Entrepreneurship I: Laying the Foundation

Illinois develops a venture foundation before the launch stage. Customer discovery and founding-team decisions lead into the business model and positioning. Choose it when you need to understand the structure of an opportunity before preparing a funding or growth plan.

What you will learn

• Investigate a potential customer problem.
• Identify responsibilities and challenges in a founding team.
• Connect a business model with positioning and value capture.

Who this suits

Beginners developing an initial understanding of venture creation.

Before you enroll

The prerequisite field is unspecified. Treat customer discovery as an investigation, and distinguish what someone says they want from evidence of actual behavior.

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Put it into practice

Write an interview plan for a fictional customer problem. Separate neutral questions from leading ones and explain what result would make you revise the idea.

Source and review

This overview is based on the provider's published information, checked on 12 October 2026. It is an editorial assessment, not a claim that we completed the resource. Time filters are approximate study ranges; projects and exercises can take longer.

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