Innovation and Entrepreneurship Minor

Entrepreneurship isn’t limited to a single field of study

Neither is the Innovation & Entrepreneurship minor at Notre Dame. Students from all disciplines are welcome to learn how to thrive in the knowledge economy.

Combine one of the top-ranked undergraduate business schools in the country and the resources of the IDEA Center —Notre Dame’s hub for all commercialization and entrepreneurial activities—and you have the perfect environment to equip you to bring your best ideas to market.

However, you don’t need an idea for a new business to become part of the Innovation & Entrepreneurship minor at Notre Dame—just curiosity and a willingness to work.

A group of students sit gathered around a light-wood table in an active collaborative workspace structured with modular blue, green, and white partition blocks. In the center, a student in a beige hoodie points directly at his laptop screen to share a website layout with a peer wearing a tan beanie and grey Under Armour hoodie. Another student with blonde hair styled in a bun sits in the foreground with her back to the camera, working on a laptop. Surrounding tables feature additional students engaged in group work.

Entrepreneurs for the greater good

As a student in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship minor, you will join other ethical innovators in creating businesses that make the world a better place. In the process, you’ll develop your business skills, gain real-world experience and learn first-hand what it takes to bring your ideas to life.

Through the Innovation & Entrepreneurship minor, you can:

Participate in the annual McCloskey New Venture Competition, which awards more than $200,000 in cash and prizes to student startups each year
Gain real-world experience through paid internships like Entrepreneurial Lead, Business Development Manager, Venture Coach and Business Analyst at the IDEA Center—or with any of the clients located at Innovation Park
Attend seminars, workshops and panel discussions hosted by industry experts on topics including intellectual property, website design and branding

Minor Highlights

In addition to the hands-on experience you’ll gain by de-risking technologies and accelerating venture creation in the IDEA Center, the 15-credit Innovation & Entrepreneurship minor includes:

Core foundational courses currently offered in Mendoza
Electives taught in different departments or colleges across campus that are relevant to your area of entrepreneurial focus
A capstone experience focused on creating a viable, sustainable startup

When you complete your minor in Innovation & Entrepreneurship, you will understand what it takes to develop, test and commercialize an idea, form a business, build a prototype and bring your creation to the market.

What You'll Learn

Open to: All Majors

Credit Hours: 15

Core Courses

Introduction To Entrepreneurship
MGTO 30500
3 Credit hours

This course serves as the foundational course for entrepreneurship minors. Students are introduced to competing definitions of entrepreneurship, its history and role in free market enterprise as an engine of economic growth, wealth creation, and improvement of the human condition; entrepreneurial personality traits and skill sets, and the mechanics of bringing a new product or service to market, including innovation and ideation, technology “push” and market “pull,” disruptive business models, and the elements of feasibility analyses and venture plans.

Innovation And Design Thinking
MGTO 30310
3 Credit hours

As the challenges and opportunities facing society and businesses grow more complex, and as stakeholders grow more diverse, organizations are increasingly seeking innovative ways to create and capture value. In this course, we will explore organization-centered methods of innovation while gaining proficiency in human-centered methods of innovation through an approach known as “design thinking”. Design thinking is an iterative problem-solving process centered on understanding users and their unarticulated needs throughout the journey of product/service interactions. Systematic application of ethnographical research, ideation, prototyping, and customer co-creation leads to innovations grounded in human-centered design, applicable for both intra-preneurship (innovating within an organization) and entrepreneurship. Students will apply design thinking methodologies and innovation tools independently and in teams throughout the course of the semester to gain proficiency in innovation and design thinking tools and techniques.

Elective Courses (Choose 6 Credit Hours)

Designing Your Life*
MGTO 30317
3 Credit hours

There is nothing more important than a well-lived life full of meaning and purpose. But how do you ensure you are following your right path? Using the principles of design thinking, students will embark on an intentional journey of understanding where they are, how to uncover new opportunities, how to test those ideas, and how to ultimately design your ideal journey forward.

