Overview:

This course is designed for students considering starting a company or joining a startup and wanting to learn how to sell their company’s product. Too often, students graduate from HBS, raise capital and then investigate how to sell their company’s product or service. In this course, students are expected to experiment with different sales models and create a sales playbook at the end of the semester.

Career Focus:

If you are planning to start a company or become CEO of a startup, join a startup, or invest in early-stage companies, you will need to understand how to sell your product. This course can be for B2B, B2C or B2B2C businesses across all segments. The course is not designed for a specific industry but is designed for students to learn how to sell their products.

Educational Objectives:

The course is designed for students to experiment with different ways to sell your company’s product. Students are encouraged to reach out to prospective customers and to generate inbound sales leads to determine if the prospect is a qualified lead for your product.

Course Content and Organization:

We will meet four times during the semester. We will also provide classroom time for students to work on their sales playbooks. We will bring in former students who have built a sales playbook, closed their first customers and funded their business. These former students will share their learnings as they designed their sales playbooks.

We will also have guests in class who can help you think through who your ideal customer profile is and how to best reach and approach them.

We will also bring in a former student who successfully executed a pivot when the original product idea failed to sell.

Course Administration/Grading:

Enrollment for this course is by application only. To apply, please submit your CV and a paragraph of interest to this application form by January 15th, 2025. Students are also required to submit a Company Info Sheet, which can be accessed via a link within the application form. Students not starting their own company (and therefore not submitting a Company Info Sheet) are also encouraged to apply and will join another student to work on a playbook for the duration of the course. Email Kalkidan Tadesse (ktadesse@hbs.edu) with any questions. Early applicants are encouraged.

80% of the student’s grade will be based on their end of semester deliverable, the sales playbook they create during the course.

20% of the student’s grade will be based on class participation.

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