There’s no better place to explore building a startup than during your time as a student at UC Berkeley. Surrounded by ambitious and talented people and industry-leading professors, there’s endless potential to create the next big thing. This course is designed to teach and inspire students to use their knowledge to build startups, and also to hear industry leaders come and talk to you about their process and journey, as well as answer any of your own questions.

We will be going over the basic building blocks of a successful startup and connect this knowledge to emerging fields. Over the course of the semester, you will get into groups and go through the actual process of ideating and creating a startup idea that is intriguing to investors, culminating in a pitch to real venture capitalists! In addition, we will be providing an overview of the startup scene at Berkeley, pointing out resources ready to help students get a head start.

The course meets twice a week, Tuesdays & Thursdays. The class will have speaker classes which will feature entrepreneurs who share their experiences and knowledge in a particular area of building a startup. It will also feature guest professors and introduce you to resources on campus to help you build your venture. In addition, there are also curriculum classes where you will be working with your team to develop a startup idea with a demo and slide deck that you will be building over the course of the semester [2 units].