Funding New Ventures
MGTO 30520
1.5 Credit hours

Every new venture needs money and other resources to begin operation. The best source of money depends upon the nature of your idea and its stage of development. We’ll learn when it is best to go to your family and friends and when it is best to go to banks, angel investors, venture capitalists or other funding groups. Of course, you’ll need to know how to position your proposal, how to perform venture valuation and a bit about the theory of entrepreneurial finance. When you finish this course you will know who to approach to “show you the money” for your deal!

Physical Prototyping for Entrepreneurs
MGTO 30525
1.5 Credit hours

This course will teach students about prototyping processes in manufacturing including CNC, 3-D printing, injection molding, woodworking, and vacuum forming. They will engage with the IDEA Center, gaining first-hand experience with the SolidWorks CAD platform and 3-D printing resources for creating models and renderings of physical prototypes. A technical background is not required, but a maker mindset and curiosity for concept development is encouraged.

Social Entrepreneurship
MGTO 30510
3 Credit hours

Some of the most dynamic and successful businesses are aspiring to a “double” or “triple bottom line”: profitability, beneficial human impact, and environmental sustainability. This course exposes students to a new and growing trend in leadership, venture creation, product design, and service delivery which uses the basic entrepreneurial template to transform the landscape of both for-profit and not-for-profit ventures.

Digital Prototyping for Entrepreneurs
MGTO 30527
1.5 Credit hours

The digital prototyping course will empower students with powerful low code/no code capabilities to fuel entrepreneurial concept development and MVP prototyping in the digital space. Students will engage with experts from the Notre Dame IDEA Center to gain first-hand experience in next generation solutions for app and digital platform development. A technical background is not required, but a maker mindset and curiosity for concept development is encouraged.

Entrepreneurship: Go To Market
MGTO 30535
1.5 Credit hours

There is a saying: No idea survives first contact with the market. For entrepreneurs, the pathway to early customer adoption relies on connecting with potential customers to test assumptions and validate product-market fit in ways that are very different from the strategies used by brands that are large and established. With an emphasis on digital marketing strategies, the Go To Market course will provide hands-on experience in designing and testing market strategies that can generate real evidence to validate early assumptions and generate the reactions necessary for entrepreneurial success.

Idea Discovery Lab
MGTO 41500
3 Credit hours

Idea Discovery lives at the fuzzy front end of the entrepreneurial spectrum. It requires creativity and entrepreneurial foresight that enables innovators to, as Steve Jobs once said, “see around corners”. This course is structured as a lab-format experience in which student teams will conduct multiple exploratory “sprints” to uncover emerging opportunity spaces and imagine conceptual solutions that stretch the boundaries of entrepreneurial thinking. Along the way, students will be exposed to a range of creative geniuses including Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Edison, Buckminster Fuller, Walt Disney and others.

Media Entrepreneurship
ALSF 30147
3 Credit hours

Digital tools are eliminating ‘start-up’ barriers and giving storytellers more control over their fates. Aspiring news writers or producers no longer need to work their way up in a legacy company, hoping to someday catch their big break. You could manage a YouTube channel with thousands of subscribers from your dorm room. Some of you probably already do. But how do you monetize such ventures? How do you turn a side project or a cool idea into a career? In “Media Entrepreneurship,” we’ll explore how you can combine your passion and skills – skills cultivated as a student of the liberal arts — to capitalize on media’s exciting new frontier.

Case Study - Computer-Based Entrepreneurship
CSE 40923
3 Credit hours

The purpose of this course is to inform, introduce and (hopefully) inspire you. You will become Informed about computing-based entrepreneurship case studies across a wide variety of areas: computer software, computer hardware, healthcare technologies, databases, web services, data analytics, and more. You will also become informed about different aspects of the entrepreneurship challenge. You will be introduced to guest speakers who are, or who have been, principals in developing technology, founding companies, running companies, selecting technologies for venture capital investment, etc. As a result, you will hopefully be inspired to consider pursuing computing-based entrepreneurship opportunities.

