a learning opportunity and what they can do to be resilient through listening to others’ experiences with failure and resilience and by testing their own resiliency through a self-assessment tool.
Course 5: Business Modeling
Duration: 3 hrs, 30 mins.
Participants gain an understanding of the financial and operational business models, how to conduct a competitor analysis, and a basic understanding of key metrics to measure success of a venture.
Course 6: Communicating Your Idea
Duration: 2 hrs, 45 mins.
Participants gain an overview of effective presentation methods, pitch deck preparation, how to receive and incorporate feedback, and considerations for team communication.
Course 7: Building Your Team
Duration: 2hrs, 45 mins.
Participants review the importance of establishing values and work culture for their venture. Specifically, how diversity, equity and inclusion factor into establishing a culture of belonging. Additionally, participants explore what to consider when bringing on new venture team members, how to develop networking skills and a basic review of human resource systems and processes to consider when establishing a venture.
Course 8: Financial Literacy
Duration: 11 hrs.
Participants gain a better understanding of financial operations both from a personal perspective and venture perspective. In partnership with the Singleton Foundation for Financial Literacy and Entrepreneurship, participants explore topics such as: budgeting, income, expenses, emergency funds, getting started with your financially independent life, debt management, taxes, insurance, saving for retirement, credit card, credit score and report basics, student loans, and financial management for entrepreneurs.
Course 9: Intellectual Property and Business Formation
Duration: 5 hrs, 15 mins.
Setting up a venture includes various legal elements. Through content developed by the Michelson 20MM Foundation, this course helps participants understand what type of venture structure to select and how to protect and defend a venture’s intellectual property through patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and copyright.
Course 10: Biomedical Ventures
Duration: 2 hrs, 15 mins.
This course focuses on therapeutics, medical devices, diagnostics, research tools, digital health, virtual care, and other healthcare-related concept or product ventures. Through a series of videos and curated resources, participants explore building a foundation for a biomedical venture, including problem discovery, ideation, customer identification, markets and target markets, reimbursement, regulations, intellectual property (IP), and funding a biomedical venture.
Course 11: Nonprofit Ventures
Duration: 2 hrs, 30 mins.
Not all ventures are designed to make a profit, but all ventures create value in the world. This course examines the unique elements and considerations of nonprofit ventures and available resources if you are interested in starting one.
Upcoming courses in the Venturing 101 series:
- Native Ventures
- Cybersecurity
- Data Science
- Food-based