Students launching new ventures benefit from the solid foundation in business principles and deep understanding of working in teams cultivated through the Yale SOM integrated curriculum.
Yale SOM’s Program on Entrepreneurship was launched in 2014 to augment that knowledge by creating a culture of entrepreneurship at the school and across the university through expanded electives and targeted support for founders. In addition, students benefit from a myriad of student-run and institutional resources that promote entrepreneurship.
Our curriculum
Entrepreneurship is woven throughout the Yale SOM curriculum. The school's integrated curriculum, emphasizing a team-taught, integrated approach to problem solving, helps students understand the whole of the enterprise rather than individual functions and provides potential entrepreneurs with a deep understanding of how to develop and sustain a venture. In addition, the Program on Entrepreneurship and the school's faculty offer a series of electives focused on the skills needed to grow a startup venture of any kind into an impactful organization.
Sample courses
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Foundational courses: Innovator, Start-up Founder Studies
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Electives: Start-up Founder Practicum, Management of Software Development, Entrepreneurship through Acquisition, Global Social Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship & New Ventures, Leading Small and Medium Enterprises, Entrepreneurial Finance, Private Capital and Impact Investing, Sustainable Innovation in Healthcare
Student ventures
When Ben Young ’16 and Fred Kukelhaus ’16 met at Yale SOM, they discovered they shared a desire to start their own venture with a focus on positive impact on the society around them. The result: sustainable furniture company Hugo & Hoby.
Yale SOM Program on Entrepreneurship
The Yale SOM Program on Entrepreneurship expands entrepreneurship initiatives through new curriculum development and strengthening connections across Yale’s entrepreneurship community.
Yale Entrepreneurship Resources
The Yale SOM Entrepreneurship Program brings together the entrepreneurial efforts of Yale University programs across campus through lectures, social gatherings, and collaborations.
Center for Business and the Environment at Yale • Yale Center for Engineering Innovation and Design • Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale • Yale Entrepreneurial Society • Yale School of Engineering and Applied Sciences • Center for Biomedical and Intervential Technology
Entrepreneurship across Yale
The Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale aims to inspire students from diverse backgrounds and disciplines to seek innovative ways to solve real-world problems. Launched in 2017, Tsai CITY serves students from across Yale’s campus through programs, funding, and mentorship.
Opportunities for SOM students
Start-up Founders Practicum
The purpose of this course is to provide full-time SOM students with a mechanism to work on their startup ventures for credit, applying principles derived from their other coursework, particularly the integrated core curriculum. Students in this course articulate milestones for their ventures and work with faculty, staff, and mentors to meet those milestones. Generally, the course employs “lean” methodology. Admitted students are given working space in the Honest Tea Entrepreneurial Studies Suite of Yale SOM’s Evans Hall.
Yale SOM Student Clubs
Among our 40+ student clubs are several that foster students’ entrepreneurship skills through workshops, roundtables, conferences, and fundraisers, including: YHack, HackYale, E-Club, Design & Innovation Club, and Tech Club.
Startup Yale
Startup Yale brings together Yale’s biggest entrepreneurship awards in two days packed with pitches, prizes, and world-changing ideas. Here, Yale innovators join community leaders, investors, and practitioners to reimagine the future. Grounded in inclusivity and impact, Startup Yale is a crossroads for a new kind of innovation ecosystem.
Faculty insights
