Seattle has the 2nd hottest start-up scene in the nation. Want to be a part of it? You can put your passion for entrepreneurship in action with the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship.
Lavin Entrepreneurship Program
Do you dream of creating your own startup? Aspire to launch a business, disrupt a market or change the world with your big idea? Would you stay up all night designing a logo, reworking a product, or filling a customer order—if the business were your own?
If so, you need to be part of the Lavin Entrepreneurship Program, a highly-competitive program for undergraduate entrepreneurs from all majors and disciplines across campus. Only the brightest, most passionate, and driven students are accepted into the program each year. By combining curriculum with hands-on learning, the UW Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship gives Lavin students the experience, skills, and know-how to succeed in their future business ventures.
Entrepreneurship Minor
for non-business majors
Some people are just born to change the world. They see opportunities everywhere—from the daily annoyances to the grand challenges that face our society. But we can tell you that it takes more than a great idea. It takes the savvy skill set, knowledge, and energy of an entrepreneur. If you’re a visionary with the passion and determination to shape the future, get the business know-how with the Foster School’s competitive Entrepreneurship Minor for undergraduates.
Applications accepted in Fall, Winter and Spring quarters.
Entrepreneurship Major
for students admitted to the Foster School
An entrepreneur is a person who sees an opportunity—and acts upon it. Entrepreneurs are leaders who are creative, innovative, ambitious, driven, dynamic, and energetic. The Entrepreneurship Option prepares students for an entrepreneurial career by offering a combination of coursework and practical experience. The required coursework establishes a foundation in entrepreneurship, including the necessary tools in marketing and finance. The choices for electives allow students to dive deeper into their areas of interest and network with successful entrepreneurs and create a company. Students may further enhance their experience through participation in the Hollomon Health Innovation Challenge, the Alaska Airlines Environmental Innovation Challenge, or the Dempsey Startup Competition.
Watch the video above to learn more about Creating a Company, a course offered by the Buerk Center.
Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Curriculum
The UW Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship offers you numerous opportunities to learn step-by-step the process of launching a new venture. Not only are there classes to introduce you to the landscape of entrepreneurship and the method of writing a business plan, but through our cornerstone Creating a Company coursework, you’ll apply your new-found knowledge of entrepreneurship in a real-world context!
Click on each heading to learn more about each undergraduate entrepreneurship course.
Intro to Entrepreneurship (ENTRE 370)
Introduction to entrepreneurial practices with an emphasis on learning how to find business ideas, how to evaluate their potential, and how to recognize the barriers to success. Exposure to the stresses of a start-up business, the uncertainties that exist, and the behavior of entrepreneurs.
| Quarter(s) Offered | Prerequisites | Credits | Instructors | Syllabus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Autumn Winter Spring |
ACCTG 215 ECON 200 ECON 201 |
4 | Alicia DeSantola | Download Sample Syllabus |
Creating a Company (ENTRE 472/473)
Working in teams, students develop a business plan for a new venture, present their plans to a panel of investors, obtain funding, run the business, and exit the firm at the end of the second quarter.
| Quarter(s) Offered | Prerequisites | Credits | Instructors | Syllabus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Autumn & Winter Winter & Spring Summer |
ENTRE 370 | 4 credits per quarter (2-quarter class) |
Alan Leong John Hansen |
Download Sample Syllabus |
Entrepreneurial Marketing (ENTRE 455)
Examines the skills and tools entrepreneurs need for bootstrap marketing in their start-up firms. Students learn to identify target market segments, position their products, estimate demand, set prices, gain access to channels, and manage the issues of rapid growth.
| Quarter(s) Offered | Prerequisites | Credits | Instructors | Syllabus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Autumn Winter Spring |
MKTG 301 | 4 | Betsy Sperry | Download Sample Syllabus |
Entrepreneurial Finance (ENTRE 457)
Only available to business majors
Explores financial issues that face entrepreneurs, including the stages of financing, business cash flow models, and strategic positioning of the early-stage company. Examines the role of business angels, venture capital funds, institutional investors, strategic alliances, licensing agreements, and exit strategies.
| Quarter(s) Offered | Prerequisites | Credits | Instructors | Syllabus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Autumn Winter Spring |
FIN 350B ECON 300 or ECON 300 Offered jointly with FIN 457 |
4 | Download Sample Syllabus |
Software Entrepreneurship (ENTRE 432)
A case- and project-based course, focusing on starting a software or hardware company. Guest entrepreneurs, lawyers, and financiers discuss market identification and analysis, planning the business, financing, and typical operating and administrative problems.
| Quarter(s) Offered | Prerequisites | Credits | Instructors | Syllabus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Autumn Spring |
None | 4 | Alan Leong | Download Sample Syllabus |
Grand Challenges for Entrepreneurs (ENTRE 372)
Grand Challenges for Entrepreneurs is a new course for business students, geeks, and other undergraduates who want to do something out of the ordinary. The world faces some extraordinary challenges in innovation, big data, food and water, energy, education, careers, poverty, etc. This course will explore those grand challenges—and the opportunities that come with them. Students will examine how solutions to these massive challenges can be researched, validated, and implemented using entrepreneurial creativity, opportunity recognition, business models, pivoting, and skilled execution.
| Quarter(s) Offered | Prerequisites | Credits | Instructors | Syllabus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winter | None | 4 | Emily Cox Pahnke | Download Sample Syllabus |
Business Plan Practicum (Resource Nights) (ENTRE 440)
This practicum gives student entrepreneurs the opportunity to network with the founders/CEOs of companies, explore their entrepreneurial aptitude, and work through the details of their own start-ups. Provides structure, tools, and resources to start of company, and compete in the Dempsey Startup Competition.
| Quarter(s) Offered | Prerequisites | Credits | Instructors | Syllabus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winter | None | 2 | TBD | Download Sample Syllabus |
Environmental Innovation Practicum (ENTRE 443)
Unique interdisciplinary course focuses on what it takes to develop innovative clean tech solutions to environmental challenges and creating exciting new business opportunities along the way. Speakers include top experts in science, engineering, social science, business, entrepreneurial finance, policy and law. Topics cover a wide range including alternative energy, food systems, green building, waste reduction, transportation, and more. Interested teams are invited to enter their solutions in the Alaska Airlines Environmental Innovation Challenge.
Listed under: ENTRE 543, ENGR 498A, and ENVIR 495
| Quarter(s) Offered | Prerequisites | Credits | Instructors | Syllabus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Autumn | None | 2 credit/no-credit | Chris Primack Metcalfe | Visit the Environmental Innovation Practicum tab for more information. |
Health Innovation Practicum (ENTRE 445)
The goal of this seminar is to help students innovate and create solutions to the toughest health challenges we face –on a domestic or global scale. Students will form cross-disciplinary teams around project concepts chosen by the class and present the team’s solutions to classmates and a panel of expert judges who will score the presentations. Although not required, teams are invited and encouraged to go beyond the class to compete in the Hollomon Health Innovation Challenge.
| Quarter(s) Offered | Prerequisites | Credits | Syllabus | Instructor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Autumn | None | 2 | Visit the Health Innovation Practicum tab for more information. | Will Canestaro |
Venture Investing (ENTRE 459)
This class presents a robust learning challenge, teaching you the fundamentals of venture investing and how to perform due diligence on real companies. You’ll have the opportunity to learn how to screen, evaluate (perform due diligence), analyze, and make recommendations on opportunities for investment.
| Quarter(s) Offered | Prerequisites | Credits | Instructors | Syllabus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winter | None | 4 | Alan Leong |