Title: Entrepreneurship for Computer Science

Units: 12

Pre-requisite: 15-112 (i.e., Fundamentals of Programming and Computer Science)

Description:

This course aims at developing fundamental entrepreneurship skills for students with no background in business and a little background in computer programming. It promotes a systematic end-to-end paradigm to translate ideas into sustainable innovation-based enterprises. More precisely, it focuses on: (1) generating ideas with business potentials, (2) testing leap-of-faith assumptions through market research and a beachhead market strategy, (3) founding or co-founding a company smartly and safely, (4) designing and developing a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) through the lean approach and measuring progress via actionable analytics, (5) designing a business model to monetize and price your MVP, (6) bootstrapping your MVP and raising angel and professional money, (7) building team synergy and an enabling culture, (8) marketing and operating your business, (9) scaling your business, and (10) exiting your business through either an M&A or an IPO.

The course encompasses a balance of lectures, case studies, hands-on experience, and encounters with entrepreneurs, investors, and business professionals. The students will be exposed to real-world perspectives on entrepreneurship, innovation, and leadership. In addition, they will work on a semester-long project to fully implement MVPs and write comprehensive business plans for their own startups.

Starting a new venture is a serious undertaking with a great deal of risk and sacrifice. The main objective of this course is to increase your odds of succeeding in starting and running a company. To this end, the course provides you with a scientific and practical end-to-end paradigm for establishing a company, commencing from vision, idea, culture and team; going through agile product development, marketing and operations; and extending to management and full realization of a sustainable business. The course will further teach you well-established principles that will guide you throughout the process of founding, running, scaling, and exiting a company.

This course incorporates ten major learning outcomes. In particular, after finishing this course, you will be able to:

1. Identify a problem and validate the potential of your idea through testing and market research.
2. Smartly and safely found or co-found a company.
3. Design an innovative business model to monetize your idea.
4. Raise angel and professional money using the right financing approach and standard VC methods.
5. Build a synergetic team and an enabling culture.
6. Design and develop a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) using the lean approach.
7. Come up with a go-to-market strategy, and design and run a marketing campaign to launch your MVP.
8. Operate your business using customer-centrality and financial intelligence.
9. Scale your business through an innovative engine of growth.
10. Exit your business through an M&A or an IPO.

There is no specific textbook for the course, but below are 18 books that you can read through and glean more insights into the entrepreneurship process:

• “How I Built This” by Guy Raz
• “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't” by Jim Collins
• “Disciplined Entrepreneurship” by Bill Aulet
• “The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries
• “Zero To One” by Peter Thiel
• “The Founder’s Dilemmas” by Noam Wasserman
• “The 1-Page Marketing Plan” by Allan Dib
• “Growth Hacker Marketing: A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing, and Advertising" by Ryan Holiday
• “Contagious: Why Things Catch On" by Jonah Berger
• “Crossing the Chasm” by Geoffrey A. Moore
• “How Google Works” by Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg
• “Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead” by Laszlo Bock
• “Business Model Generation” by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur
• “Venture Deals” by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson
• “Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies” by Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras
• "The Innovator's Dilemma" by Clayton Christensen
• “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change” by Stephen R. Covey
• "The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations" by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner

Each student will receive a numeric score with a corresponding letter grade, based on a weighted average of the following:

1. Project: You will do one big programming and written project that counts for 45% of the course. You form a team with a max of one student.
2. Reports: Every week or two, you will present your progress on the project to the class and submit a corresponding report. These presentations and reports count for 10% of the final score.
3. Exams: There will be two in-class exams, midterm and final, which combined count for 30% of your final score. The midterm is worth 10% and the final is worth 20%.
4. Quizzes: There will be four quizzes, which together count for 10% of your final score. These quizzes are meant to test your understanding of the concepts covered throughout the course.
5. Class Participation and Attendance: Your attendance of classes as well as your participation in discussions will count for 5% of your final score.

The table below shows the breakdown of the five forms of activities that the course involves, alongside the quantity and weight of each activity.

