Programs

The Buchanan Center offers the entrepreneurship minor, as well as other resources to develop your skills and network.

Minor in Entrepreneurship 

Our Entrepreneurship Minor is designed to meet the needs of all Drake students who have an interest in being an innovator and leader in their fields. The minor is designed to guide you through the process of thinking like an innovator and turning your passion into marketable skills and businesses.

Combining classroom learning and hands-on experience, you will leave with everything you need to make a difference. Whether that be from opportunities to pitch your own business ideas, obtain mentorship from your industry, internships in the Greater Des Moines Area, or finding funding for your early-stage business. This minor is essential for any student regardless of major, who wishes to turn their undergraduate education into a business or be a force for change in their industry.

Be an innovator, be a changemaker, and let our Entrepreneurship Minor help you get there!

Minor in Entrepreneurship Course Descriptions

ENTR 098 – Innovation for Social Change

Next Offering: Spring 2025

Course Description: Students looking to be changemakers want to take their inspirations and make them real. Designed for students in any major, from art history to politics to zoology, class participants will learn how to take their ideas and create a plan for real action to execute a positive social impact. The course has three core pillars: frameworks to deepen understanding of issues students want to examine, knowledge of how solution-based social entrepreneurship can be used as a force for good within society, and active engagement to support local organizations in our community.

ENTR 101 – Introduction to Entrepreneurship

Next Offering: Fall 2024 and Spring 2025

Course Description: This course introduces students to entrepreneurship and the vital role entrepreneurs and innovation play in the global economy. Using the current leading business model generator, Business Model Canvas, this course uses a project-based, immersive, and intensive approach to guide you in making assumptions and utilizing data gained through research to conceptualize and capitalize on opportunities resulting in the formation of a business idea. Course topics include idea generation, mapping the ecosystem, creating customer profiles, developing an initial marketing strategy, identifying a minimal viable product, and cultivating a growth mindset to pivot or persevere to overcome rejection and failure. Students will develop resiliency while developing research, communication, and presentation skills.

ENTR 150 – New Venture Modeling

Next Offering: Fall 2024

Course Description: This course examines the concepts and tools, including emerging technologies (i.e., ChatGPT, AI), necessary to pursue social, commercial, scientific, and artistic business ventures. Emphasis will be placed on identifying the processes and data used to classify and manage costs and processes, preparing external financial information to seek financing and internal financial projections to manage costs and pivoting, and developing management and operation plans to adjust management, operations, and marketing, and preparing to launch a new venture. Activities and course content will include case studies, interaction with entrepreneurs, and examples of new social, commercial, scientific, and artistic ventures. It may be taken simultaneously with Entr 101.

ENTR 190 – New Venture Planning

Next Offering: Spring 2025

Course Description: A capstone class in entrepreneurial management. The primary objective is to have each student team develop an entrepreneurial concept into a full business plan based on an existing or new start-up incorporating all functional areas of the envisioned organization for presentation to venture capitalists or bankers. The project will include an action plan, timetable, and metrics to implement and measure success and progress. Coverage will also include the various opportunities available as an entrepreneur – manufacturing, retail, wholesale, services, and social enterprises – as well as presentations by community and global partners to broaden the student’s scope of learning. Prereq.: ENTR 150 and MKTG 101

ENTR 198 – Design Thinking and Innovation

Next Offering: Fall 2025

Course Description: Solving challenges and building services, products, strategies, inter-disciplinary teams, and environments for optimal use and performance requires applying design thinking principles and innovative problem-solving tools across disciplines. This course conveys these methods using research, collaboration, casework, and experiential learning in groups and individually. It focuses on developing an innovative toolkit of frameworks and exercises for identifying opportunities and generating possible solutions for various initiatives that blend meaningful interpretation and evaluation of data information and processes. Applies to the ENTR minor.