Free Online Business Courses for Entrepreneurs

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The following is a guest post by Brian Jenkins.

A business education doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. You can actually learn about the various aspects of operating a business for free on the Web. The Internet provides entrepreneurs with numerous free opportunities to enhance their business skills. Several colleges offer their education programs and online college programs from past years for free online, including the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Notable non-acdemic organizations also provide free courses. So what’s available? Let’s have a look at some of the quality, free online courses in business and entrepreneurship: A free online training course, the Small Business Primer Strategies for Success, is offered by the U.S. Small Business Administration. The course provides training in the following topics:

  • Starting a Business
  • Managing a Business
  • Contracting
  • Financing a Business It also includes links to other useful resources and small business tools.

My Own Business, Inc. A nonprofit organization established in 1992, My Own Business, Inc. is comprised of many successful business owners. It’s free Internet course is designed to help owners of small and medium-sized companies identify, understand, and overcome the challenges they deal with on a daily basis. It includes sixteen separate sessions and covers a variety of important topics. The course places an emphasis on how to avoid the most common pitfalls encountered by entrepreneurs when initiating a business. The World Bank praised this course, saying that “the high-quality interactive content from My Own Business has been instrumental to the success of the SME Toolkit in each of our target markets across five continents.”

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Through MIT OpenCourseWare, MIT’s Sloan School of Business Management offers an extensive list of undergraduate business courses. Some of the courses focus on entrepreneurship, including Managing Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Designing and Leading the Entrepreneurial Organization.

Columbia University Columbia Interactive offers a three-part series on Brand Leadership, led by Professor Bernd Schmitt, Executive Director of the Center on Global Brand Leadership, at Columbia Business School. Part one of the e-seminar, Brand Identity and Strategy, includes a video lecture, visual examples of strong brand identities, and guest speakers from the private sector. The second part of the series is on Experiential Branding and the third part is called Branding and the Creative Organization.

Kutztown University of Pennsylvania Kutztown University’s Small Business Development Center offers more than 90 free online entrepreneurial training courses, and the university is continually adding more programs. Current content keeps entrepreneurs updated on business issues. Some of the categories covered are:

  • Business operations and management
  • Accounting
  • Finance
  • Business planning
  • International business
  • Management development
  • Starting and growing a business
  • Legal
  • Sales
  • Marketing

Capilano University Through OpenCourseWare, Capilano University offers its Introduction to Strategic Management course. The course focuses on the methods of strategic analysis and business analysis. There are plenty of helpful, convenient, and, most importantly, free online business and entrepreneurship courses on the Web. Take advantage! *Brian Jenkins, a member of the BrainTrack writing team since 2008, contributes content about many topics related to higher education, including college degree programs in business.

Photo by The-Lane-Team.

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