MBA Foundations · Free Core

Learn the business logic behind AI products before building your own.

This self-guided course gives students 12+ a practical business foundation through case-method learning: finance, accounting, marketing, strategy, competition, and company analysis.

Course purpose

From business vocabulary to strategic judgment

Students do not need advanced math or prior business experience. They learn enough to read a simple company, ask better questions, and decide whether an AI-powered idea could become a real business.

Free core: concepts, starter cases, and basic practice tasks. Paid challenge: deeper worksheets, templates, launch journal, and step-by-step product-building support.

01

Startup Finance

Students learn how money moves through a young company: revenue, costs, gross margin, profit, cash runway, pricing, break-even points, and unit economics.

Student output A one-page financial snapshot for a startup or student product idea.

Students learn

  • Why revenue is not the same as profit.
  • How pricing changes the number of customers needed to break even.
  • Why AI can reduce labor cost but may add tool, platform, or review cost.

AI-era case prompt

An AI homework planner charges $5 per month. It has 200 free users, 18 paying users, and $42 in monthly tool costs. Is this a business yet, or only an experiment?

Practice task

Build a simple model with price, customers, monthly cost, time spent, and profit. Change the price three times and explain what happens.

02

Accounting Basics

Students learn the three basic financial statements: income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement. The goal is not bookkeeping. The goal is to understand what founders and investors look at first.

Student output An annotated income statement analysis with simple notes on revenue, costs, and profitability.

Students learn

  • What an income statement says about sales, costs, and profit.
  • What a balance sheet says about what a company owns and owes.
  • Why cash flow can matter more than profit for a young company.

AI-era case prompt

A small AI design service sells $800 of posters in one month, but customers pay late and software bills are due today. Why can a profitable-looking business still feel broke?

Practice task

Annotate a simple income statement and mark the three numbers a founder should check first.

03

Marketing Basics

Students learn positioning, customer personas, channels, messaging, conversion, retention, and how a company can grow from 0 to its first 100, 1,000, or 1 million users.

Student output A market-entry strategy for a selected brand, product, or student-built offer.

Students learn

  • How to define a narrow customer persona.
  • How positioning explains why one product is the right choice for one audience.
  • Why a channel matters: search, social, school, local business, community, referral, or marketplace.

AI-era case prompt

An AI study guide generator says it is for “all students.” Nobody signs up. What happens if it is repositioned for Grade 9 biology students preparing for unit tests?

Practice task

Write three versions of a product message: one for students, one for parents, and one for teachers. Decide which buyer is most likely to pay.

04

Strategy & Competitive Analysis

Students learn market size, customer power, supplier power, substitutes, new entrants, rivalry, moats, switching costs, network effects, and SWOT analysis.

Student output A competitive landscape map plus a SWOT analysis.

Students learn

  • How to compare direct competitors, substitutes, and do-it-yourself solutions.
  • How Porter's Five Forces explains pressure from customers, competitors, suppliers, substitutes, and new entrants.
  • How SWOT turns observations into strategic choices.

AI-era case prompt

A teen wants to sell AI-generated social media captions to restaurants. Free AI tools already exist. What could still make the offer valuable?

Practice task

Create a 2x2 map comparing four solutions by price and ease of use. Then write one strategy to win a small niche.

05

Company Analysis Showcase

Students combine all four areas into one clear analysis: what the company sells, who pays, how it grows, whether the numbers make sense, what risks exist, and what strategic move they recommend next.

Student output A concise company analysis presentation with a recommendation and supporting evidence.

Students learn

  • How to combine finance, accounting, marketing, and strategy into one clear story.
  • How to support a recommendation with evidence instead of opinion.
  • How to present business thinking confidently and simply.

AI-era case prompt

Choose one AI-driven company or one local business using AI. Should it grow faster, narrow its audience, raise prices, improve retention, or reduce costs?

Practice task

Create a 6-slide company analysis: customer, problem, business model, market, competition, recommendation.

Student toolkit

Simple business tools students use throughout the course

Each tool is intentionally lightweight. Students should be able to complete it with public information, reasonable estimates, and careful thinking.