Scientific Entrepreneurship
SC40500
2 Credit hours

This course focuses on innovation and entrepreneurship of embryonic ideas and scientific breakthroughs and how to move them from the laboratory to the marketplace – from invention to venture. All entrepreneurial case studies will be focused on science-based and high-technology examples, such as nano-science, energy science, drug discovery, medical diagnostics, sophisticated algorithms, green technology, etc. The class is project-based, where students will develop a high technology business plan based on discoveries and inventions of Notre Dame science faculty. Students will have the flexibility to choose from a variety of topics for their final projects in biology, biochemistry, chemistry, mathematics, physics, or medicine. Individual or team projects are possible depending on preference. Does not count as science credit for majors in the College of Science.

Futuring: Anticipating Change and Envisioning Strategic Opportunities*
MGTO 30110
3 Credit hours

Our planet, our technology, our society, and our businesses are changing faster than ever. In 1836 Nathan Rothschild, the richest human in the world, died at age 54 from an infection that would be cured today with an antibiotic for less than one dollar. Today’s iPhone has 100,000 times the processing power of the Apollo 11 moon landing guidance computer. Our world is progressing, but with that progress comes disruption, dissolution, and obsolescence. The Futuring course prepares students for a rapidly changing world by analyzing major trends and issues impacting business and society in the future. Participants are exposed to a variety of futuring tools and methods employed by professional futurists and strategists. These are applied in a semester-long team project exploring a phenomenon of change of their choosing. Through a process of scenario planning, students cultivate a foresight mindset to examine key uncertainties and create alternative futures. Insights on emerging opportunities are developed along with recommendations on how business can positively influence future change and create resilient strategies to enable success in an uncertain future.

Data Storytelling*
MGTO 30633
3 Credit hours

A principal challenge for anyone working with ubiquitous data is communicating results of an analysis to stakeholders. This course teaches students the art of clear, effective, and engaging data presentation with attention to the business necessity of translating complex technical subjects into actionable insights for a lay audience. Students will harness the power of storytelling for the strategic benefit of an organization by turning a raw set of data into a compelling message that resonates with an intended audience.

*Indicates M&O Broadening Course

Capstone Course (Required)

New Venture Creation
MGTO 40550
3 Credit hours

Alright, so you think you have an idea for a new venture and are looking to explore the path towards launch. This course will give aspiring founders a first-hand experience in building from an idea into a viable business venture, using the proven best practices used by some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs. We’ll learn the first steps one should take that will lead to a successful launch rather than frustration and failure. In this course, you will work as a team to define an idea for serving an emerging or unmet market need, work to create and validate a solution to serve this opportunity, and create a business model to justify the investment of resources necessary to launch the venture. Teams will pitch their progress at regular intervals to seasoned professional entrepreneurs and receive direct feedback on the business model fit and viability of the venture. When you finish the course, you’ll better understand the discovery and validation steps that can lead to a successful venture launch.

Career Development

As an Innovation & Entrepreneurship student, you will prepare to excel in your career by taking advantage of a wide range of resources, including:

ND’s Career Center, which provides everything from mock interviews to resume-writing assistance to help with full-time job searches
Internship opportunities available through the IDEA Center at Innovation Park
The opportunity to interact and network with the 18 startups—and their founders and CEOS—currently operating in the IDEA Center space

The top five employers of Mendoza College of Business undergraduate alumni in 2017 were:

Deloitte
EY
Goldman Sachs
KPMG
PwC

How to Apply

The application form for all minors offered by the Mendoza College of Business opens once in the fall semester and once in the spring semester.

Application Opens: Monday, September 14, at 12:00 p.m.
Application Closes: Friday, October 16, at 5:00 p.m.

Apply Now

Learn More About the Minor

For questions about the Marketing Minor, contact Sam Miller, Director of Undergraduate Studies – Innovation & Entrepreneurship.