Type	#	Weight
Project	1	45%
Presentations and Reports	6	10%
Exams	2	30%
Quizzes	4	10%
Class Participation and Attendance	26	5%

For urgent communication with the instructor and the teaching assistant, it is best to send an email (preferred) or give a phone call. If you want to talk to any of them in person, remember that their posted office hours are merely nominal times when they guarantee that they will be in their offices. You are always welcome to visit them outside of their office hours if you need help or want to talk about the course.

We ask that you follow a few simple guidelines. The instructor normally works with his office door being open. Whenever the office door is open, he welcomes visits from students. However, if his office door is closed, this means that he is busy with meetings or phone calls, thus prefers not to be disturbed.

We will use the course webpage as the central repository for all information about the class. Through the webpage, you can:

1. Obtain copies of any handouts or assignments. This is especially useful if you miss a class or lose a document.
2. View announcements that relate to the course.
3. Find links to any electronic data you need for your assignments.
4. Read clarifications and changes made to any assignments, schedules, or policies.

Lastly, you can use Piazza for asking questions and receiving answers without all the emails! Posting your questions on Piazza will help the whole class benefit and will certainly avoid redundancy. Find our class Piazza page at:
https://piazza.com/cmu/fall2023/15390

Each project or assignment must be the sole work of the student turning it in. Projects and assignments will be closely monitored, and students may be asked to explain suspicious similarities with any write-up. The following are guidelines on what cheating is and is not:

What is cheating?

Sharing written assignments: either by re-writing, looking at, or supplying a copy of an assignment.

What is NOT cheating?

Clarifying ambiguities or vague points in class handouts.

Consequently, be aware of what constitutes cheating (and what does not) when interacting with your colleague students. Same rules of cheating as above apply when collaborating with other students. In short, you cannot share written assignments, and/or other electronic files with other students. If you are unsure, ask the teaching staff.

Finally, be sure to store your work in protected directories. The penalty for cheating is severe, and might jeopardize your whole career as a student – cheating is not worth the trouble. By cheating in the course, you are cheating yourself; the worst outcome of cheating is missing an opportunity to learn. Besides, you will be removed from the course and assigned a failing grade. We also place a record of the incident in your permanent university profile.

Learning Disabilities

Carnegie Mellon University is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for all persons with disabilities. To access accommodation services you are expected to initiate the request and submit a Voluntary Disclosure of Disability Form to the office of Health & Wellness or CaPS-Q. In order to receive services/accommodations, verification of a disability is required as recommended in writing by a doctor, licensed psychologist or psycho-educational specialist. The office of Health & Wellness, CaPS-Q and Office of Disability Resources in Pittsburgh will review the information you provide. All information will be considered confidential and only released to appropriate persons on a need to know basis.

Once the accommodations have been approved, you will be issued a Summary of Accommodations Memorandum documenting the disability and describing the accommodation. You are responsible for providing the Memorandum to your professors at the beginning of each semester.

For more information on policies and procedures, please visit this document.

Taking Care of Yourself

Do your best to maintain a healthy lifestyle this semester by eating well, exercising, getting enough sleep, and taking some time to relax. This will help you achieve your goals and cope with stress.

All of us benefit from support during times of struggle. You are not alone. There are many helpful resources available on campus and an important part of the college experience is learning how to ask for help. Asking for support sooner rather than later is often helpful.

If you or anyone you know experiences any academic stress, difficult life events, or feelings like anxiety or depression, we strongly encourage you to seek support. Counseling and Psychological Services (CaPS-Q) is here to help: call 4454 8525 or make an appointment to see the counselor by emailing student-counselling@qatar.cmu.edu. Consider reaching out to a friend, faculty, or family member you trust for help.

If you or someone you know is feeling suicidal or in danger of self-harm, call someone immediately, day or night, at 5554-7913.

If the situation is life threatening, call 999.

Please refer to Schedule for the tentative schedule for the class. The schedule indicates the project and the assignment activities as well. Any changes will be always announced and reflected on this webpage.