Welcome to the newest edition of MOBI’s Newsletter. With each issue we reach out to our students, alumni, partners, and readers to share important highlights from the My Own Business Institute at the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University. We hope you will enjoy these updates and continue your relationship with MOBI on your path toward entrepreneurship!

Feel free to opt-out of this newsletter by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom. Para leer este boletín en español, haga clic aquí. 

Thank you from MOBI!

Hello!

With the introduction of our 2024-2025 catalog of free online courses, we have changed things up to offer three courses that empower aspiring business owners with free education for each phase of their entrepreneurship journey: Starting a Business, Managing a Business, and Growing a Business. Visit MOBI’s Our Courses page for a quick summary of each course. More information about the Managing a Business course and my article on the formation of this course are included below.

We also continue to offer our accelerated Quick Start Entrepreneur course, topic-focused Sales and Marketing Badge Course, and the MOBI On Demand Small Business Essentials audio and video course.

New courses, a new Welcome Video, and wonderful award recognitions from the ICSB and our partner Sunday Friends—in addition to the Congressional Resolution we received together with the Latino Business Foundation Silicon Valley last spring—it has been a very busy time for MOBI, and we are excited to share these updates and other news with you below!

With gratitude to our students, alumni, partners, and readers for continually inspiring our innovation to best serve your business dreams,

Sincerely,

Drew Starbird

MOBI is excited to announce that with the annual 2024-2025 course reset we also unveil two NEW courses designed for business owners and those pursuing business careers: Managing a Business and Growing a Business. 

Managing a Business includes 15 sessions to help existing business owners manage the day-to-day needs of their business for greater success and efficiency. In this course, students learn “soft skills” like leadership, negotiation, proactive management, and ethics, as well as traditional business skills such as operations, project management, financial controls, and hiring and managing employees. According to MOBI Executive Director Drew Starbird, Ph.D., in his recent post, “How to Manage a Business: Three Key Areas for Success,” the Managing a Business course is designed to empower business owners with skills in the key areas of financial planning, operations, and strategic decision-making. 

Growing a Business replaces our Business Expansion course with 11 sessions focused on growth-oriented topics. Whether you plan to expand to new locations through duplication or franchising, increase efficiency and profitability through vertical integration, or pursue plans to go public, Growing a Business has information for you. This course also covers selling your business and planning for family succession.

Both free online courses will provide learners around the world the opportunity to earn a Certificate of Completion and Digital Badge. 

Last spring we debuted MOBI On Demand, our audio and video learning options available in English with Spanish subtitles. MOBI On Demand is featured in the Small Business Essentials course (the entire course is available in audio and video options!), as well as several sessions of our Starting a Business course and Sales and Marketing Badge Course.

This summer we expanded availability of these videos to our website and YouTube channel for greater flexibility and accessibility. For students pursuing a Certificate of Completion and/or Digital Badge through audio and video learning, be sure to log into your student account to take the session quizzes and/or final as well! 

Check out our new Welcome Video! Produced in English and Spanish by the exceptionally talented team at Forever Ready Productions, this two-minute video shares the inspiration behind our mission to provide free entrepreneurship education around the world.

Forever Ready Productions also produced our incredible MOBI On Demand audio and video curriculum series, now available on our website, learning management system, and YouTube.

On Friday, July 5, Santa Clara University’s My Own Business Institute in the Leavey School of Business was honored at the 2024 International Council for Small Business (ICSB) World Congress in Berlin, Germany as a finalist for the Entrepreneur Educator Excellence Award. MOBI Executive Director and Leavey Professor of Information Systems and Analytics, Drew Starbird, Ph.D., presented MOBI’s submission remotely during the hybrid conference. Learn more by visiting our ICSB blog post.

On Monday, August 5, MOBI partner Sunday Friends Foundation held its inaugural Silicon Valley Kindness Awards, celebrating and honoring outstanding contributions from individuals and organizations dedicated to helping families overcome poverty. The My Own Business Institute (MOBI) received the Sunday Friends Kindness Award in the Education category. 

Sunday Friends is a nonprofit organization, founded by Janis Baron in 1997, when she and her children began visiting a local family shelter. Her dedication to listening to the shelter families’ needs and building relationships based on trust inspired the work of Sunday Friends to empower, uplift, and break the cycle of poverty. Through its partnership with MOBI, Sunday Friends will develop its first entrepreneur accelerator program, the Dream, Build, Mentor (DMB) Lab, incorporating MOBI’s free online entrepreneurship curriculum. Learn more by visiting our blog post.  

MOBI partners are an important part of the MOBI program! By forming partnerships with diverse communities of students around the world, MOBI can inspire entrepreneurship in ways that best meet the specific opportunities of each group, and always for free. In this newsletter, we take a moment to share three recent celebrations held by partners to honor their entrepreneurship graduates.

Central Florida Urban League (CFUL)

MOBI congratulates the second cohort of students pursuing their entrepreneurship education with MOBI partner Central Florida Urban League (CFUL), pictured here at their orientation event on September 5. Even the bad weather of the day couldn’t dampen the spirits of these students! Thank you for sharing your photo and best wishes for your course! Central Florida Urban League (CFUL), an affiliate of the National Urban League, is dedicated to advancing the Three Es: Education, Employment, and Entrepreneurship with the overarching goal of breaking the cycle of generational poverty in both their local community and beyond.

Economic Development Alliance of Skagit County (EDASC)

The Economic Development Alliance of Skagit County (EDASC), in Mount Vernon, WA, celebrated its cohort of StartUp School graduates who completed the EDASC/MOBI entrepreneurship course. EDASC offers its participants MOBI’s curriculum in English and Spanish. EDASC carries out business attraction, retention and expansion, and collaborative engagement to achieve a prosperous, sustainable and equitable community while maintaining Skagit County’s natural beauty and quality of life.

Latino Business Foundation Silicon Valley (LBFSV)

MOBI proudly celebrates the recent success of our partner, Latino Business Foundation Silicon Valley (LBFSV), which awarded Certificates of Completion to 580 students in Mexico! In collaboration with MOBI, LBFSV is empowering entrepreneurs from various fields, including accounting, dentistry, law, and more, with the skills they need to launch or expand their businesses. 

This partnership exemplifies our shared commitment to fostering economic development and creating opportunities for aspiring business owners. Congratulations to all the graduates, and thank you to LBFSV for your continued dedication to entrepreneurship!

For more information and to see a partial list of partners, visit our Partnerships page. Learn more about our three partnership levels by viewing our MOBI Partner Comparison Chart. Interested in becoming a MOBI partner? Submit a Partnership Request.

Here are some events from the past few months.

In our last newsletter we asked what your biggest challenge was as a business owner. We gave you some choices to pick from, and your responses showed that common challenges include: Bookkeeping/Accounting (top choice); Financing the Business, Licenses & Permits, Education/Training, Marketing/Finding Customers (tied for second), and Motivation/Confidence, Maintaining Work-Life Balance, and Lack of Resources/Support (tied for third). 

Here is our new survey question: 

Why did you start your own business/become an entrepreneur?

Click the button submit your choices, then stay tuned for the next newsletter to learn our readers' top answers!

We wish you good health and all the best in business success!

The MOBI Team