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Course: Startup Formation, Organization & Planning
Self-Paced Online Course: $ 995
Estimated Study Hours: 50

Essential for anyone considering forming a startup venture, this course explains the challenges and realities that entrepreneurs face in the initial setup stage, and prepares the entrepreneur for the company formation and business planning process.

Topics covered in this course include: the challenge and rewards of entrepreneurship;the startup journey; sole proprietorships; agency; partnerships; LLC's, corporations, corporate shares; corporate officers; duties of officers and directors; piercing the corporate veil; derivative lawsuits; corporate fraud; business planning and the key steps involved in forming a fundable startup company.

Upon completion of this course, you will have a detailed understanding of what it means to be an entrepreneur, how to form a new business, how to evaluate whether to form a corporation, LLC, partnership or other type of business organization, where the decision-making power lies in a corporation, the various business models that can be adopted, and you will have a good understanding of how to prepare a compelling business plan.

Learning Objectives

In taking this course, students gain a comprehension of the following:

The powers, duties and responsibilities of corporate directors, officers and shareholders.
The advantages and disadvantages of organizing a business as a sole proprietor, LLC, corporation or partnership.
How to form a corporation or LLC.
The risks and challenges faced by entrepreneurs in the high-tech sector as well as the potential rewards to be gained from a career as an entrepreneur.
Several of the significant challenges and experiences entrepreneurs can expect to encounter along the startup journey.
How business plans are constructed and how business planning is an essential activity for startup ventures, especially when raising finance from venture capital investors.

Modules

This course comprises the following learning modules:

Business Organizations
Entrepreneurship
Planning & Company Navigation

Videos, eTextbooks and Rich Media Content

The course materials are provided in a range of compelling rich media formats comprising videos, electronic textbooks, audio recordings, interactive quizzes and links to online content. As a wealth of valuable educational videos and other materials are publicly available online, we supplement our courses with links to these reference materials where we find they are relevant to the course and will be of value to the student.

What's Included In the Price?

All the content comprising the course is included in the price.  This includes access to the textbooks which are provided online with ereader software--unless you want to buy a paper-version of the textbook, you will not be required to buy any books or additional materials.

What you Will Need

To access the online materials you need some way of getting online. Our materials are compatible with the major platforms including Windows, Android and Apple. You will need a PC, laptop or tablet and an Internet connection.

Self-Paced Learning

You are free to take the course in your own time, on your own terms--on whatever schedule suits you best.  Your enrollment in the course will continue for 12 months.  If you need further time after the 12 months has expired, please request an extension. Please note: the textbook publishers restrict the online licenses to 180 days, so your access to the textbooks will expire 180 days after you start the course.

When You Have Questions

You will be provided with a tutor who will be your primary point of contact with SVBS.  Each course module has an online question and answer forum. When you have a question, you can check the forum to see if the question has been asked before by other students, and the answer provided. If the question is new, submit it in the forum and it will be answered by our faculty, normally within a few hours. SVBS has an escalation process that ensures that even the most advanced, difficult questions can be answered--ultimately, the question can be answered by a leading expert in the field if it cannot be handled by our regular faculty. 

Admission Qualifications

We do not want to restrict our courses to an elite few. Our approach is to make our courses available to any student, any time, anywhere in the World. You will not be asked to provide any transcripts of previous academic qualifications.  If you're interested in learning what we're teaching, you're welcome to become a student at SVBS. 

Completion Requirements

You will take a quiz comprising multiple-choice questions in order to complete each course module. You can take the quiz as many times as you like, and the questions are designed to be educational in their own right. However, you have to answer all the questions correctly in order to successfully complete the course.

Certificates
 
Upon successful completion of each course, you will be awarded a certificate either by Silicon Valley Business School, or another University or Business School--this depends on whether you enrolled directly with SVBS or via one of our University partners.