FBE 527 - Entrepreneurial Finance: Financial Management for Developing Firms

One of the most interesting classes I'm taking this fall, and Professor Bristow deserves all the credit for it. An Indiana native, he has a wealth of knowledge and a great sense of humor that keeps students engaged and locked in to every word he utters. You are graded on class participation, assignments, exams, and a final deliverable (PPM--look it up if you don't know what this means). Bristow uses the late James Stancill's (former USC professor) textbook to challenge the conventional methods of teaching corporate finance. A practical class with lessons that you will take with you for the rest of your life. A must take for those looking to get into PE, VC, and Entrepreneurship post-MBA.

Need to prepare PPM and models for a start-up idea generated by yourself throughout the whole semester. Need to memorize a lot of details, the exam is straightforward.

Professor Bristow is awesome, super dry sense of humor, he clearly cares about his students and wants us all to do well in business and life. Loves to talk about the Wall Street Journal each class and what is actually happening in the real world and how it may impact us. This class is highly pragmatic for anyone interested in either starting a company or working for a start-up.

The professor is interesting and does a great job of mixing in current events and helping students fully understand what is going on in the real world from a financial sense. He teaches from the book and half-way through the semester it has mostly been a review of finance and acctg classes with a lot of start-up talk mixed in. If you are truly interested in a start-up, this class could be great as it makes you walk through a private placement memorandum for a company you plan on starting.

If you want to start your own business this will definitely provide really useful insights to structure it financially. It can also be helpful in evaluating new projects for an existing company.

Super prof. Individual semester long project: come up with a company and do a PPM (look it up). He breaks it down with deadlines all along so you're not left last minute with a 30-page paper. Makes it very applicable to real life and financial struggles of a start up.

Great class. The professor managed to combine the news and financial knowledge. You got the chance to present your entrepreneur proposals and walk through all the financial statements for your start-up.

Very nice class! Take it!

Hands down, most practical course I've taken at Marshall. Learn about the stock market, interest rates and what everything means - and their ramifications - in the Wall Street Journal. This is the best 'business school' class available and I truly believe it should be mandatory in core.

This is a hard class but probably the best class at Marshall to get a financial overview from an entrepreneurial perspective.

Learn to apply financial concepts in an entrepreneurial context. He also has interesting lectures when he talks about current events and how they may impact entrepreneurs.

This class is ok. I feel like the professor just teaches from the textbook, and the slides are just from the textbook, so it's hard to pay attention in class knowing I could just read the textbook and do fine in the class.

Great course with excellent professor who has good insight.

Heavy emphasis on daily WSJ news; semester long individual project involving financial work for your own start-up company; professor is an engaging lecturer; workload is not too heavy