From Idea to Startup (Coursera)

From Idea to Startup (Coursera)

How do you implement ideas? This course provides practical proven tools for transforming an idea into a product or service that creates value for others. As students acquire these tools, they learn how to tell bad ideas from good, how to build a winning strategy, how to shape a unique value proposition, prepare a business plan, compare their innovation to existing solutions, build flexibility into their plan and determine when best to quit.

Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see Coursera's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.

As a vital part of the course students conduct on-site interviews with entrepreneurs who have launched startups, and are eager to share their valuable insights with them.
Upon completing this course successfully, graduates will be able to:

  1. Transform ideas into real products, services and processes, by validating the idea, testing it, and turning it into a growing, profitable and sustainable business.
  2. Identify the major steps and requirements in order to estimate the potential of an innovative idea as the basis of an innovative project.
  3. Reach creative solutions via an iteration of a virtually endless stream of world-changing ideas and strategies, integrating feedback, and learning from failures along the way.
  4. Apply the 10 entrepreneurial tools in creating a business plan for a new innovative venture.
  5. Apply methods and strategies learnt from interviews with startup entrepreneurs and innovators.
  6. Communicate and sell innovative ideas successfully.

Course 2 of 4 in the Startup Entrepreneurship Specialization.

Syllabus

WEEK 1: Think Ahead Backward
WEEK 2: Validate Your Idea
WEEK 3: Visualize the Business
WEEK 4: Sustain the Business
WEEK 5: Risks as Opportunities
WEEK 6: Build Your Roadmap

Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

Negocios Internacionales II (Coursera) Coursera
University of New Mexico

Negocios Internacionales II (Coursera)

Vivimos en un mundo cada vez mas globalizado, en el cual el éxito en los negocios internacionales se ha convertido en el factor determinante del desarrollo económico y la prosperidad. Esta materia, Entorno Global de Negocios, Parte II, sigue a la primera materia (Entorno Global de Negocios, Parte I) e introduce al alumno a una comprensión fundamental de como administrar una organización o empresa internacional.

Sep 21st 2026
5-12 Weeks
Becoming a Social Entrepreneur: Getting Started (Coursera) Coursera
University of Michigan

Becoming a Social Entrepreneur: Getting Started (Coursera)

Do you have an idea that could help solve a societal problem? Are you wondering if starting a social enterprise is the best way to go forward? You are thinking about becoming a social entrepreneur! In this course, you’ll critically examine what makes for a good idea, and whether that idea requires starting a new business. You’ll craft a personal immersion plan while considering different ways to create impact. You’ll explore the personal challenges and connections to your life’s purpose before deciding to commit to becoming a social entrepreneur.

Sep 21st 2026
5-12 Weeks
Financial Reporting Capstone (Coursera) Coursera
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Financial Reporting Capstone (Coursera)

The Capstone is the culminating project in the Financial Reporting Specialization. You will have the opportunity to combine the concepts and techniques obtained through all the courses in this specialization (Accounting Analysis I: The Role of Accounting as an Information System, Accounting Analysis I: Measurement and Disclosure of Assets, Accounting Analysis II: Measurement and Disclosure of Liabilities, and Accounting Analysis II: Accounting for Liabilities and Equity) and apply them to a real world accounting project.

Sep 21st 2026
3 Weeks
Corporate & Commercial Law II: Business Forms, Financing & Governmental Regulation (Coursera) Coursera
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Corporate & Commercial Law II: Business Forms, Financing & Governmental Regulation (Coursera)

This course is the second course in a two-part series on corporate and commercial law. In this part, we focus on three main topics: business organizations, business financing, and governmental regulation. In the first module, we discuss the characteristics of a number of the most common forms of business entities, such as corporations and LLCs.

Sep 21st 2026
4 Weeks
How to finance your venture ? (Coursera) Coursera
École Polytechnique

How to finance your venture ? (Coursera)

The course aims at providing knowledge and experience to entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs generally start with a mission, a new idea that they want to bring to the world. If the idea is original, it is probably not expected by the market, which has to be educated. This is a very costly experience. Entrepreneurs need to gather capital at the start of the journey.

