Course overview

What you'll be able to do after this module, the lesson plan, and the key frameworks.

The universal pattern behind every business, the Business Model Canvas, and the value chain.

How cash moves through a company, the cash conversion cycle, and why profit isn't the same as cash.

The core functions, how a product flows through them, and the tensions a manager balances.

How the whole course maps onto the picture you just built, and how to get the most from it.

Map a real company onto the nine blocks of the Business Model Canvas.

What you'll be able to do after this module, the lesson plan, and the key frameworks.

What each statement says, and the crucial way they connect into one system.

Why profit isn't cash, when transactions get recorded, and where accruals live.

What a company owns and owes, and the difference between book and market value.

The four families of ratios, common-size statements, and decomposing ROE.

How to navigate a 10-K, a first-20-minutes checklist, and red flags.

Pull a real company's statements, run the ratios, and write a half-page verdict on its financial health.

What you'll be able to do after this module, the lesson plan, and the key frameworks.

Fixed vs. variable, direct vs. indirect, the overhead problem (and ABC), and contribution margin.

Break-even, target profit, margin of safety, and operating leverage.

Building a budget, flexible budgets, and decomposing the actual-vs-plan gap.

Sunk vs. relevant costs, opportunity cost, make-vs-buy, special orders, and pricing floors.

Build and stress-test a complete break-even model for a product or business of your choice.

What you'll be able to do after this module, the lesson plan, and the key frameworks.

How markets set prices, and the all-important elasticity of demand.

Marginal revenue vs. marginal cost, and the elasticity-based pricing rule.

From perfect competition to monopoly, and where pricing power (moats) comes from.

The prisoner's dilemma, Nash equilibrium, price wars, and cooperation.

Decide whether a real product should raise, hold, or cut its price, using elasticity and marginal logic.

What you'll be able to do after this module, the lesson plan, and the key frameworks.

What the big indicators mean and how the economy moves through its cycle.

How central banks and governments steer the economy, and what rates and FX do to your firm.

Write a one-page briefing on how current economic conditions affect a specific industry.

What you'll be able to do after this module, the lesson plan, and the key frameworks.

Mean vs. median, spread, and how charts inform or deceive.

Probability, the normal distribution, and expected value.

Inferring from samples, confidence intervals, and testing whether an effect is real.

Reading a regression, and the most expensive mistake in data.

Running clean experiments and structuring decisions with expected value.

Interpret an A/B test and a regression correctly, then recommend a sound decision.

What you'll be able to do after this module, the lesson plan, and the key frameworks.

Compounding, discounting, and the engine under all of finance.

How to decide if an investment creates value.

Why risk sets return, diversification, beta, and the cost of equity.

Blending the cost of debt and equity into the discount rate.

Building a DCF to value a whole company.

Valuing fast with P/E, EV/EBITDA, and comps.

How much debt to use, and why it matters.

What to do with the cash a business throws off.

Value a real company with a DCF and compare your estimate with its market price.

What you'll be able to do after this module, the lesson plan, and the key frameworks.

Segmentation, targeting, and positioning — the heart of strategy.

Product, Price, Place, Promotion — and why they must cohere.

What a brand really is and why it's a moat.

Cost-, competition-, and value-based pricing, and pricing tactics.

The funnel, digital channels, and turning strangers into buyers.

Measuring marketing like a financial discipline.

Pull the whole module together into a one-page go-to-market plan for a product.

What you'll be able to do after this module, the lesson plan, and the key frameworks.

Mapping processes, finding the bottleneck, and Little's Law.

Eliminating waste and defects the Toyota way.

How much to hold, how much to order, and why it ties up cash.

The efficiency-vs-resilience trade-off and the bullwhip effect.

Matching capacity to demand, and why 100% utilization is a trap.

Map a real process, find its bottleneck, and propose an improvement.

What you'll be able to do after this module, the lesson plan, and the key frameworks.

Intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation, and why you can't pay people into engagement.

How teams form, why psychological safety matters most, and team pitfalls.

Leadership vs. management, styles, and adapting to the situation.

Getting things done without formal authority.

Why culture wins, and how to lead change that sticks (Kotter).

The biases that wreck judgment, and how to debias decisions.

Assess your own leadership, then plan a real change you want to lead.

What you'll be able to do after this module, the lesson plan, and the key frameworks.

The homework that wins negotiations before they start.

Expanding the pie (integrative) before dividing it (distributive).

Anchoring, common tactics, principled negotiation, and hard talks.

