The objective of this course is for students to develop and refine an idea for an innovative social venture that they plan to pursue.
Individuals or teams of students will apply for the course with an idea for a social venture or a narrow problem or issue that could lead to a social venture. In the course, students will conduct extensive customer-user-beneficiary (CUB) discovery. In addition, they will research the relevant academic literature, analyze the competitive landscape, validate and refine the product/service, develop a business model and financial model, articulate the venture’s underlying theory of change, identify an impact measurement/management strategy, and develop a plan to execute on their venture model.
The purpose of the research process is to address the critical uncertainties of entrepreneurial ventures – namely, can the problem be validated by the target users, customers, beneficiaries, and, is the proposed venture the best solution to address this problem. Determining the best business model for a social venture can be very challenging. Social entrepreneurs must address the likely source of funding, whether or how much to charge beneficiaries, other revenue streams, identify initial target beneficiaries, and often work within complex private, public, and nonprofit value networks.
Much of class time will be devoted to group exercises to implement frameworks to answer these questions for the students’ venture ideas as well as a set of case study examples we will use throughout the course.
In addition, there will be occasional class discussions on the role of social entrepreneurship for developing and scaling innovative solutions to society’s problems and alternative pathways for social innovation.
This class is a key component of the Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation’s Social Venture Studio program. Promising ventures coming out of this class will be invited to participate in winter quarter programming at the Rustandy Center which will prepare student-led teams for the John Edwardson ’72 Social New Venture Challenge in the upcoming spring quarter or in subsequent years. In the SNVC, teams have the opportunity to build out their ventures, develop and refine a pitch for potential investors/philanthropists, and present their ideas to successful social entrepreneurs and, and potentially receive seed funding to support the launch of the new venture.
Grading will be based on class participation and peer collaboration, a final presentation, and a final meeting with the instructors to review their venture project. There will be no exams.
Interested students should apply via the online application. The initial application deadline for returning students is 5:00pm August 19. Students who apply by this deadline will be notified of application decisions on August 22 before bidding starts. We will continue to accept applications from all students (Booth and non-Booth) through September 19 and will make decisions on a rolling basis (within three business days from submission).
Non-Booth students are encouraged to apply for the course. We expect at least one team member from each venture to enroll in the course. Other team members are welcome to enroll or audit. For non-Booth teams, if degree requirements make it challenging for any student to enroll in the course, we will allow all team members to audit with the understanding that they will complete all work as if they were enrolled.
