A nine-month course at the University of Utah designed to help entrepreneurs launch and scale a new company has its first class. The Master of Business Creation (MBC) program at the David Eccles School of Business’ Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute enrolled 26 founders from 20 companies to its inaugural course for the fall semester.
The companies involved range from fashion and education management to marketing automation and medical devices. Individual founders and founding teams were admitted with full scholarships to cover the cost of the programs. All have already made progress in starting their companies and are looking to refine them to grow sales and attract investors, among other goals, the institute said in a release.
“We couldn’t ask for a more capable group of founders with diverse businesses aspirations to begin our unique Master of Business Creation program,” said Taylor Randall, dean of the David Eccles School of Business. “We think the program will be a model for other schools that want to provide entrepreneurs with a graduate experience that focuses on their startup as the case study. Everything they do will be tailored to help them reach their business objectives.”
The Eccles School and the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute created the MBC program to blend the best attributes of a business curriculum with a startup accelerator. The founders develop their startups during the entire program while taking classes from experts and receiving extensive resources and mentorship to help them address their immediate business needs.
People who join the program are called “founders.” They are entrepreneurs focused on creating a new business through applied curriculum, practicum labs and learning by doing, Randall said.
“We are creating a new type of learning experience for entrepreneurs,” said Todd Zenger, presidential professor and chair of the Department of Entrepreneurship and Strategy at the UofU. “The founders in the program have already made tremendous progress with their new venture ideas, and we look forward to seeing what more they can do by working with our leading faculty, mentors and startup resources.”