Your Route to Startup Success

AI-Powered Guidance, Milestone Tracking & Business Education

WELCOME

Silicon Valley Business School equips ambitious professionals and entrepreneurs with the knowledge and guidance needed to thrive in the tech sector. Our innovative approach combines AI-powered startup guidance, comprehensive self-paced courses, and an extensive knowledgebase of entrepreneurial wisdom. Open to everyone, everywhere, all the time, SVBS welcomes anyone wishing to learn how to succeed in business in the tech sector.

Our Sherpa AI assistant guides entrepreneurs through their startup journey, providing personalized milestone tracking, strategic advice, and momentum assessment. For tech professionals looking to enhance their skills, our self-paced courses cover essential topics including entrepreneurship, valuation, marketing, patents, and fundraising.

We offer flexible subscription plans to meet your specific needs. The Tech Professional subscription at $25/month provides access to all courses, our knowledgebase, and Prof bot. The Entrepreneur plan at $50/month includes everything in the Tech Professional plan plus one Sherpa-guided startup venture, with additional startups available at $50/month each. Stakeholders receive free viewer rights to the milestone progress tracker.

Whether you’re launching a venture, working in the tech industry, or investing in startups, SVBS provides the tools, knowledge, and support you need to navigate the complex landscape of technology business and achieve your goals.

Sherpa: Navigating Your Startup Journey

Sherpa is an AI-powered guidance system designed to help entrepreneurs successfully navigate the challenging path from startup to successful exit. Drawing its name from the skilled mountaineers who guide climbers through Himalayan terrain, Sherpa serves as your trusted companion on the entrepreneurial journey.

At the heart of Sherpa’s capabilities is the Milestone Progress system, which operationalizes proven startup methodologies into a practical framework. This system helps founders:

Define clear target destinations (acquisition, IPO, or sustainable profitability).
Break down the journey into strategic milestones.
Track real-time momentum through key performance indicators.
Identify early warning signs when progress slows.
Make data-driven decisions based on actual progress.

Sherpa analyzes your startup’s momentum across multiple dimensions—financial performance, milestone achievement, and market growth—providing a comprehensive assessment visualized through an intuitive speedometer interface.

By combining AI-powered analysis with the structured approach of the Milestone Progress system, Sherpa transforms abstract concepts like “traction” and “momentum” into measurable metrics, giving entrepreneurs unprecedented visibility into their venture’s trajectory and significantly improving the odds of reaching their target destination.

The Silicon Valley Style of Business

A style of business was adopted in the tech sector that involved startups being formed as corporations under Delaware law, issuing preferred stock to investors and common stock to founders, raising finance to fund technology development from venture capital and angel investment, protecting their technology through patents and other forms of intellectual property, and driving toward “exits” in the form of mergers, acquisitions and IPO’s. The formula was different from the way business was conducted anywhere else, but it proved to be highly successful and has since been adopted by tech-oriented organizations all over the world. Beyond the legal framework and the structure of transactions, tech companies and products have transformed the way pretty much all business works today. Accounting, advertising, recruitment and communications are examples of business functions in all forms of business that have been disrupted by software platforms emanating from the tech sector. Becoming successful in business today requires a deep understanding of how these modern platforms work.

Self-Paced Online Courses

Silicon Valley Business School offers an extensive curriculum of self-paced online courses specifically designed for today’s tech entrepreneurs and professionals. Our educational content addresses the unique challenges of the technology sector, delivering practical knowledge through video lectures, case studies, and interactive materials developed by industry experts.

Unlike traditional business education, SVBS courses focus on real-world applications within the tech ecosystem. Each course is continuously updated to reflect current industry practices, emerging trends, and the rapidly evolving business landscape. The flexible format allows busy professionals to progress at their own pace, accessing materials 24/7 from any device.

Whether you’re launching a startup, scaling your venture, or investing in technology companies, our specialized curriculum provides the targeted knowledge needed for success. Each course integrates seamlessly with Sherpa’s AI guidance, allowing learners to immediately apply concepts to their specific challenges.

Entrepreneurship – Navigate the startup journey from inception to exit.
Valuation – Master techniques for valuing startups, patents, and technology assets.
Sales & Business Development – Build effective sales operations for technology ventures.
Raising Finance for Startups – Structure and negotiate venture capital and angel investments.
Marketing – Develop modern marketing strategies for tech products and services.
Patents and Intellectual Property – Understand protection strategies for innovations.
Patent Strategies – Create defensive and offensive patent portfolios.
Mergers & Acquisitions – Navigate the process of buying or selling a company.
IPO & Securities Regulation – Prepare for public offerings and understand regulatory requirements.
Finance & Accounting – Master financial principles for startup success
Contracts – Understand formation, performance, and enforcement of business agreements.
Business Organizations – Compare corporate structures and governance models.
Trusts – Implement property-holding arrangements for business and IP.
Bankruptcy & Cash Crisis Management – Navigate financial challenges and restructuring.

