From Idea to IPO: The Technology Venture Course (12 week course)

Course Description

All entrepreneurs face a series of challenges in launching and growing a successful technology venture, but PhD students and postdocs in the sciences face additional hurdles in trying to translate their scientific research into viable commercial ventures. Unfortunately, traditional education in the sciences does not include practical information about starting and running a business. Yet, increasingly, science researchers are starting or joining entrepreneurial ventures without a real understanding of how these businesses will work, what the role of venture capital is, how to negotiate intellectual property rights, how to structure deals and partnerships, or when and how to build a winning management team.

This course is specifically designed for science entrepreneurs who want to build businesses that commercialize university-owned intellectual property. The course will give PhD students, postdocs, and other professionals a deeper understanding of the issues involved in determining how to take the right idea from the laboratory to the marketplace.

Course Modules

Module 1. Intellectual Property

• Class 1: Intellectual Property and Protection of Ideas
• Class 2: Technology Transfer and the Licensing of Intellectual Property
  
  Module 2. Enterprise Potential
• Class 3: Scientific Due Diligence
• Class 4: Market Due Diligence
  
  Module 3. Enterprise Organization
• Class 5: Employee Incentives and Noncompetes
• Class 6: Corporate Structure: Taxes and Governance
  
  Module 4. Enterprise Finance
• Class 7: Structuring the Business Plan
• Class 8: The Venture Capital Fund
• Class 9: Term Sheets and Valuation
  
  Module 5. Technology Marketing
• Class 10: New Product Introduction
• Class 11: Crossing the Chasm
  
  Module 6. Enterprise Exit
• Class 12: IPO, Acquisition, or Bankruptcy?
  
  The class will meet one day per week over a 12-week period.