Prepare a complete plan for a real negotiation: interests, BATNAs, the ZOPA, and your strategy.

What you'll be able to do after this module, the lesson plan, and the key frameworks.

Why some industries are goldmines and others money pits.

Cost leadership vs. differentiation, and why you must choose.

What makes an advantage sustainable rather than fleeting.

Which businesses to be in, and why most M&A destroys value.

How to grow, and why great companies get disrupted.

Integrating it all into a coherent strategic read.

Write a one-page strategic diagnosis of a real company and judge whether its advantage will last.

What you'll be able to do after this module, the lesson plan, and the key frameworks.

Finding a real opportunity and testing it cheaply with an MVP.

Designing a model that works and knowing when you've found fit.

The funding ladder and how (and when) to grow.

Draft a business model for a venture idea and list the riskiest assumptions to test first.

What you'll be able to do after this module, the lesson plan, and the key frameworks.

How to reason about right and wrong, and why good people do bad things.

The agency problem, boards, fiduciary duty, and responsible business.

Dissect a real ethics or governance failure: what went wrong, why, and what should have happened.

What you'll be able to do after this elective, the lesson plan, and the key frameworks.

Is the reported profit real? Normalizing earnings, accruals, and red flags.

Disciplined assumptions, scenarios, sensitivity analysis, and terminal-value rigor.

Choosing comps, picking the right multiple, and building a valuation "football field" chart.

How private equity thinks about leverage and returns, plus a valuation synthesis.

Produce a professional-grade valuation range and a buy/hold/sell view for a real public company.

What you'll be able to do after this elective, the lesson plan, and the key frameworks.

Strategic logic, deal types, and how a deal actually unfolds.

Synergies, the premium, accretion/dilution, and paying in cash vs. stock.

Post-merger integration, culture, and the discipline that makes deals work.

Judge whether a real or proposed acquisition creates or destroys value for the acquirer.

What you'll be able to do after this elective, the lesson plan, and the key frameworks.

What a brand is worth, brand architecture, and the long game.

SEO, SEM, paid social, content, and email — what each is for.

Growth loops, funnel optimization, and CRO.

Measuring what works, attribution, and marketing ROI.

Combine brand, channels, conversion, and measurement into one digital growth plan.

What you'll be able to do after this elective, the lesson plan, and the key frameworks.

The workflow, data types, and asking the right question.

Choosing metrics that drive the right behavior.

The right chart, and communicating insight that changes minds.

What ML is, its main types, and its pitfalls.

Design a decision-ready dashboard and analyze a dataset to answer a real question.

What you'll be able to do after this elective, the lesson plan, and the key frameworks.

Defining roles, structured interviews, and onboarding.

Goals, reviews, coaching, and handling underperformance.

Incentives, structure, and keeping great people.

Plan how you'd hire for a real role and set expectations, feedback, and retention for the team.

What you'll be able to do after this elective, the lesson plan, and the key frameworks.

The PM role, and finding the right problem to solve.

Deciding what to build, and how to ship it.

Measuring success and improving over time.

Write a one-page product spec and a prioritized roadmap for a product or feature idea.

What you'll be able to do after this elective, the lesson plan, and the key frameworks.

Drivers of internationalization and market-entry modes.

Standardize vs. adapt, and global strategy types.

Cultural differences, and FX/political/operational risk.

Design a strategy for entering a new country: where, how, and how much to adapt.

What you'll be able to do after this elective, and what it deliberately leaves out.

Lead with the answer, structure your message, and write and speak so busy people act on it.

Use story to persuade, present data with impact, and handle high-stakes conversations and audiences.

Rewrite a real email, memo, or presentation of yours using the elective's principles.

What you'll be able to do after this elective, and what it deliberately leaves out.

Budgeting, the emergency fund, debt, and the habits that build financial security.

Compounding, risk and diversification, index funds, and the behavior that makes or breaks returns.

Build a simple, private personal financial plan you can actually follow.

What you'll be able to do after this elective, and what it deliberately leaves out.

What a project is, the triple constraint, defining scope, and planning and scheduling the work.

Waterfall vs. agile, managing risk and stakeholders, and why projects fail.

Plan a real project: scope, tasks and the critical path, risks, and your approach.

Why the capstone matters, how to choose your track, and what an excellent capstone looks like.

The guide, template, and rubric for a 6–10 hour project: an investment memo on a real public company.

The guide, template, and rubric for a 6–10 hour project: a fundable business plan for a venture.

The guide, template, and rubric for a 6–10 hour project: a defended recommendation for your organization.