New Venture Marketing - Course recap and reflection

When I started my degree program, I opted to minor in Entrepreneurship. New Venture Marketing was one of the four required courses for that minor. Toward the end of my degree program, I changed that minor to a New Venture Management emphasis instead.

As a semi-related side note, there seems to be a lot of negative stigma around changing your major or pivoting your program of study part way through, and I think that needs to be changed. I opted to drop my minor because I truly felt that having started and run a business for 8 years and taken courses centered around marketing and running a business, I already knew the vast majority of what these classes focused on teaching. I wouldn’t consider myself an expert, but I also didn’t think these would be a worthy investment of my time.

Getting an education should always be a good ROI. Don’t forget that you’re investing both time AND money into it.

This course centered around some pretty basic concepts in branding and marketing:

• Defining A Brand

• Brand Trademarks

• Personas

• Company Values

• Marketing Strategies

• Customer Service Concepts

• Community Giving Strategies

It ultimately ended in writing a marketing outline and business model document for the final projects. I’ve included both of those projects below in case you’re interested in reading them as a PDF download.

Reflection

My biggest reflection from this class was actually not something the class intended to teach me, and that was that I have a much deeper understanding of marketing than I have previously given myself credit for. Additionally, it taught me that pivoting is not only okay, but in some cases, it’s very smart. I opted to pivot into a direction where I do have gaps in my knowledge and closing those gaps will ultimately benefit my career direction in the long run.