Entrepreneurship: New Venture Creation

What Will You Do?

• Generate and clarify an early-stage business idea

• Defend the problem and concept in a structured critique

• Evaluate feasibility, differentiation, and business logic

• Present the idea from an investor’s perspective

• Apply feedback through rapid cycles of revision

• Deliver a refined concept in a final pitch competition

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Evaluate a business opportunity through customer need, feasibility, effort, and impact

• Connect value, audience, costs, revenue, and marketing in a venture model

• Support a business recommendation with evidence and clear reasoning

You’ll leave with your business-planning canvas, customer-research materials, brand concept, professional pitch deck and a certificate of completion.

Why Entrepreneurship Skills Matter

The entrepreneurship process turns creativity into disciplined problem-solving. Opportunity analysis asks students to judge customer need, feasibility, effort, and potential impact before investing in an idea. Customer interviews and competitor research replace guesswork with evidence, while a Lean Canvas shows how the problem, solution, audience, costs, and revenue influence one another.

Pricing simulations and financial projections make tradeoffs visible. Branding and pitching require another kind of discipline because students must explain the value clearly and decide which evidence belongs in the story. These habits support future work in business, economics, design, technology, leadership, and other fields where ideas must be tested before they can grow.

Who Should Attend?

For students who have completed 9th, 10th, 11th, or 12th grade.

You might arrive with an interest in products, design, marketing, or finance. This course connects those interests through the work of developing one business concept. Customer and competitor research, basic calculations, feedback, and a panel presentation give you a chance to test the idea and discover which part of entrepreneurship draws you in.

Institute for the Gifted eligibility requirements apply; see the program FAQ.

Based on students surveyed in 2026 about Summer Discovery programs at Yale University campus.

The Institute for the Gifted program takes place on Yale University’s campus in New Haven, Connecticut.

The campus’s courtyards, architecture, libraries, and academic spaces create a vivid setting for learning beyond a familiar school environment, while New Haven’s connections to law, theater, science, and the arts extend that context into the city. Students learn alongside peers with similar interests, navigate campus life, and gain independence through everyday choices. The experience creates space to deepen an interest, test it in a more advanced setting, and consider what they may want to study or pursue next.