- The Stanford Graduate School of Business announced Stanford Embark — which is an online self-paced resource for helping guide entrepreneurs through each stage of their business venture
The Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) has announced Stanford Embark — which is an online self-paced resource for helping guide entrepreneurs through each stage of their business venture. And Stanford Embark is considered an interactive and membership-based toolkit that is designed by Stanford GSB’s faculty and entrepreneurs. It combines high-level insights on building ventures with the tactical steps that are necessary for launching sustainable businesses.
Entrepreneurs around the world will have access to Stanford Embark’s flexible modules and interactive tools for evaluating their progress and developing a personalized “startup canvas” that can be used as a roadmap and help apply what they learn directly to their venture. Essentially, Stanford GSB is making its proprietary entrepreneurship-centered content and teaching accessible to a wide audience for the first time.
“Stanford Embark enables the GSB to reach a whole new community of entrepreneurs all over the world,” said Stefanos Zenios — who is the co-director of Stanford GSB’s Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and the Investment Group of Santa Barbara Professor of Entrepreneurship and Professor of Operations, Information & Technology. “Building a business can be isolating and overwhelming; we wanted to simplify the process and support entrepreneurs during their journey with research-based, founder-proven resources.”
Stanford Embark is adding to Stanford GSB’s entrepreneurship-centered courses and programs. This is especially important as the demand for content that cultivates a better understanding of the issues facing the entrepreneurial community has been steadily increasing since the school established the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies (CES) in 1996.
“Prior to using Stanford Embark, I didn’t have the one tool that helped me stay organized and allowed me to look at my business plan holistically,” added Nibi — a Stanford Embark beta user who is building a natural afro hair business called KinkyApothecary. “When I went through the individual modules, I learned how important, and necessary, it is to include customer personas in my plan. Embark not only helped me recognize that gap, but also showed me how to address it.”
Stanford Embark’s curriculum draws on over two decades of teaching and research on entrepreneurship. And this new online toolkit adopts frameworks used in Stanford GSB classes for equipping entrepreneurs with the actionable content needed to launch and grow businesses. And a group of test users — each in different stages of their entrepreneurial journey — have been exploring Stanford Embark in the last four weeks and utilizing its tools for developing and growing their businesses.
And Stanford Embark users will have access to all modules, which will enable them to identify target customers and build personas, develop prototypes, create value propositions, define a go-to-market strategy, and determine the right profit models.
