ECON 327 Venture Creation Workshop
ECON 327 courses (Venture-Creation Workshop) apply the entrepreneurial process with hands-on activities and guidance from experienced entrepreneurs. Students work in teams to experience first-hand what it is like to create a new venture.
Certain ECON 327 courses are offered during Fall OR Spring Semesters, and all sections are restricted to declared & admitted Entrepreneurship students. All sections fulfill either the HI-INTERN (IDEAs in Action Gen Ed) or EE (Making Connections Gen Ed) requirement.
ECON 327 may be repeated for credit for a total of 6 total credits and/or 2 total completions.
For more information about specific sections of ECON 327, please click below.
Professor: Don Rose
Prerequisites & Permissions: ECON 125 & ECON 325 OR permission of the instructor for students lacking the prerequisite
Grading Status: Letter Grade
Some of the most impactful products ever created are based on scientific discoveries. From the COVID vaccine to EV cars to artificial intelligence, science and technology have been at the heart of innovative products and companies. This course will explore the process of translating science and technology into cutting-edge products through science-based ventures. Specific topics include intellectual property, licensing, company formation, venture capital, and product development. Course content will be delivered through a combination of case studies, guest speakers, lectures, class discussion, and student projects.
ECON 327.002 is offered during the Spring Semester.
Professor: Ken Weiss
Prerequisites & Permissions: ECON 125 & ECON 325 OR permission of the instructor for students lacking the prerequisite
Grading Status: Letter Grade
The goal of this course is to provide students with the tools necessary to become effective leaders in the arts. They conceptualize and prepare formal business plans for self-created entrepreneurial ventures. Students examine the challenges and changing nature of entrepreneurship, innovation, and intellectual property rights unique to the arts. Successful artists and executives join classes and provide students with candid insights into their professional lives as we explore topics from the music, film, television, theatre, live performance industries, and others.
ECON 327.003 is offered during the Fall Semester.
Professor: Tom Collopy
Prerequisites & Permissions: ECON 125 & ECON 325 OR permission of the instructor for students lacking the prerequisite
Grading Status: Letter Grade
You and your teammates develop a for-profit product startup from idea to pitching to real angel investors. You build upon what you learned in ECON 125 and 325, including honing your presentation, customer discovery, sales funnel, and financial modeling skills. This three-credit course has students use a book called LAUNCHED, which teaches founders how to launch their startups using ChatGPT 4 prompts. In addition, experienced startup founders come to some of the classes to give feedback and suggestions. Whether you already have an idea you’d like to develop or want the experience of being part of a startup team, this class will more fully develop your entrepreneurial skill set and teach you how to leverage ChatGPT 4 in creating new businesses or products.
ECON 327.004 is offered during the Spring Semester.
Professor: Chris Mumford
Prerequisites & Permissions: ECON 125 & ECON 325 OR permission of the instructor for students lacking the prerequisite
Grading Status: Letter Grade
The newly-emerging field presents many opportunities. General sports are dominated by oligarchs — NFL, NBA, MLB, NCAA, NHL, MLS — where the cost of entry is billions of dollars. This course explores traditional sport revenue drivers, including ticketing, sponsorships, and merchandise, with some of the most innovative soccer clubs with a global following. We research the digitization of sports content, including the content created between the matches. We also dive into sports verticals with high growth and lower barriers to entry, including eSports, analytics, fantasy/betting, youth sports, fitness and health technology, and enhanced fan experience. Students are organized into teams, dive into these areas, and present findings and a presentation. Afterwards, we recognize opportunities and validate ideas using tools learned in ECON 325. Grading is largely determined by student effort. The course is taught mostly in a flipped classroom, group experiential learning environment. Class participation and being a solid group contributor are essential for grading success. The course uses tutorials, examples, and templates extensively. Low-stakes quizzes are used as a recall tool.
ECON 327.005 is offered during the Fall Semester OR during Shuford Summer Away in Manchester.
Professor: Kenyetta Hall
Prerequisites & Permissions: ECON 125 & ECON 325 OR permission of the instructor for students lacking the prerequisite
Grading Status: Letter Grade
This course starts with the premise that individuals want to make a difference in the world and have a passion for social impact. In today’s rapidly changing environment, one of the most valuable and often underutilized assets in a business is a strong brand presence. As a change agent who will challenge the status quo, having a compelling brand is more important than ever. Designed for students who want to explore how to develop a brand that stands out, this course applies to multiple aspects of social enterprise, including for-profit companies and startups, nonprofit or self-funding organizations, and people who want to act more entrepreneurially from within larger nonprofits or socially oriented businesses.
ECON 327.006 is offered during the Spring Semester.
Professor: Tom Collopy
Prerequisites & Permissions: ECON 125 & ECON 325 OR permission of the instructor for students lacking the prerequisite
Grading Status: Letter Grade
This course teaches you how to build effective sales funnels for real startups using ChatGPT. Key topics include lead generation, customer acquisition, conversion, and retention. You apply what you learn by building a real sales funnel to generate actual leads and convert them into actual sales. By the end of the course, you will be able to say you helped build a more effective sales funnel for a real startup. There is a guide for every class that includes prompts you input into ChatGPT to complete each step of the funnel-building process. Students work in teams that include the student cofounder of a real student-led startup. Teams get advice from the professor and guest speakers. There is a mid-term project and a final project where each team pitches their funnel design and key metrics to experienced founders and investors. Student-led startup co-founders must apply to take the class; all other students register for the class as usual. If you are a student founder, please email Molly Matthews or click here for more information.
