You can study to be an entrepreneur with online diploma courses in business and entrepreneurship. Online programs teach you skills for starting and growing enterprises.
- To be a successful entrepreneur, it helps to have personal qualities such as courage and persistence.
- But you also need to learn how to innovate, plan, market products and manage a business.
- Formal studies complement your personal qualities, effort and hands-on experience.
A great way to further your entrepreneurial journey is to enrol in an accredited entrepreneurship course. You'll gain concepts and knowledge to convert ideas into profit. One-year online diplomas are available at vocational (TAFE) and tertiary (university) levels.
We need entrepreneurial skills and aptitudes to keep up to date with our jobs, to move between industries, work independently and know how to create value in new ways. Students graduating from university or TAFE will be less likely to walk straight into their dream job with a big corporation that they stay with for the long term.
~ NSW Industry Department
Why an Online Course?
An online course is the fastest, most efficient way to formally study entrepreneurship. Distance learning frees up your time to work on other things, which may include current or future business projects.
Studying online means you don’t get to hang out in person with classmates or your teachers, but that’s usually not the point of doing the course. Some of the advantages of an online entrepreneur course are that you:
- waste no time getting to and from classes
- can enrol at different times during the year
- study according to your own weekly timetable
- can do more self-directed learning.
What You’ll Learn
Online entrepreneur courses combine general business studies with specialist subjects. Entrepreneurs are business people who specialise in innovation. That’s why, as an entrepreneurship student, you learn ordinary business operations and not just the start-up phase.
An online diploma course typically consists of 8 modules and can be completed in as little as 6 months. Some of the modules could involve project work, which is handy for developing job-ready skills.
Course content normally includes subjects that you find in many business programs, such as finance, marketing, and managing people. But there's also an emphasis on subjects related to business start up, such as innovation, investment funding, presenting business cases, and growth strategies.
The coursework for entrepreneurship is often split between conventional business studies topics (marketing, accounting and management) and courses intended to foster the entrepreneurial spirit (identifying opportunities, locating funding sources and developing an entrepreneurial mindset).
~ Academic Earth
Online Entrepreneurship Diplomas
The top online diploma courses in entrepreneurship are accredited. Accreditation ensures your qualification is broadly recognised and can be used as credit for later studies. You also gain financial benefits from doing an accredited course, including access to student loans.
At TAFE and college level, there is the Diploma of Entrepreneurship and Innovation (see below). You can also do a 12-subject Diploma of Business program that is full of entrepreneurship units. At last count, there were 99 individual subjects that quality to be part of an accredited Diploma of Business. Many of these are highly relevant to entrepreneurs (e.g. Build and maintain business relationships, Manage budgets and financial plans).
10733NAT Diploma of Entrepreneurship and Innovation
The Diploma of Entrepreneurship and Innovation is an Australian nationally accredited 11-subject course. Students may learn how to: define a minimum viable product, validate a product idea, and secure funding to launch and grow a startup. As well, you learn how to research and develop business plans, manage budgets and financial plans, build and maintain business relationships, do market research, and manage customer service. Course duration is around 12 months.