Learning the business basics, my Coursera

MBE: Mastering Business Essentials (6 courses, 90+ videos)

Coursera Specialization = Intro to Business

I just created a new Coursera specialization (6 courses) which is an introduction to business. I call it MBE - Mastering Business Essentials and it's targeting people without a business background.

https://www.coursera.org/specializations/mbe-mastering-business-essentials

Get over the imposter syndrome

How often are you in a meeting about finance, marketing, strategy and don't understand the lingo? Here's your chance to learn the most important 100+ things about business in a condensed format.

No shame - I'll admit that I could not really read a balance sheet until I was 29 years old. In fact, I don't think I had a precise idea about net present value until recently. Yes, we are continually learning.

If you didn't go to business school, or you don't use business concepts daily in your work, you could use a little tutoring. Marketing-what? Accounting-this? Strategy-that?

You need to know the basics

Here's a quick quiz, how many of these can you answer?

• In your own words, what's the purpose of business?

• What's the difference between willingness-to-pay and price?

• What's the difference between strategy and planning?

• Why do non-profit organizations need a strategy?

• What are the 4Ps of marketing mix? Why does this matter?

• What's the difference between gross margin, operating margin, and net margin?

• When is debt a powerful tool and when is it a anchor tied to your leg?

• What is the purchase funnel? Why does that matter?

• How would you describe the difference between Lean Operations and Six Sigma?

150 Key frameworks

No matter how good ChatGPT is, you need to know the basics.

The world is crazy changing. It's not about memorizing things anymore. It's about understanding which questions to ask and see how strategy, operations, account, finance, marketing play together.

https://www.coursera.org/specializations/mbe-mastering-business-essentials

Course #1 Introduction to business - Creating value

1. Why are companies so good at making money?

2. How to think like a business executive?

3. How can I tell my business story to strangers?

4. Why is pricing such a big deal? Aren’t prices just set?

5. What are the two ways to increase profit %?

6. What can my company do to raise customers’ willingness to pay?

7. What is "value" so subjective?

8. Who are the most profitable clients?

9. Why do some jobs pay so well?

10. What’s the value I am delivering at my company?

11. Why do I need to be unique, hard to copy-cat?

12. What is supply chain and why does it matter?

13. What’s the bottleneck in your client’s supply chain?

14. Process flow sounds like business jargon. What is it?

15. What does demand planning have to do with marketing?

16. Why do I need to learn the process flow of other functions?

17. What is vertical integration and why does it matter?

18. Does my company do too much? Should we be more specialized?

19. What’s the negatives of vertical integration?

20. Who do we currently outsource to? How is that going?

21. How competitive is this industry?

22. How can my company differentiate from the competition?

23. How to help clients be more competitive?

24. How might the interests of individuals vary from business or governments?

25. In the United States, is this a free market and/or where a lot of oligopolies exist?

Course #2 Strategy - Finding your unfair advantage

1. What is strategy anyways?

2. Will strategic thinking help me get promoted?

3. What is sustainable competitive advantage?

4. Do non-profits need a strategy?

5. I have a small business, why does strategy apply to me?

6. What is an "unfair advantage" and why is it a good thing?

7. If strategy is about "winning", what does that mean?

8. How does industry dynamics affect my career prospects?

9. Who has the power in my industry? Suppliers, customers, rivals?

10. How to increase my competitive advantage?

11. Why do substitutes limit industry power?

12. What is an economic moat?

13. What is the optimal number of suppliers you want?

14. How would you describe the industry power of (airline, luxury goods, bottled water)?

15. How would you describe "industry lifecycles" to your cousin?

16. Which industry do I want to be in, where to invest my time?

17. Where is my industry headed?

18. Which industries have potential for growth and profits?

19. Why might GenAI, machine learning accelerate the industry lifecycles?

20. Why does a sustainable strategy resemble a "flywheel?"

21. Why can't you be all things to all people (hint: you will be bad at it)?

22. How would you describe the strategy of your favorite company?

23. When considering your own career strategy, what key questions should you ask?

24. What is career FOMO (fear of missing out) dangerous?

25. What are your core competencies?

Course #3 Accounting - Language of business

1. Difference between income statement and balance sheet?

2. Why is it important to look at trends, not individual data points?

3. What's the difference between gross margin, operating margin, and net margin?

4. Have you read at 10K financial statement before? What sections are most helpful?

5. (As a company employee) how do you affect your company's income statement?

