Entrepreneurship

ENTR 220 - INTRO TO DESIGN AND INNOVATION

Short Title: INTRO TO DESIGN AND INNOVATION

Department: Entrepreneurship

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture/Laboratory

Credit Hours: 3

Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.

Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level

Description: Dive into human centered design and innovation as a way to build new products and services. This course is experiential, project-based, and collaborative. You'll try out different methods for uncovering human needs, make sense of data you gather from the field, and build and test your ideas. After taking this course, you'll walk away with the skills, methods, and mindset to use design and innovation to make impact in any career path you pursue.

ENTR 222 - AI AND TECH PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Short Title: AI & TECH PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Department: Entrepreneurship

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture/Laboratory

Credit Hours: 3

Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.

Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level

Description: AI hasn't just changed what products are possible; it's changed how you build them. This course teaches product management fundamentals from concept to prototype while using AI as a research engine, synthesis tool, and rapid-prototyping partner, compressing months of discovery into days and turning ambiguous ideas into testable products at startup speed.

ENTR 223 - BUSINESS MODELING FOR ENTREPRENEURS

Short Title: MODELING FOR ENTREPRENEURS

Department: Entrepreneurship

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture/Laboratory

Credit Hours: 3

Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.

Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level

Description: This course teaches students to translate a startup business plan into a bottom-up quantitative model of the business and its underlying assumptions. Students learn to build a model of cash flows for a startup, use it to track performance and identify errors in the underlying assumptions, and update the model based on real results.

ENTR 361 - COMMUNICATIONS FOR ENTREPRENEURS

Short Title: ENTREPRENEURIAL COMMUNICATION

Department: Entrepreneurship

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Laboratory

Credit Hours: 3

Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.

Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level

Description: Entrepreneurial Communication focuses on how communication drives action in startup and high growth environments. In early stage ventures, unclear messaging can stall progress, while effective communication can unlock resources, alignment, and momentum. This course equips students to communicate with purpose across key audiences including teammates, investors, and mentors. Through hands on practice, students will learn to navigate ambiguity, influence decisions, and move ideas forward throughout the venture lifecycle.

ENTR 365 - DESIGN BUILD SHIP: RAPIDLY BUILDING STARTUP IDEAS

Short Title: DESIGN BUILD SHIP

Department: Entrepreneurship

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture/Laboratory

Credit Hours: 3

Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.

Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level

Prerequisite(s): BUSI 220 or ENTR 220 or BUSI 222 or ENTR 222 or BUSI 369 or ENTR 369

Description: Design Build Ship is an opportunity to put your ideas to test in weeks, not months. Using rapid prototyping tools to build physical and digital ideas, you will explore new startup ideas with prototypes that you test with users. You will refine your strategy, idea, and prototype based on feedback. To apply for this course visit http://entrepreneurship.rice.edu Instructor Permission Required.

ENTR 369 - NEW ENTERPRISES

Short Title: NEW ENTERPRISES

Department: Entrepreneurship

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture/Laboratory

Credit Hours: 3

Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.

Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level

Description: Startups live or die by one question: does anyone actually want this? New Enterprises is your chance to find out. This course is experiential, team-based, and grounded in real customer discovery. You'll pick an idea, interview real customers, frame a problem worth solving, and design and run experiments to test whether your idea holds up. Based on what you learn, you'll decide whether to keep going, pivot, or stop. You'll walk away with the skills and mindset to think like an entrepreneur, whether you start your own venture, join one, or work inside a larger organization.

ENTR 463 - ENTREPRENEURIAL STRATEGY

Short Title: ENTREPRENEURIAL STRATEGY

Department: Entrepreneurship

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.

Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level

Description: The first half of this course provides an integrated strategy framework for entrepreneurs. The course is structured to provide a deep understanding of the core strategic challenges facing start-up innovators, and a synthetic framework for choosing and implementing entrepreneurial strategy in dynamic environments, as well as a general understanding of the financing options for early stage startups, including angel investment, accelerators, crowdfunding and the venture capital industry. The course identifies the types of choices that entrepreneurs must make to take advantage of a novel opportunity and the logic of particular strategic commitments and positions that allow entrepreneurs to establish competitive advantage. The second half of the course explores common dilemmas faced by founders surrounding team selection, contracting, equity compensation and incentives, communication in teams, and strategies for approaching each of these dilemmas. The course combines interactive lectures, speakers and case analyses. The cases and assignments offer an opportunity to integrate and apply the principles taught in the course in a practical way, and draws from a diverse range of industries and settings.