Liquidity Club Partnership

Silicon Valley Business School maintains a strategic partnership with Liquidity Club, an exclusive global community connecting qualified startups with investors, experts, and resources focused on facilitating successful exits.

While Liquidity Club offers tremendous value through its vetted network of investors, experts, and fellow entrepreneurs, membership is selective and not automatically granted. The platform specifically seeks ventures demonstrating significant market momentum and a clear path toward a liquidity event.

This is where Sherpa becomes particularly valuable. By leveraging Sherpa’s AI-powered guidance and the Milestone Progress system, entrepreneurs can systematically build the momentum and traction necessary to qualify for Liquidity Club consideration. Sherpa helps founders define and achieve the critical milestones that demonstrate venture viability and growth trajectory.

For entrepreneurs aspiring to join this exclusive community, Sherpa provides a structured pathway to build the necessary momentum. By tracking progress, maintaining focus on key metrics, and providing strategic guidance, Sherpa helps startups develop the compelling narrative and demonstrable traction that Liquidity Club requires from its members.

Through this relationship, SVBS bridges the gap between entrepreneurial ambition and access to the resources needed for successful exits.

A School Built Around a Proven Business Methodology

Our courses, our knowledgebase, our software and our mentoring tools are all designed around the methodology of viewing the life of a business as a journey. This means setting a target destination for your business, identifying a route with milestones along the way, assembling a winning team, generating momentum and learning a set of maneuvers designed to boost momentum or overcome obstacles that appear on the company’s path. Startups go through various stages on this journey from the seed stage through the early stage, expansion stage and mezzanine stage prior to IPO. Each business has its own journey and needs its own unique roadmap with target milestones. The methodology adopted by Silicon Valley Business School developed by its founder David Smith, was originally articulated in his book Zero-to-IPO, and has proved a winner by generating successful startups.

Enrollment Options

Silicon Valley Business School welcomes everyone seeking to master tech sector business principles. Our enrollment is open to ambitious individuals worldwide, with no prerequisites or admission requirements. Choose the option that best aligns with your goals.

Entrepreneur – $50/month

Comprehensive support for startup founders and business leaders:

Everything in the Tech Professional plan.
Sherpa AI-guided startup journey for one venture.
Milestone Progress tracking system.
Momentum assessment and visualization.
Strategic guidance aligned with your target destination.
Free access for stakeholders to monitor progress.

Additional Startup Ventures: $50/month per venture

Stakeholder Access – Free

For investors, board members, and other startup stakeholders:

View-only access to milestone progress tracking.
Monitor venture momentum and achievements.
Maintain visibility into startup development without subscription fees.

Tech Professional – $25/month

Perfect for career development and specialized knowledge acquisition:

Complete access to all SVBS courses.
Full knowledgebase privileges.
AI-powered learning assistance via Prof bot.
Customer support through Alf bot.

Enrollment is simple and immediate, providing instant access to our educational resources. All plans include regular updates and new content as it becomes available. You can adjust or cancel your enrollment anytime as your needs evolve.

Free Podcast Series

If you’d like to get a sample of the type of things you’ll learn at Silicon Valley Business School, check out these free podcasts where our founder, David Smith, explains how business really works in Silicon Valley and the tech sector. Learn about venture investments, patent monetization, and gain all sorts of interesting and surprising insights into business in Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley Trends is the podcast for innovators and entrepreneurs.

Online MBA Program (Coming Soon)

Our online Masters of Business Administration (“MBA”) program requires you to take every one of our learning modules, including all the projects, which means that when you earn your MBA with Silicon Valley Business School, you get to work on achieving substantial milestones with your business at the same time, and you earn the following certifications as well as your MBA:

Certified Technology Entrepreneur
Certified Patent Professional
Certified Valuation Professional
Certified Legal Professional
Certified Startup Mentor
Certified Marketing Professional
Certified Liquidity Professional

When available, the cost of the MBA program will be $15,000.

Admission to the MBA program will require:

Bachelor’s Degree
Passing Score in the Online Admissions Test
Essay about where you’d like to go and what you’d like to experience on your career journey.

Expert Faculty With Real Business Experience

We’re focused on helping you learn what you need to know if you’re going to succeed in business. Unlike some traditional business schools, our faculty are not purely academics, they’re experienced veterans from the tech sector with deep knowledge of how business is done in the real world. We don’t just teach you the theory, we help you put it into practice, mentoring you and guiding your businesses toward success.

Open Worldwide 24x7

It goes without saying that, as an online school, our doors are open (and our servers are operating) 24 hours a day, 7-days a week.

Set Your Own Schedule—No Due Dates or Deadlines

Our courses are self-paced, which means there are no set times for classes. You set your own schedule and study when it suits you best. This means you don’t have to give up your job, or stop what you’re otherwise doing to study with SVBS. It also means you need to be diligent and motivated to maintain momentum in your studies.

Enroll Anytime

As the courses are self-paced, you can enroll and start your selected program at any time.