Sep 21st 2026
5-12 Weeks
Interest Rate Models (Coursera) Coursera
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Interest Rate Models (Coursera)

This course gives you an easy introduction to interest rates and related contracts. These include the LIBOR, bonds, forward rate agreements, swaps, interest rate futures, caps, floors, and swaptions. We will learn how to apply the basic tools duration and convexity for managing the interest rate risk of a bond portfolio. We will gain practice in estimating the term structure from market data. We will learn the basic facts from stochastic calculus that will enable you to engineer a large variety of stochastic interest rate models. In this context, we will also review the arbitrage pricing theorem that provides the foundation for pricing financial derivatives.

Sep 21st 2026
5-12 Weeks
L'avenir de la décision : connaître et agir en complexité (Coursera) Coursera
ESSEC Business School

L'avenir de la décision : connaître et agir en complexité (Coursera)

Ce MOOC a l’intention d’affronter et traiter des problèmes que rencontrent chaque personne, chaque groupe, chaque entreprise, chaque société, de façon de plus en plus aiguë et pressante ; dans notre temps d’évolution accélérée, de transformations ininterrompues, de mondialisation incontrôlée, d’incertitudes.

Sep 21st 2026
5-12 Weeks
Two Speed IT: How Companies Can Surf the Digital Wave, a BCG Perspective (Coursera) Coursera
CentraleSupélec

Two Speed IT: How Companies Can Surf the Digital Wave, a BCG Perspective (Coursera)

Transform or disappear, the Darwinism of IT: In order to adapt to a digital world, a two-speed IT is needed. Despite the importance of IT in today’s digital world, Chief Information Officers (CIOs) often struggle to get their voices heard by executive committees. Faced with this challenge, IT departments are being forced to reinvent themselves to adapt their companies to the fast paced evolution of technology. The Boston Consulting Group has developed a business approach that allows IT to shed off its appearance of a heavy cost center and to adopt a new, more realistic persona as a quality service provider, partnering with users and the management.

Sep 21st 2026
5-12 Weeks
Process Mining: Data science in Action (Coursera) Coursera
Eindhoven University of Technology

Process Mining: Data science in Action (Coursera)

Process mining is the missing link between model-based process analysis and data-oriented analysis techniques. Through concrete data sets and easy to use software the course provides data science knowledge that can be applied directly to analyze and improve processes in a variety of domains. Data science is the profession of the future, because organizations that are unable to use (big) data in a smart way will not survive. It is not sufficient to focus on data storage and data analysis. The data scientist also needs to relate data to process analysis.

Sep 21st 2026
5-12 Weeks
Managing Responsibly: Practicing Sustainability, Responsibility and Ethics (Coursera) Coursera
University of Manchester

Managing Responsibly: Practicing Sustainability, Responsibility and Ethics (Coursera)

Managers are increasingly confronted with issues of sustainability, responsibility and ethics. Managing responsibly is an integrative approach to sustainability, responsibility and ethics, which allows you as a manager to deal competently with such challenges. This course will facilitate your learning process to engage in changing practices to make them more sustainable, responsible, and ethically informed.

Sep 21st 2026
5-12 Weeks
Driving business towards the Sustainable Development Goals (Coursera) Coursera
Erasmus University Rotterdam

Driving business towards the Sustainable Development Goals (Coursera)

Extreme weather events, wars, famine and environmental destruction are just a few of the wicked problems faced by humanity. That’s why in 2015 the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This agenda includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that target the big challenges such as how to eliminate poverty, how to protect the environment and how to bring about peace. Every member state committed to achieving these goals by 2030. What can businesses do to counter climate change and create a sustainable business culture? Why is this relevant for business anyway? Explore how business can contribute to a better future for people AND the planet without giving up profits.

Sep 21st 2026
5-12 Weeks