MIT Entrepreneurship and Business Courses

Below are free courses and learning resources from MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) and MITx, created by faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

MIT OCW: Managing Innovation and Entrepreneurship

This course discusses the basics every manager needs to organize successful technology-driven innovation in both entrepreneurial and established firms. We start by examining innovation-based strategies as a source of competitive advantage and then examine how to build organizations that excel at identifying, building and commercializing technological innovations. Major topics include how the innovation process works; creating an organizational environment that rewards innovation and entrepreneurship; designing appropriate innovation processes (e.g. stage-gate, portfolio management); organizing to take advantage of internal and external sources of innovation; and structuring entrepreneurial and established organizations for effective innovation. The course examines how entrepreneurs can shape their firms so that they continuously build and commercialize valuable innovations. Many of the examples also focus on how established firms can become more entrepreneurial in their approach to innovation.

MIT OCW: Developmental Entrepreneurship

We surveyed developmental entrepreneurship via case examples of both successful and failed businesses and generally grapple with deploying and diffusing products and services through entrepreneurial action. By drawing on live and historical cases, especially from South Asia, Africa, Latin America as well as Eastern Europe, China, and other developing regions, we sought to cover the broad spectrum of challenges and opportunities facing developmental entrepreneurs. Finally, we explored a range of established and emerging business models as well as new business opportunities enabled by developmental technologies developed in MIT labs and beyond.

MIT OCW: Entrepreneurship Without Borders

This course examines opportunities and problems for entrepreneurs globally, including Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Linkages between the business environment, the institutional framework, and new venture creation are covered with a special focus on blockchain technology. In addition to discussing a range of global entrepreneurial situations, student groups pick one particular cluster on which to focus and to understand what further development would entail. Classroom interactions are based primarily on case studies.

MIT  OCW: Entrepreneurial Sales

This course outlines the practical and tactical ins and outs of how to sell technical products to a sophisticated marketplace. How to build and manage a sales force; building compensation systems for a sales force, assigning territories, resolving disputes, and dealing with channel conflicts. Focus on selling to customers, whether through a direct salesforce, a channel salesforce, or building an OEM relationship.

MIT OCW: Designing and Leading the Entrepreneurial Organization

This subject is about building, running, and growing an organization. Subject has four central themes:

• How to think analytically about designing organizational systems
• How leaders, especially founders, play a critical role in shaping an organization’s culture
• What really needs to be done to build a successful organization for the long-term and
• What one can do to improve the likelihood of personal success.

Not a survey of entrepreneurship or leadership; subject addresses the principles of organizational architecture, group behavior and performance, interpersonal influence, leadership and motivation in entrepreneurial settings. Through a series of cases, lectures, readings and exercises students develop competencies in organizational design, human resources management, leadership and organizational behavior in the context of a new, small firm.

MIT OCW: Technology and Innovation in Africa

What do technology and innovation mean from Africa? This is the central question of this course, which tackles a double absence: Of the meanings and role of technology in African history, on the one hand, and of Africa’s place in the global history of technology, on the other. This course alternates between technologies from outside and technologies from within Africa and their itineraries in everyday life, and it is designed to provide students with grounded understandings of technology in Africa for intellectual and action-oriented purposes.

MIT OCW: New Enterprises

This course covers the process of identifying and quantifying market opportunities, then conceptualizing, planning, and starting a new, technology-based enterprise. Students develop detailed business plans for a startup. It is intended for students who want to start their own business, further develop an existing business, be a member of a management team in a new enterprise, or better understand the entrepreneur and the entrepreneurial process.

MIT OCW: IT and Business Transformation 

The purpose of this Proseminar in Information Technology and Business Transformation (ITBT) is to provide students with a view of IT-enabled transformation and the strategic issues in the management of IT. The seminar will bring in CIOs, CEOs, and experienced consultants and industry observers to provide their perspectives and tell their stories about the use and management of IT today. Their talks will deal with the new technology, the new applications, the issues of implementation, the changes in industries and companies, and the strategic management of IT. In addition, there will be several case discussions of issues to be decided by senior management, with students taking on the position of executives and consultants. There will also be frameworks presented and used to position all material and speakers. Finally, one session will consist of ITBT alumni discussing career opportunities and issues for students, particularly from MIT, with these interests. Students will gain a perspective of the strategic role of and issues in managing IT as manifested in e-business applications, as a driver and enabler of business transformation, and as an underlying infrastructure resource for all businesses.

MIT OCW: Technology Based Business Transformation

This course covers how to leverage major technology advances to significantly transform a business in the marketplace. There is a focus on major issues a business must deal with to transform its technical and market strategies successfully, including the organizational and cultural aspects that often cause such business transformations to fail. Class material draws from concrete experiences of IBM’s major transformation in the late 1990s, when it aggressively embraced the Internet and came up with its e-business strategy.

MITxOnline: Microeconomics

What is produced in an economy? How is it produced? Who gets the product? Microeconomics seeks to answer these fundamental questions about markets.

In this course, we’ll introduce you to microeconomic theory, together with some empirical results and policy implications. You’ll analyze mathematical models that describe the real-world behavior of consumers and firms, and you’ll see how prices make the world go ‘round.

You’ll join the ranks of business executives, policymakers, entrepreneurs, and global leaders who rely on the insights they derive from a working knowledge of microeconomics. Nobel memorial prize-winner Paul Samuelson invented the modern microeconomics curriculum at MIT. Now is your chance to learn the field from the intellectual tradition he began.

Topics include:

• Consumer theory
• Supply and demand
• Market equilibrium
• Producer theory
• Monopoly
• Oligopoly
• Capital markets
• Welfare economics
• Public goods
• Externalities

MITx on edX: Foundations of Modern Finance

A mathematically rigorous framework to understand financial markets delivered with data-driven insights from MIT professors.

MITx on edX: Financial Accounting 

How do investors, creditors, and other users analyze financial statements to assess corporate performance? Learn financial accounting, how to read financial statements, and how to gather inputs to valuation models.

MITx on edX: Business and Impact Planning for Social Enterprises

Are you a social entrepreneur looking to refine your mission and scale your impact? Learn how to articulate your impact goals, theory of change, and plans to scale with a global community through this five-week, interactive course. This course is run by Solve, an initiative of MIT that supports social entrepreneurs solving the world’s most pressing challenges.

MITx on edX: Becoming an Entrepreneur

Learn the business skills and startup mindset needed to embark on your entrepreneurial path from the premier program for aspiring entrepreneurs, MIT Launch.

MITx on edX: Fundamentals of Entrepreneurial Finance: What Every Entrepreneur Should Know

A course for innovation-driven entrepreneurs who would benefit from significantly increasing their financial literacy, so that their business has a better chance to survive and scale.

MITx on edX: Entrepreneurship 101: Who is Your Customer?

Entrepreneurship can be learned. Begin your journey by learning the first important skill for aspiring entrepreneurs.

MITx on edX: Entrepreneurship 102: What can you do for your customer?

Learn and apply the process of entrepreneurial product design.

MITx on edX: Entrepreneurship 103: Show Me the Money

Your startup needs to get cash positive as soon as possible – and ultimately, profitable. This is how you get there.

MITx on edX: Financial Regulation: From the Global Financial Crisis to Fintech and the COVID Pandemic

How financial regulation responded to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and its implications for regulating Fintech and responding to the Covid-19 pandemic. The course stresses the interplay between the financial industry and its regulators in shaping regulations and their effectiveness.