6. Is labor spend in COGS or SG&A (hint: answer is "it depends")?

7. Difference between fixed and marginal costs?

8. If two shoe companies have the same Gross Margin%, but different Op Margin%

9. What are the three ways to increase revenue?

10. Can you explain depreciation to your cousin?

11. As an example, what kind of expenses does OpenAI have that are COGS vs. SG&A?

12. Can you explain what a balance sheet is to your cousin?

13. Could you hold a conversation with your CEO about interest rates?

14. What is "capital structure" and why does it matter?

15. When building a business, what does this advice mean: "Be stingy with equity."

16. What are current assets? Can you give me 2-3 examples?

17. What can you do to actively manage AR (accounts receivables)?

18. What is a current asset and why does it matter?

19. Can you give me an example of a non-current asset of Disney, Apple, and Exxon?

20. Why is a balance sheet considered a "snapshot" in time?

21. Can you explain inventory turns to your cousin?

22. When is debt a good thing? When is it dumb?

23. Before you buy a bond, what are 3 questions you should ask?

24. How is cashflow different from profits?

25. How are financial ratios like vital signs for a company?

Course #4 - Marketing makes it easy to buy

1. Can you explain marketing simply to your cousin?

2. Why is it difficult for big companies to maintain bran consistency?

3. What are 3 reasons that marketing has gotten more difficult?

4. What is “marketing mix” and why does it matter?

5. Can you give an example of how the 4P work together (product, price, place, promotion)?

6. What is the value of a subscription for companies and consumers?

7. What is "customer lifetime value" and why does it matter?

8. What are network effects? Why does this matter?

9. Why are companies so hesitant to lower prices?

10. Why is pricing such a strategic decision?

11. Can you explain price discrimination to your cousin? Why does this matter?

12. If you are a business consultant, how can you price services strategically?

13. What is total cost of ownership? Can you give an example?

14. Why is distribution an important aspect of the marketing mix?

15. How big is the marketing communication business? How much of it is digital?

16. Can you give an example of low switching costs?

17. How would you evaluate "customer loyalty" of you and your friends to brands?

18. What are the problems with ineffective marketing communication (hint: there are many)?

19. Can you explain STP (segment, target, position) to your cousin? Why is this important?

20. Can you explain the purchase funnel and how it can be used in marketing?

21. If you have a CAC (customer acquisition cost) of $5 / customer, is that good or bad? (hint: it depends)

22. What is net promoter score (NPS) and why does this matter?

23. How big is influencer marketing? Why do you think it has grown so much?

24. What is content marketing? What does this matter?

25. Is marketing more than advertising? (hint: definitely yes)

Course #5 - Finance means multiple meanings

1. What are the big 4-5 different financial services industries?

2. Can you explain "banking" (investment, consumer) simply to your cousin?

3. What does the finance department do?

4. Can you explain the role of the CFO (chief financial officer) simply?

5. What does the FP&A department do? Why does this matter?

6. What are the big 3-4 things that corporate finance departments do?

7. How would you describe “opportunity cost” to your cousin?

8. What does liquidity mean in finance? Why does this matter?

9. Why does the correlation of investments within a portfolio matter?

10. Can you explain dividends to your cousin?

11. What’s the relationship between interest rates and inflation

12. How to central banks and policy maker battle inflation?

13. How would you explain present value to your cousin? Why does it matter?

14. What are 3 reasons that $5K in 3 years is worth less than it is today?

15. Can you explain what a discount rate is? Why is this important?

16. What is a DCF (discounted cash flow) analysis? Why does it matter?

17. What is the WACC (weighted average cost of capital) and why does it matter?

18. How do you do comparables analysis for valuation?

19. How do you do multiples analysis for valuation?

20. What are the implications of a positive NPV (NPV > 0) project?

21. Can you explain the difference between stocks and bonds to your cousin?

22. Bonds (generally) are a more conservative investment than stocks. What are bond risks?

23. What are 3-4 risks of investments (hint: there are 6 kinds)?

24. If compounding is a powerful tool, what does it mean for your personal investments?

25. What is dollar cost averaging, and why does it matter?

Course #6 - Operations turns strategy into results

1. What is the difference between supply chain and operations?

2. Why is operations difficult?

3. What are the big 4-5 supply chain activities (hint: SCOR is a good framework)?

4. What are the challenges for forecasting demand?

5. What is safety stock and why does it matter?

6. If you were running a factory, why does equipment utilization matter?

7. How would you explain "pick / pack" to your cousin?

8. What is reverse logistics and why does it matter?

9. What are the benefits of build-to-stock items?

10. What are the pro/con to selling "make-to-order products"?

11. How is the supply chain for digital products different from physical ones?

12. What are the roles and responsibilities for a Director of Sourcing?

13. How do economies of scale reduce prices per unit?

14. What is "standard work" and why does it matter in operations?

15. What are SOP (standard operating procedures) and why does it matter?

16. What are 2-3 characteristics of TPS (Toyota Production System)?

17. What's the main difference between Lean and Six Sigma?

18. What are 3 sources of waste in your current workflow?

19. What is comparative advantage? Why does that matter in the age of GenAI?

20. What are 2 examples of the pareto principle (80/20 rule)?

21. What is CTQ (critical to quality) and why does it matter?

22. What does "managing by exception" mean?

23. TIMWOODS is an acronym for the 8 kinds of waste. What are 3 of them?

24. DMAIC is an acronym for a process improvement framework. Why is the last one (Control) so difficult?

25. In operations, why is the concept of "smooth flow" so important?

Does this cover everything?

Of course not. We all need to keep learning. I got a MBA. I urged my wife to get a MBA. All super valuable. And, this is a very bouregois-y and cheap way to learn the basics.

Business is fascinating and this is a starting point

https://www.coursera.org/specializations/mbe-mastering-business-essentials

I find all this stuff fascinating and hope this is encouraging for you. Learn the language of business on your own time, watching recordings. You can audit it for free (yes, that's amazing, right?) If you want to take the assessments and do the short, fun projects, you can pay for access. If you pay, you can also get a digital certificate to post on your Linkedin. Let me know if you have any questions.

John