Technology, and in recent decades especially the Internet has been and will be changing our lives. Recently founded businesses are the agents of change. The course will describe and analyze the challenges facing these new businesses and ways to address them. It will integrate themes from strategy, marketing and finance to better understand the main issues facing the technology entrepreneur.

The course is about the business of information technology and information technology in business.  

The course’s recurring themes: Value proposition, product creation, distribution and the funding/monetization pair. 

The course will consist of lectures by the instructor and by guest speakers as well as case study discussions. About half the course will focus on financial technology (Fin Tech). About half the class meetings will consist of case discussions. These will require thorough preparation and the submission of written reports. Groups of no more than four students each will author the written reports. 

Each of these groups will develop an idea for a tech venture. They will present the idea in the middle and at the end of the term. A written report will accompany the final presentation. Each group will meet the instructor at least once during the semester. 

The grade will be based on the midterm and final presentations, class participation and the reports on the cases.  

The course will consist of three overlapping modules:

Module I: The business model
• What’s the product and what need it fulfills;
• How will the customers find out and use the product;
• Who will pay for it and how much; what’s the likely profit;
• What’s business ecology; who are the competitors and what are their likely actions

Module II: Platforms, Multiple-Side Markets, relation with Brick-and-Mortar
• Network effects
• Reputation and credibility
• e-Commerce 

Module III: Financial Technology
• Payment systems
• Bundling services with a payment system
• Bitcoin, Blockchains and the business ecology emerging around them
• Crowd funding

Gur Huberman

Robert G. Kirby Professor of Behavioral Finance

Gur Huberman is the Robert G. Kirby Professor of Behavioral Finance at Columbia Business School where he has taught since 1989. Prior to that, he taught at Tel Aviv University and at the University of Chicago. Between 1993 and 1995 he was Vice President at JP Morgan Investment Management responsible for research on quantitative equity trading. In that capacity, he also helped develop tax aware strategies for...

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