Entrepreneurship 3: Growth Strategies

About this course: Start-ups are designed to grow quickly, but successful start-ups grow smart. This course is designed to provide you with an understanding of the essential elements of successful scaling, including an overview of demand generation, customer acquisition, adoption, diffusion and forecasting demand. You’ll also learn how to market effectively using best practices of digital marketing, social media, PR, SEO, and pricing. Finally, you’ll cover the nuts and bolts of building a sales process, partnerships and supply relationships, and examine the crucial components of attracting, developing and retaining talent. By the end of this course, you’ll have an outline of an expansion strategy for your idea or enterprise, and also be ready for Entrepreneurship 4: Financing and Profitability

Created by:  University of Pennsylvania

• Taught by:  Kartik Hosanagar, Professor

  Wharton School

• Taught by:  Lori Rosenkopf, Vice Dean and Director, Wharton Undergraduate Division

  Simon and Midge Palley Professor of Management

• Taught by:  David Hsu, Richard A. Sapp Professor of Management

  The Wharton School

• Taught by:  Laura Huang, Assistant Professor

  Management

• Taught by:  Ethan Mollick, Edward B. and Shirley R. Shils Assistant Professor

  Assistant Professor of Management- Wharton School

• Taught by:  David Bell, Xinmei Zhang and Yongge Dai Professor, Professor of Marketing

  Marketing

• Taught by:  Karl T. Ulrich, Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship and Innovation

  The Wharton School

Basic Info Course 3 of 5 in the Entrepreneurship Specialization Level Beginner Commitment 4 weeks of study, 1-2 hours/week Language English How To Pass Pass all graded assignments to complete the course. User Ratings 4.7 stars Average User Rating 4.7See what learners said Coursework

Each course is like an interactive textbook, featuring pre-recorded videos, quizzes and projects.

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University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (commonly referred to as Penn) is a private university, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. A member of the Ivy League, Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and considers itself to be the first university in the United States with both undergraduate and graduate studies.

Syllabus


WEEK 1


Module 1: Acquiring Customers and Forecasting Demand



This first module focuses on strategies to acquire customers and understand product demand when a start-up is in growth mode. You’ll learn foundational economic concepts in customer acquisition, including customer value over time, customer lifetime value and ROI, and customer equity. You’ll also learn about the key theory of “two-sided markets” and explore how entrepreneurs can build these markets through pricing and subsidization. Even the most exciting and useful new products and services face challenges in convincing people to adopt them, and so you'll explore actionable research and examples that explain the rate of diffusion, the adoption of new products, and ways to attack the challenge of forecasting demand. By the end of this module, you’ll have a solid grounding in the core concerns of start-ups as they move from launch to growth.


5 videos, 1 reading expand

1. Video: Introduction
2. Video: Overview of Demand Generation, Customer Acquisition
3. Video: Two-Sided Markets
4. Video: Diffusion and Adoption
5. Video: Forecasting Demand
6. Reading: Acquiring Customers and Forecasting Demand Slides

Graded: Acquiring Customers and Forecasting Demand Quiz

WEEK 2


Module 2: Marketing and PR



In this module, you'll explore the strategies modern start-ups use to get the word out about new products and services. You'll learn the three primary modes of digital marketing (owned, paid, and earned), and when and how these media options can be utilized by a start-up. You'll also learn how to harness the powers of social media, search engine optimization (SEO), “sponsored” search engine results, display ads and social ads. Finally, you'll understand how to leverage free media and assess the pros and cons of engaging PR firms. By the end of this module, you'll be able to develop digital marketing and pr strategies for your enterprise.


5 videos, 1 reading expand

1. Video: Digital Marketing
2. Video: Social Media
3. Video: SEO
4. Video: Digital Advertising
5. Video: PR
6. Reading: Digital Marketing, Social Media, SEO, Digital Ads and PR Slides

Graded: Marketing and PR Quiz

WEEK 3


Module 3: Cost Structures, Pricing, and Tracking



This module was designed to give you a strong foundation in the economics around growing a start-up, including how to understand and implement cost targets, pricing strategies, and outcome measurement. You’ll learn the math behind creating cost targets and margin requirements (whether your product or service will be sold via retailers or some other channel), the principles that guide pricing of products and services, and how to implement the “four Cs” of pricing while measuring price sensitivity. You'll also explore how to identify key performance indicators (KPIs) to determine whether your business is thriving or failing, how to efficiently grow a customer base through sales partnerships, and how to decide whether to make your own products/components or purchase them from a third party. By the end of this module, you will possess the foundational economic knowledge that informs the cost, price, sales, and production strategies used by successful entrepreneurs today.


5 videos, 1 reading expand

1. Video: Target Costing and Channel Economics
2. Video: How to Price the Product or Service
3. Video: Performance Measurement, KPIs, Dashboard, Reporting
4. Video: Sales Partnerships
5. Video: Make-Buy Decision in Operations
6. Reading: Cost Structures, Pricing, and Tracking Slides

Graded: Cost Structures, Pricing, and Tracking Quiz

WEEK 4


Module 4: Creating and Scaling Company Culture



This module explores the best approaches for attracting and retaining talent, creating a company culture that is conducive to growth, and how company founders and early employees can learn to delegate authority and manage the people-based growing pains that many start-ups experience. You'll learn how to scale up strategically, and how to you decide whether to expand to different segments once you establish a foothold in your target segment. You'll also examine the differences between vertical expansion and horizontal expansion, and learn how to decide which path to pursue. By the end of this module, you’ll be equipped to make the tough decisions required to manage a start-up’s personnel roster and strategic direction as your business grows.


5 videos, 1 reading expand

1. Video: Attracting, Developing, and Retaining Talent
2. Video: Building the Right Culture for Growth
3. Video: Scaling the Organization
4. Video: Venture Scope and Expansion Strategy
5. Video: Course Wrap-Up
6. Reading: Creating and Scaling Company Culture Slides

Graded: Creating and Scaling Company Culture Quiz