Go ahead and take this class if you want to hate entrepreneurship for the rest of your life, period. I honestly think the Professor is clueless on the course topic and gave out grades purely off of opinion. His only skill was finding great guest lecturers, everything else was BS.

Basically the first week of class you're supposed to come up with a start-up business idea with practically zero guidance. During week 2 you form a group, pick the best idea, and have to stick with that business idea for the rest of the quarter. Your grade range and sanity are pretty much set at this point. The Professors and TA's will give you "suggestions" on how to improve the group business idea throughout the quarter. Regardless, from what I gathered the group project grade is primarily based off how good the original business idea is, not off of following teacher suggestions or quality of work presented.

It honestly felt like the professor gave out grades based off of his opinion. If the professor doesn't like your idea, then the whole group pretty much gets a B range grade. That's what happened with my group even though we worked our a**es off and acted on all teacher recommendations.

Do yourself a favor and avoid enrolling in this class. I get it, you really want to be an entrepreneur and share your talents with like-minded individuals. But I can assure you won't find inspiration in this class, just pain and suffering.

Side note: The guest lectures are actually amazing. Do yourself a favor and sit in on the guest lectures (WITHOUT ENROLLING IN THE COURSE) if you actually want to be inspired by successful entrepreneurs/investors.

Avoid this professor at all costs. One of the worst classes I've taken. It's week 10 right now and I have as much knowledge of entrepreneurship as I did at the beginning of the quarter.

Please don't take him. His class is so messy and not organized.

Pros:
1. Light workload: HW = 100% if completed (not much at all).
2. Guest speakers almost every day.
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Cons:
1. Heavily dependent on team performance. I was lucky to be randomly assigned to a good team. Also risk of free loaders.
2. Professor is mean: Repeatedly told class that final would be ezpz but was REALLY hard. Made us study all the concepts NOT tested. Sadistic. Also didn't get to see score of final.
3. Attendance almost every day (taken by a sheet of paper passed around). You get a 0% for participation for the whole quarter if your friend gets caught signing for you. Also need to participate for points. Unsure how these are graded, no clear rules. I went EVERY DAY and participated once in a while.
4. No clear outline of course. Guest speakers repeat topics. In the end I did not learn much at all. Some speakers were entertaining, but mostly story time, not about any entrepreneurship concepts really (maybe just there to promote their company).
5. Not much guidance at all. You will learn almost nothing. And you will be confused and be worrying the whole quarter about your grade. I was even surprised at my grade in the end, because I just didn't care anymore at one point and would accept even a B, but ended up doing well somehow.

On paper, this class looks really interesting and engaging, and from the many excellent guest speakers it would seem that way. However, it's a damn shame that this class would be taught by such a terrible professor. I get it, he's tenured so a glaring lack of organization and effort isn't too surprising. My main qualm is that his grading policy is totally arbitrary and irreverent of our efforts. The class is supposed to be exploratory and open-ended, but at the end of the day we are all still business students and GPA matters. So, to give unfair grades to students (ex: people in my group ranged from an A to a B) WITHOUT giving us guidance on how to succeed is punishing and taints the entire learning experience. Hugo not only encouraged groups with business ideas that were doomed to do poorly, but also gave us a ridiculous final, didn't post most of the assignment grades so no one knows where they might have messed up, and worst of all, forced us to give a different grade to our own group members. This left a horrible taste in my mouth because I actually liked my group and felt we all contributed equally. Evidently that's something that Hugo doesn't think his own students are capable of, so I was basically pitted against my own group and forced to turn in an evaluation that ultimately negatively affected their grades. If you decide to take this class, just make sure to remind yourself when it's all over that you don't necessarily hate entrepreneurship. You are just allergic to bullsh*t. Otherwise, heed the advice I learned from the man himself: it's not wise to invest in a fundamentally good concept with a bad leader at the helm.

The class is ridiculous. The professor doesn't teach you any foundation about the concepts and principles of entrepreneurship. In fact, for 9 weeks he basically sat in the corner and listened to guest speakers every week. He never taught us anything. I don't even know how this class can be justified for having the title "economics of entrepreneurship" when there was no economics taught. Anyways, if you're thinking about taking this class just beware that it's basically a 10 week struggle to create a group project (a startup) with no instruction of how to create a startup. Sure, he walks you through creating this group project (startup/business proposal) by having assignment (checkpoints) due that you can compile into a business proposal as a final product but still...you will feel very lost. I'm not even sure if my group even delivered a legitimate business proposal because we honestly were not formally taught what goes into it and what really makes a solid business proposal. There is no midterm.

The final was outrageous. The professor made it sound like you didn't need to study at all and you could breeze through as long as you listened to the guest speakers and know the "big ideas" but that was not the case. He made us a review powerpoint that did not align to the concepts he was testing on the final. What a fucker. That powerpoint was SO OFF. There were finance calculations not taught in lecture (ex: diluted stocks, BE analysis, etc) on the exam so if you don't know how to do that shit good luck to you. Even if you do know how to calculate some basic finance stuff, I feel like the information given in the question for those problems was so half assed and unclear on the final that it made it hard for me to even properly setup the problem. I was so pissed at the final because he didn't even bother testing us things that mattered to entrepreneurship. Instead, it was shit like break-even analysis, diluted stock options, what did XX guest speaker say, etc. For goodness sakes, at least throw in a fair and relevant question like what are the 7 parts that goes into a business plan.

For some reason, it seems group evaluations were unfair. Not everyone in the group can receive the same amount of points so maybe that's why a lot of people within their own group received different final letter grades (A-, B+, B) . Or, it might just be the final being an issue.

Don't trust the grade distribution here on bruinwalk. It's not one of those classes where the professor just wants you to have a good time getting in touch with the startup culture. He's not willing to give everyone an A despite all the crap he put us through. I knew lots of people who got B's and B- in this class which sucks.

Pro: Excellent Guest Speakers!!!! Helpful T.A.

Con: Hugo.
1. He likes to trick students with ambiguity words. "Guys, you do not need to prepare for the exam. Exam is just... easy... "If you pay attention in the class". Just read your notes. Hey Guys share a good notes to your classmates. Take away from the class; you will get to learn how to trick people with words. Exam was not easy.

2. The class is extremely disorganized. No syllabus. Not clear due date. No standard of grading criteria ("Grades are based on your efforts" WTF, Should I give you a BJ?)

3. Unreliable? It would be much better if the T.A. run the class, instead of Hugo. Does he ever prepare for the class?? Questionable.

Take away; I want to live like Hugo. Seems like, it is the best job in the world.