Explorations in Entrepreneurship
Trace entrepreneurship from its economic history through the opportunity and necessity divide, social enterprise and resourcing, to the frameworks founders actually use when starting a venture.
Course Overview
This course explores what entrepreneurship is and how it has been practised. You will study the history of entrepreneurship from Cantillon, Say and Schumpeter through creative destruction, the trait research and why it failed, and India's own arc from muslin and the port trade through the License Raj to Infosys and Flipkart, the distinction between opportunity based and necessity based entrepreneurs with the fieldwork and anecdotes that ground it, social entrepreneurship and resourcing including Amul, Lijjat, microfinance, non-profits and farmer producer organisations alongside the venture capital maths, and finally starting your own venture through the seven routes to founding, the bimodal founding age, Lean Startup and Sarasvathy's effectuation. A companion appendix collects nine founder interviews.
What You'll Learn
- History of Entrepreneurship
- Opportunity-based and Necessity-based Entrepreneurs
- Social Entrepreneurship and Resources
- Starting Your Venture
- Founder Interviews
Course Content
Module 1: History of Entrepreneurship
From silent trade to Flipkart: how Cantillon, Say and Schumpeter built the idea of the entrepreneur, why the hunt for an entrepreneurial personality failed, how communities and displacement shape who starts ventures, and the long arc of Indian entrepreneurship through muslin, the ports, the License Raj and the three post-liberalisation inflection points.
Module 1 Test: History of Entrepreneurship
Ten exam-level questions on silent trade, the three founding thinkers, creative destruction, the uncertainty definition, the failure of trait research, community enforcement and displacement theory, Indian textiles and ports, the License Raj and the 1990s to 2007 inflection points.
10 QuestionsTake Test