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The MIT Entrepreneurs Club
Undergraduate Seminars

SEM.089 & SEM.095 have been re-numbered as new mit EDGERTON CENTER courses EC.S02 & EC.075 with adjusted course titles: STARTING UP NEW TECH BASED BUSINESS (parts 1 & 2, fall & spring terms). see the edgerton center course page for more: http://web.mit.edu/Edgerton/www/Courses.html else much of the ancient following applies except we meet up in doc edgerton's old classroom 4-402, still on tuesdays at 7pm immediately following the e-club meeting ... * note: i promise to clean up this section soon! ... - r *

SEM.089 and SEM.095
Starting Up New Technology-Based Business Enterprises at MIT

Offered Fall and Spring at 6 Credits per Term
Meets Tuesdays 7-9PM in MIT Room 4-402

Richard Shyduroff : Seminar Leader, E-Club Co-Founder and Co-Director, and currently an affiliate instructor at the MIT Edgerton Center, and
Joe Hadzima ('73) : Senior Lecturer, E-Club and Seminar Faculty Advisor

There is a soft limit of 15 students per term, including cross-registered Harvard and Wellesley students. Graduate students are welcome for-credit with permissions of their instructors. Limited space is available for listeners, alumni and select observers, who must participate (that is, no passive auditors).

Seminar Content

note! see http://web.mit.edu/Edgerton/www/Courses.html

for the current description of these seminars re-numbered EC.S02 & EC.075

SEM.089 (Part 1) focuses on ideas and how they evolve during the process of debugging, team-building and idea protection. Considerable attention is paid to team member profiles, business and personal ethics, founding entrepreneurs' behavior, and intellectual property, including patent searches, protection and technology transfer (as practiced at MIT).

SEM.095 (Part 2) focuses on how evolving ideas can be implemented as startups mature. Attention is paid to additional legal issues of the startup process, writing proposals, conducting market research, and preparing business plans. Topics move on to include private and public fundraising, product design and delivery, marketing and advertising, and customer relationships.

Students who register for the Spring term do not need to have taken the seminar the preceding Fall. A Fall term review will take place the first meeting in the Spring. Class notes, readings, and other references will be made available online or at Dewey Library.

The basis for study includes the case histories of select examples of successful and in-the-works MIT startups, to which students will have various levels of access. Visits with unsuccessful startups and their founders are also scheduled, due to their usefulness in studying entrepreneurial behavior in general, and team-building and maintenance in particular. Seminars include startup and project briefings, discussions and critiques, real and virtual field trips, assigned and volunteered writings and oral presentations. In addition to reading required and suggested papers, articles and books, many students write business plans and do collaborative online research.

Visiting Instructors

Entrepreneurship experts from a variety of departments visit the Seminars, and recently include:

MIT and Harvard alumni also visit and frequently co-lead the Seminars. They offer students their technology startup experience, personal and professional perspectives, and are potential resources for networking.

More Information

Current and archived schedules, readings and assignments are available online in the E-Club Athena locker (SEM.089 and SEM.095 directories). Direct your browser to http://web.mit.edu/e-club/Archive/, or from an Athena prompt:

attach e-club; cd /mit/e-club; ls

Richard Shyduroff is the co-founder and co-director of the MIT Entrepreneurs Club and has been involved in a number of MIT startups. Joe Hadzima is a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School and Managing Director of Main Street Partners, LLC.

REACH US AT E-CLUB-OFFICERS at MIT.EDUMIT E-CLUB