Application Opens on September 20!

New Venture Launch · MBAX 6180 · Spring 2027

Applications open on Sunday, September 20, and close on Friday, October 30, 2026, at 5:00 PM.

What the class is

New Venture Launch is a one-semester, application-based class for people who intend to start a company. Founders bring a venture with traction they can show. Everyone else brings a skill and is placed on a team. Applications are open to the entire CU system: past cohorts have included undergraduates, master’s students, PhD candidates, law students, professors and CU staff. This is not an introductory course. There are no prerequisites. Instructor consent required.

Class meets Wednesdays, 12:30 to 3:15 p.m., in KOBL 204. Every session has three or four parts: a guest speaker or panel with founding and specific subject matter experience, team workshops, content delivery, and venture pitches with feedback. You pitch repeatedly across the semester, and each pitch is a milestone. Entry into the New Venture Challenge is required and part of the curriculum.

Who should apply

Founders. You have a venture and traction you can show: paying customers, a working prototype in users’ hands, a signed partner, a term sheet, or a technology you hold the rights to build on (CU licensed IP). An idea alone is not enough for this track. With our help, you will have a legal entity formed by the first day of class.

Builders. Most ventures arrive with a technical founder and a hole where the business or legal side should be. If you bring finance, sales, marketing, operations, law or design, we place you on a team before the semester starts, and you build the company with the people who have the technology.

It is still a class. Founders and builders sit in the same room, hear the same speakers, and leave with the same learning outcomes: what it takes to form, fund, sell and run a company under real constraints. Nobody in the room is there to watch.

What you get

• Awards. Teams compete for non-dilutive awards against a stated use and a timeline, pitch the request at the end of a class session, and get a decision within 24 hours. Past uses: legal formation, insurance, marketing, branding.
• Mentoring and pitch coaching from the entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who come to class.
• The New Venture Challenge. Preparation across the semester and a required entry.

What the semester covers

Seven domains: legal foundations, customer validation, marketing and branding, raising capital, sales, operations, and leadership.

What we expect

Substantial time beyond class hours. Preparation for every session. A weekly stakeholder update from each team. Confidentiality on every idea shared in the room, under the Honor Code. Thirty percent of the grade is individual, participation and peer evaluation; seventy percent is the team, weekly updates, assignments, pitches and the final presentation.

Results

NVL teams have raised more than $50mm in the last four years.

Here are a few venture alumni from the class: Mesa Quantum, Odin Autonomy, Affix Communities, Ptarmigan Clockworks, and WatchPost. 

Timeline

Applications open on September 20th at noon. Applications close Friday, October 30, 2026. First class is in January, with a class kickoff mixer after Thanksgiving break.

Instructor

Brad Werner is Teaching Director of the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship and Assistant Teaching Professor of Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Operations at Leeds. He has spent more than thirty-five years as a CEO and investor across technology, energy, hospitality, real estate and aviation. 

Students

Christina Spruiell of Adapted Skin Care had this to say about taking NVL:

“New Venture Launch was the most valuable experience in my MBA program at CU [Boulder]. It provided a completely new perspective on my future, career and approach to business. The lessons and skills gained have been life changing!”

Founder and CEO of LingDisco and New Venture Challenge finalist Evan Baltman had this to say about the course:

"Getting into New Venture Launch was the perfect experience for me because it took my ambition to become an entrepreneur and passion for my idea and gave it the resources and guidance to get to the next level. Pitching my venture went from a disorganized jumble of ideas to a coherent story that I took with me all the way to the New Venture Challenge finals. I often scratch my head about how much longer it would have taken me to reach where I am now without Brad and Betsy's excellent course."

Questions

How many credits for this class? 3 credit hours

Do I need an idea? No. Builders are placed on a founder’s team, and the teams need business, marketing, design, and legal people as much as they need engineers.

Do I need a team? No. Founders can apply alone; teams are assembled (with our help if needed) before the semester. Students without a team can also apply, and if accepted, will be placed on a team that best leverages their skillsets.

Who can apply? Anyone in the CU system. Past cohorts have included undergraduates, master’s students, PhD candidates, MBAs, law students, professors and CU staff.

Is this an intro course? No. There are no prerequisites, but founders are expected to arrive with traction, and everyone is expected to arrive ready to work.

How much time? Wednesdays, 12:30 to 3:15, in class and substantial time outside it. Treat it as a part-time job for the semester.

Do I need a company formed to apply? No. Founders form the entity before the first class, with our guidance.

Contact

walter.werner@colorado.edu