Silicon Valley Business School
Your Route to Success
MBA Program
Our upcoming MBA program emphasizes Silicon Valley-style business topics like entrepreneurship, digital marketing, intellectual property, venture capital, mergers, acquisitions & IPO's.
Professional Certifications
Our professional certification courses are designed to provide a direct pathway to careers in the booming tech hubs all over the world.
MentorAccelerator™ Program
Our faculty of experts guide active entrepreneurs through their startup journeys, helping them hit milestones, generate market momentum and ultimately cash out.
WELCOME
Welcome to the business school that teaches how business works in the tech sector and is changing the game of business education all over the world.
Our offering combines extensive online certification courses, an upcoming MBA and a startup acceleration program.
- Our online MBA Program will provide a springboard for success in the tech sector with special emphasis on topics such as entrepreneurship, digital marketing, intellectual property, venture capital, mergers, acquisitions and IPO’s.
- Our curriculum of professional certification courses are all online, self-paced and supported by expert faculty.
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.
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.
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 in 2002, and has proved a winner by generating successful startups.
Professional Certification Courses
Our professional certification courses are designed to provide a direct pathway to careers in the tech hubs that are growing over the world:
- Certified Technology Entrepreneur
- Certified Patent Professional
- Certified Valuation Professional
- Certified Legal Professional
- Certified Startup Mentor
- Certified Marketing Professional
- Certified Liquidity Professional
Pricing for the certification courses is set at $2,500 each. Tuition fees can be paid up front, or monthly if required.
You don’t need a bachelor’s degree to gain admittance to these certification courses, but you must be over 18 and you do need to be prepared to study as they cover materials that are often found in masters (MBA) and doctorate (JD) level programs. The admittance process involves completing an online test and an essay about where you’d like to go and what you’d like to experience on your career journey.
Integrated Programs and Courses
You will see that a course is made up of a number of learning modules, and you will notice that the same learning modules feature in different courses and programs. If you take our Certified Technology Entrepreneur course, you will take modules like Business Organizations and Contracts. These same learning modules are required for our other courses and programs. In fact, the Contracts module is required for all our certification courses as well as our upcoming MBA program. Once you’ve taken this learning module once, and earned a passing score, you don’t need to take it again if you decide to take another course. You can use the same credits you’ve earned toward different courses and programs.
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.
What's With the “Law School" Modules?
In Silicon Valley and the tech sector, business involves forming startups, issuing preferred stock and common stock, protecting technology through patents, copyrights and other forms of intellectual property, entering into sales contracts and non-disclosure agreements, negotiating term sheets with investors, raising finance through convertible notes and the sale of shares and other securities, entering into mergers and acquisitions and selling shares to the public following an IPO. All these aspects of business are critical to success and it doesn’t make sense to exclude them from a business school program because they involve topics that are traditionally taught in law school. Business today is a legal minefield and we believe that becoming successful requires learning how to navigate through the various regulations and gaining a deep understanding of how transactions are structured. Hence, we combine law school courses into our business school programs. SVBS is not in the business of producing lawyers, but we do teach you the essential aspects of law that you’re going to need to be successful in business.
Certification, MBA Admissions and Accreditation
We’re committed to getting our courses certified and our school fully accredited as quickly as possible. Our sister school, Silicon Valley High School, was accredited in a remarkably short time, within a matter of months, and we have an experienced team of lawyers and educators working diligently on the accreditation and certification process.
The professional certification courses are being prepared for certification by Quality Matters, the global organization leading quality assurance in online and innovative digital teaching and learning environments. Concurrently, we’re pursuing accreditation with DEAC, the Distance Education Accreditation Commission, a leading accreditation organization specializing in distance education since 1926.
There’s a curious chicken-and-egg situation with accreditation because part of the accreditation process involves gathering input from students, so we need to enroll students before we’re able to complete the accreditation process. Students enrolled in an MBA program before the school is accredited, will receive an MBA from an accredited school once the schools is, indeed accredited. Assuming, of course, the student completes all the required credits and earns the required passing scores.
Here’s a question for you to consider. Let’s see if you can find a solution to this conundrum:
A school is authorized to offer certificate courses but is not allowed to enroll students on an MBA program until the school is accredited. If the accreditation process involves gathering input from existing students, how does the school enroll the students it needs to complete the accreditation?
If you have any creative solutions for this, please let us know. However, what we’re doing at SVBS is offering certification courses comprised of the same learning modules that we will require in our MBA program. Students earning credits through our certification courses will be able to use those credits toward an MBA, after the students have participated in the accreditation process and the school is duly accredited. Qualifying students will earn an MBA from an accredited school, once we have the accreditation process completed.
In other words, while you’re waiting for SVBS to get its accreditation, you can learn valuable skills online, earn professional certifications, build your network and through project work, make substantial progress in your job or business. Then, when the school is accredited, you can collect your MBA.
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.