Want to launch your own tech startup but don’t know how? Feel the need to learn about entrepreneurship but don’t have enough time and money to go back to university? With the emergence of Massive Open Online Courses or MOOCs offering a variety of courses from the US, the UK, and around the globe, aspiring tech founders can find suitable courses to brush up or broaden their knowledge and skill sets on their own pace. From crash courses to in-depth discussions on business, here is a list of tech startup courses to begin your startup journey:

Outsource your Idea | Launch Your Business for ¼ the Price

This online course specifically promotes the idea of outsourcing when starting your own tech business. Through this course, you will understand what is outsourcing, the benefits that come with it and the initial necessary steps to take when establishing a startup such as conceptualizing, planning and budgeting, and running a project, among others.

The advantage of taking this course lies in the benefits presented by outsourcing. You will learn how outsourcing can significantly save time, energy, and budget when trying to get a business or product out in the market. This online course has no prerequisites and would be perfect for anyone wanting to launch their own business, looking to know more about outsourcing, or rearing to improve their project management skills.

Outsource your Idea is currently being offered at Udemy and currently has a special 94% mark off as of writing. The course includes a lifetime access to all its video content, articles, and supplementary readings, and also presents its users a certificate upon completion.

In case you want to know more about what outsourcing can do for your business, check out:

Benefits of Working with an IT Outsourcing Service Provider

Why IT Outsourcing is Important for your Startup Product Development

Startup & Go: First Steps to Building a Technology Company

Startup & Go is an online crash course about building your own tech company from the ground up. Boasting a feat of producing over 1000 tech companies in just over 4 years, the course is a collection of talks from the Founder Institute, the world’s largest entrepreneurship training and startup program.

The goal of this course is to help you come up with a smart business or product idea and manage your startup from your resources to your people. Startup & Go presents three ideas outlining the whole course --  Startup Ideation, Startup Research, and Startup Hiring, Firing, and Co-Founders. Aspiring tech entrepreneurs can sign up to this course if you are interested in listening to lectures from founders and CEOs of leading tech firms such as Evernote, OQO, and Mint.com to name a few.

Startup & Go can be found at Udemy for a special price of $10.99 (slashing 88% off its original price) as of writing. Enrolling in the course allows users unlimited access to all learning materials and a certificate of completion. There is also no prerequisites required thus anyone can join the course.

Startup Success: How to Launch a Technology Company in 6 Steps

The online course discusses six steps culled from the 30-year startup endeavors of American computer scientist Michael Stonebraker, and English chartered engineer and Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer. The six steps explore the topics of developing and assessing your ideas, anticipating challenging business prototypes, and recruiting and leading your formidable IT and management team.

Startup Success is a good introductory course for anyone looking for a self-paced step by step process of building an IT startup. The course, however, requires a prerequisite of an undergraduate degree. Note that the course is free with all the class materials available and accessible to all. For $149 USD, one can get a certificate from the edX platform.

As of this writing, however, the course is not up for enrolment. This class is also not available in some parts of the world. Past edX courses can only be audited but features such as online discussions will not be available.

Creating and Developing a Tech Startup

This online course focuses more on the developing stages of starting a tech company. From identifying and assessing good tech business opportunities to finding finance, Creating and Developing a Tech Startup via Coursera has you covered. In this course, you will learn topics for forming an innovative business idea, choosing your market, developing your proposal, and gathering your dedicated team.

The course is made up of a series of video lectures, readings, and personal accounts from successful tech entrepreneurs. The course will also be taught by instructors from two top Universities in Paris namely École Polytechnique and HEC Paris. The course presents the idea that starting your own tech company is more of a collective endeavor than an individual one.

If interested, the class opens this February 12. To learn more about what’s in store, you may view the full syllabus on their course page.

Legal Tech & Startups

According to the course description, Legal Tech is “the reaction to the disruption that technology is having across all sectors.” The course explores an in-depth look into how technology can revolutionize processes from the conservative legal sector. The course also presents key tools in starting a tech company with a focused angle on providing legal services.

Professor Marti Manent also tackles market trends you will likely encounter and how to utilize them. The course is perfect for lawyers interested in tech or IT entrepreneurs interested in legal services. As the number of legal tech startups increased in the US and the UK for the past few years, venturing into legal tech services would be an ideal startup initiative.

Legal Tech & Startups is taught at Coursera complete with video lectures and readings featuring industry professionals. Class begins on February 5.

Technology Entrepreneurship

Technology Entrepreneurship, available on the  NovoEd platform, features fundamental methods and ideas pioneered by global tech brands in the Silicon Valley. Similar to the other courses on this list, this online class discusses key methods in finding and creating a tech idea, gathering your elite team, selling and marketing your idea, and managing your tech startup’s growth.

What sets this course apart is the practical experience it provides for its online students. The course requires its participants to form into groups and apply the lessons learned in class to produce a startup company. Online students have the opportunity to work with diverse like-minded students from the US, the UK, and other countries around the globe. It gives its participants an edge through this real-life exercise. Outstanding groups from previous classes had the opportunity to be matched with Silicon Valley mentors or had the chance to pitch their concepts to investors.

The course currently does not hold a class but you may register at Class Central and follow the course page to receive a notification once the class is open again. Technology Entrepreneurship is a free online course with certification offered by Stanford University.

Entrepreneurship for Engineers

The course is meant for engineers or developers wanting to set up their own tech company but has no formal business training. This introductory course includes modules in team building, opportunity recognition, financing, and customer acquisition.

Entrepreneurship for Engineers will also present case studies from founders and startups. The course also encourages its online students to work in a team environment. The expected output for the course is a two-page business plan and a video pitch. Exceptional students will be eligible to participate in a Masterclass at one of the following top universities in the Netherlands: TU Delft, TU Eindhoven, University of Twente, and Wageningen University & Research.

The course is currently archived at edX thus access to all its features such as the online forum and updated content will not be available. However, you can pre-enroll and wait for the class to open. There are no prerequisites required although a Bachelor of Science degree is recommended.

The best of luck to your tech startup career from Cloud Employee!

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