ECON 327.007 is offered during the Spring Semester.
Additional Approved Track Courses
The Entrepreneurship Minor also has partnerships with other campus departments and professional schools to provide additional track course options. The Shuford Program does not control scheduling or enrollment for non-ECON 327 track courses and cannot guarantee that a certain course is offered during a particular term. Other courses may be submitted to the Shuford Program Academic Director for review but are not guaranteed to be approved. Additional track courses may also fulfill various requirements in both the IDEAs in Action Gen Ed and Making Connections Gen Ed curriculums.
Courses in other departments that satisfy the track requirements as of Spring 2026 are listed below. For more information about specific approved courses, please click below.
Please note that additional track courses sometimes do not automatically map to the track course requirement in Tarheel Tracker. Students who take a non-ECON 327 track course should verify their track course maps correctly in Tarheel Tracker and must reach out to the Shuford Program Coordinator to have their Tarheel Tracker manually adjusted if necessary.
Professor: Jacob Kohlhepp
Prerequisites & Permissions: ECON 400 & ECON 410
Grading Status: Letter Grade
How people are paid can make or break an organization. This course studies organizational economics with a focus on how compensation shapes work. Using a workhorse game theoretic model, case studies, and recent empirical work in economics and management, students learn how pay can help or hurt effort, teamwork, multitasking, and much more. This course is useful for students interested in consulting, human resource analytics, or starting their own company.
ECON 490 is typically offered during the Spring Semester.
Professor: Don Rose
Prerequisites & Permissions: None
Grading Status: Letter Grade
Description coming soon!
ECON 590 is typically offered during the Fall Semester.
Professor: TBD
Prerequisites & Permissions: None
Grading Status: Letter Grade
This course develops basic finance skills along with familiarity with core business concepts. The goal of the course is to empower non-business majors with the skills and vocabulary required to advance the goals of pro-environment businesses and social entrepreneurs.
ENEC 473 is typically offered during both Fall AND Spring Semesters.
Professor: Dana McMahan
Prerequisites & Permissions: None
Grading Status: Letter Grade
The course combines a development workshop with a professional industry project, giving you unprecedented access to working creatives, industry trendsetters, and decision makers. In Workroom, you will not simply think and write about your creative ideas — this course is completely focused on execution.
MEJO 592 is typically offered during the Spring Semester.
Professor: TBD
Prerequisites & Permissions: None
Grading Status: Letter Grade
This course examines students’ knowledge and understanding of social entrepreneurship as an innovative approach to addressing complex social needs. It affords students the opportunity to engage in a business planning exercise designed to assist them in establishing and launching a social purpose entrepreneurial venture.
Professor: TBD
Prerequisites & Permissions: None
Grading Status: Letter Grade
This course focuses on the entrepreneurial process to solve social or environmental issues. Using modern methods and tools, students engage in experiments to test hypotheses around problem definition, opportunity recognition, and solutions. Experience gained in this course enables students to launch their own social enterprises or join those in progress.
Professor: TBD
Prerequisites & Permissions: None
Grading Status: Letter Grade
Great ideas don’t always result in entrepreneurial success — you also have to know your audience or customer base. In this research methodology course, students get hands-on experience in conducting interviews and focus groups and engaging in participant observation to determine potential customer/client interest in a product, service, or nonprofit. Special attention is paid to analyzing research findings to create actionable insights.
Professor: TBD
Prerequisites & Permissions: None
Grading Status: Letter Grade
This course explores the supply and characteristics of labor and jobs, including industrial and occupation changes, education and mobility of labor, and the changing demography of the workforce.
SOCI/MGMT 427 is typically offered during both Fall AND Spring Semesters.
Professor: Alice Ammerman
Prerequisites & Permissions: None
Grading Status: Letter Grade
The innovative and sustainable nature of entrepreneurial pursuit can benefit public health initiatives, especially when entrepreneurship identifies economically self-sustaining solutions to public health challenges. This course introduces students to basic concepts and case studies of social entrepreneurship as applied to the pursuit of public health through both for-profit and nonprofit entities. It features guest speakers with successful experience in public health entrepreneurship in diverse arenas.
Students may not receive credit for both SPHG 428 and SPHG 429.
SPHG 428 is typically offered during the Spring Semester.
Professor: Alice Ammerman
Prerequisites & Permissions: None
Grading Status: Letter Grade
The Thailand-based summer version of this course introduces students to basic concepts and case studies of commercial and social entrepreneurship as applied to the pursuit of public health through both for-profit and nonprofit entities. Students learn about the unique food systems-related public health challenges in both urban and rural Thailand, and the basics of social entrepreneurship and community-engaged service learning. This course features many guest speakers with successful experience in public health entrepreneurship in diverse arenas, as well as those who have experienced challenges or venture failures. Students work in groups with community partners to gain a deeper understanding of what is behind food systems challenges. They design innovative entrepreneurial solutions, rapidly refining their ideas throughout the course and pitching them to experienced entrepreneurs and practitioners for feedback.
Students may not receive credit for both SPHG 428 and SPHG 429.
SPHG 429 is offered during Shuford Summer Away in Thailand.