Launching the Venture

Launching the Venture (LTV) is a four-part series of courses designed to teach, empower and inspire entrepreneurial teams at UNC to launch commercial businesses and social ventures. Teams may be comprised of any mixture of faculty, staff, post-doc, graduate and/or undergraduate students. Courses combine lectures, workshops, guest speakers and hands-on expert coaching and mentoring. The program has helped launch more than 100 commercial and nonprofit ventures since inception.

The LTV series is made up of four half-semester classes beginning in the fall and running through the academic year. Each mod-length course may be taken for 1.5 credit hours or as a non-credit seminar series (no tuition). Enrollment is by permission of the instructor or by application (see below). Sessions take place Monday evenings, 5-8 p.m., in the McColl building of the business school with free parking in the business deck. The four Launching the Venture courses are:

• MBA 848A: LTV I – Opportunity Recognition and Team Building
• MBA 848B: LTV II – Feasibility
• MBA 848C: LTV III – Business Planning
• MBA 848D: LTV IV – Financing

LTV I – Opportunity Recognition and Team Building

LTV I is an optional introductory course open to all students, staff and faculty at UNC. The course has two main objectives. The primary goal is to present a general overview of the field of entrepreneurship, in particular the skills necessary to determine whether an idea can become a true entrepreneurial opportunity. The second objective is to help individuals assemble an entrepreneurial team for the rest of the Launching the Venture series. This first course will include lectures, guest speakers, workshops and networking sessions for team building.

LTV I is not a prerequisite for LTV II - Feasibility. Students who have already taken an entry level entrepreneurship course at UNC* are discouraged from enrolling in the course, but are welcome to attend networking sessions to assemble a team to apply for the next phase of Launching the Venture. MBA and MAC students will be available at networking sessions to join teams for LTV II as “consultants.”

Register here for Launching the Venture I: Opportunity Recognition and Team Building

LTV II – Feasibility

Teams are admitted into the Feasibility phase through a competitive application process. Generally about half of the teams that apply are admitted. The criteria for admission are: quality of idea, anticipated size and impact of venture, team’s commitment to launch, team breadth and progress to date. Teams must include at least two people and may involve non-UNC members. All team members are expected to attend all class sessions.

In this phase of Launching the Venture, teams explore the feasibility of the opportunity from a market perspective. One of the most valuable aspects of this course is that each team will be assigned at least one expert coach. Coaches will be experienced entrepreneurs and business professionals who have a strong understanding of the entrepreneurial process and the industry for which the team has an idea. The coaches will work with each team to determine its individual goals, and then monitor and assist the team’s progress toward its goals.

At the end of this phase, teams present the feasibility analysis of the idea to instructors, coaches and industry professionals who determine which teams should continue in the next phase of the course. Generally about half of the teams move forward to the third phase, Business Planning.

To enroll in LTV II – Feasibility, teams must complete the online Launch Application, due October 1.

LTV III – Business Planning

In the Business Planning phase, teams work through the analytics to “build-up” the business model and plan for the venture, developing a marketing and sales strategy, and implementation and management plans, building on their earlier target marketing work in the feasibility phase. Each venture team works in cohorts with a panel of expert entrepreneurial coaches who provide feedback on a series of staged deliverables in lab sessions during which teams work on various aspects of their business plans.

At the end of this phase, a preliminary business plan is presented to instructors, coaches and industry professionals who decide if the team should go to the fourth phase, Financing.

LTV IV – Financing

Only the select few entrepreneurial teams seriously pursuing financing to launch their venture in the very near future will be included in this final phase of Launching the Venture. Teams learn about the sources of funding for new ventures, development of pro forma projections and exit options, expectations of potential investors and how to approach them. Teams will have the opportunity to pitch their venture to potential investors.