One-Page Financial Snapshot

Price, customers, revenue, cost, profit, time spent, and break-even point.

Annotated Income Statement

Revenue, cost of goods sold, gross profit, operating expenses, and net profit explained in plain English.

Customer Persona

Who the customer is, what they want, what they fear, where they spend attention, and why they might pay.

Market Entry Strategy

The first narrow audience, first channel, first message, and first proof point.

Competitive Landscape Map

A visual comparison of alternatives by price, speed, ease of use, quality, or niche fit.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that lead to a practical next move.

Free lesson plan

Business Foundations: 10 self-guided lessons

These lessons are designed to be free forever. They help students build the vocabulary and judgment needed before they pay for deeper product-building support.

01

What is a business?

Business as value exchange: problem, customer, solution, price, trust.

Mini task: Map five products you used today.
02

Why do people pay?

Time saved, pain reduced, money made, confidence gained, or status improved.

Mini task: Sort 10 purchases by the outcome they create.
03

AI as a cost reducer

How AI changes research, writing, design, coding, service, and operations.

Mini task: Mark which jobs AI can help with in one small business.
04

Startup finance basics

Revenue, costs, margin, profit, break-even, and runway in plain English.

Mini task: Estimate profit for a $9 digital product.
05

Accounting basics

Income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow as founder decision tools.

Mini task: Annotate a simple income statement.
06

Customer personas

Who uses, who pays, who decides, and why that difference matters.

Mini task: Compare student, parent, and teacher buyers.
07

Marketing basics

Positioning, channels, messaging, conversion, retention, and proof.

Mini task: Rewrite one product message for three audiences.
08

Competition basics

Direct competitors, substitutes, DIY options, and differentiation.

Mini task: Build a competitor map for one AI idea.
09

SWOT and strategy

Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that lead to a next move.

Mini task: Write a SWOT for a local business using AI.
10

Responsible AI business

Privacy, consent, accuracy, bias, human review, and safe beginner boundaries.

Mini task: Create a safety checklist for one product idea.

AI study prompts

Use AI as a thinking partner, not an answer machine

These prompts help students ask better questions while keeping judgment in human hands.

Finance prompt

“Act as a patient startup finance tutor for a 13-year-old. Help me estimate revenue, costs, profit, and break-even for this product idea: [idea]. Ask me questions before giving conclusions.”

Marketing prompt

“Help me compare three possible customer groups for [product]. For each group, explain their problem, willingness to pay, how I could reach them, and one risk.”

Competition prompt

“Help me identify direct competitors, substitutes, and do-it-yourself alternatives for [idea]. Then help me find a small niche where a beginner could compete.”

Presentation prompt

“Review my company analysis like a friendly business judge. Tell me what is clear, what evidence is weak, and what one slide I should improve first.”

Case method

Every module uses a business case, not memorization

Students learn by making decisions in realistic business situations. AI is treated as a business lever: it can reduce cost, increase speed, improve personalization, create new products, or change distribution.

Finance case

An AI note-taking app has 1,000 free users and 30 paying users. Should it lower price, improve onboarding, or target a narrower customer?

Accounting case

A template shop earns $600 in sales but spends $220 on tools, ads, refunds, and platform fees. Is it really profitable?

Marketing case

A student-made AI study planner gets attention on TikTok but few sign-ups. Is the message wrong, the audience wrong, or the offer unclear?

Strategy case

A restaurant AI content service has three competitors. Can it win by focusing only on family-owned pizza shops in one city?

Final deliverable

The company analysis showcase

At the end, students choose one AI-driven company or one ordinary company using AI and prepare a short analysis. The goal is confidence: explain business logic clearly in front of a team, family, class, or future customer.

1. Company

What does the company sell, and who pays?

2. Financial logic

How does the company make money, spend money, and possibly earn profit?

3. Market logic

Who is the target customer, and what channel helps the company reach them?

4. AI advantage

Does AI make the product cheaper, faster, more personalized, or more scalable?

5. Competition

Who else solves the same problem, and what makes this company different?

6. Recommendation

What should the company do next, and what evidence supports your answer?