Time Schedule:
Deborah Hagen-Lukens
MKTG 455
Seattle Campus
Examines the skills and tools entrepreneurs need for bootstrap marketing in their start-up firms. Students learn to identify target market segments, position their products, estimate demand, set prices, gain access to channels, and manage the issues of rapid growth. Prerequisite: MKTG 301; may not be repeated. Offered: AWSp.
Class description
This course is designed to expose students to the unique challenges of marketing in start-up organizations. You are expected to understand the basic principles of marketing as taught in the introductory marketing class, though we will touch on them throughout the course. We will apply those marketing principles to various entrepreneurial marketing situations and build upon them with recent marketing theory and through application to specific cases.
This course will familiarize students with some of the key characteristics of new ventures: 1. Operating in rapidly changing and growing environments 2. Innovating new products, services or processes 3. Creating new markets 4. Extensively customer-centric and opportunity-driven
Students will consider the marketing issues and challenges in an entrepreneurial environment and will examine the important role that entrepreneurial marketing can play. The course will be useful for students planning to work in an entrepreneurial setting and will teach frameworks, skills and tools that can be applied toward marketing in such a setting.
Course readings are a mix of marketing theory, practical advice and case study analysis and include samples from a broad range of product and service industries. Class discussions will focus first on gaining an understanding of the key points from the readings and why they are important and secondly on applying those points to specific situations in case examples. Through participation in class discussions, you are expected to gain an understanding of the dynamics of an entrepreneurial organization and to develop insights about how to apply marketing principles in such an environment.
Student learning goals
1. Understand how to apply marketing principles to entrepreneurial situations
2. Understand the unique opportunities and challenges of entrepreneurships in bringing products and services to market
3. Get hands on experience developing marketing plans for actual local entrepreneurs
General method of instruction
Recommended preparation
Read the materials! You have 4 required texts for this course which are listed below. Feel free to acquire used books.
Crossing The Chasm, by Geoffrey A. Moore, Revised Edition, Harper Business, 1999 (available at UW Book Store as well)
Word of Mouth Marketing by Andy Sernovitz, 2009, Kaplan Publishing
Radical Marketing by Sam Hill & Glenn Rifkin, 1999 Harper Perennial
University of Washington MKTG 455A Course Pack available only at UW Book Store
I also recommend reading the media to understand the realities of the business environment in which local new ventures are doing business
Class assignments and grading
There are daily reading assignments drawn from business books and case studies. There are 4 total written assignments: 2 case study write-ups, 1 positioning exercise and a marketing plan developed in teams of 3-4 students. In addition, there will be interim assignments -- ungraded but required -- progressing toward the final class project. There may also be some in-class writing assignments and in-class team work.
see syllabus
