New course on entrepreneurship is open to the public

Western Washington University’s College of Business and Economics will offer an entrepreneurship methods course to the general public beginning Tuesday, Mar. 27; you don’t need to be enrolled in a degree program at Western to participate.

MGMT 497L: Lean Startup & Entrepreneurship Methods, is the first of its kind at Western and will allow participants to gain hands-on experience in creating a startup business. Participants will work in groups and projects will be treated as real startups, not simulations.

In this course, teams will:

• Develop ideas into workable businesses
• Learn how to use a business model to develop each part of a company
• Encounter the chaos and messy uncertainty of how a start up really gets built
• Explore how lean product development can help rapidly iterate your product/service into something consumers want and use
• Examine team dynamics, financial and legal issues for startups, and how customer development refines products

This course is taught by Robin Halliday, partner at Bellingham Innovation Group and co-chair of Technology Alliance Group NW, and Joseph Jarzembowski, principal of Arch Consulting NW.

Classes occur Tuesday evenings with three Saturday morning workshops, giving community members the opportunity to enroll with a credit or non-credit option.

An information session will occur from 6 to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Mar. 6, at the Technology Development Center, 1000 F St., Bellingham.

Details and registration information are available at ExtendedEd.wwu.edu, by email at eesp@wwu.edu or by phone at (360) 650-3308.