3 promises: Learn how to learn, make money, and live a life of meaning

What to Expect

Ever feel like a misfit? So did many of the world’s leading entrepreneurs. When it comes to equipping people like you, most programs miss the point. That’s why Acton teachers—all of them successful, working entrepreneurs—focus on what works in the real world, so you can start leaving your mark ASAP. You’ll learn from seasoned entrepreneurs whose top priority is your growth and success.

Here’s how:

• You’ll learn from entrepreneurs with battle scars.
• Your teachers and mentors are successful entrepreneurs who are gifted in the classroom and proven in the boardroom.
• Designed with an entrepreneur’s perspective.
• You will learn how to build and grow successful businesses from scratch and be the kind of entrepreneurial leader that inspires others to join your team.
• You’ll be treated not just as a student, but as a valued customer.
• Our teachers sign a contract agreeing that they’ll step down if they don’t meet your needs.

We work with:

• Bright, talented and driven individuals
• Dedicated and successful entrepreneurs who are proven in the boardroom and outstanding in the classroom
• Real-world cases, which participants analyze, argue and discuss throughout each 120-minute class session
• Experiential learning and simulations, including door-to-door sales, assembly line construction and other immersive learning techniques

So that our graduates are prepared to:

• Listen, question, analyze and persuade like a master entrepreneur
• Deploy the tools and judgment to run a thriving business
• Identify their calling
• Run a successful business, raise a loving family and contribute to their communities and the world in a powerful way

The Curriculum

Break out of structure, routine and theories — Come to Acton for an experience that brings you into a community of exceptional leaders making an extraordinary impact on the world in less than half the time and cost of a traditional MBA program.

Acton begins with a blended learning experience during the first semester of our program. During this initial four-month period, you’ll engage in a series of interactive online courses – including cash and valuation, operations, customers and discovery – to prepare you with a strong foundation to take into the pit on day one of the in-class semester of the program.

Students typically spend about 20-25 hours per week with the material during Pre-Matriculation. The classroom portion of the program begins the next semester and takes place on campus in Austin, TX.

During this intensive second semester, students find themselves working approximately 80-100 hours per week. With only five months of the program required in residence, students often continue working during the first semester, relocating to Austin only for the second and final semester.

Individual Preparation

Acton MBA entrepreneurship classes are focused on cases, each of which requires hours of individual concentration and preparation beforehand. Plan on devoting between five and eight hours of study to analyzing each case in depth. Any less and you’ll be left behind.

Study Groups

Study Groups are like prototypes for class. You’ll arrive at Study Group each morning fully prepared to stand in the shoes of the case’s entrepreneur. Your group will choose a peer to open the case, and for over an hour you’ll describe and defend your positions with them. If you haven’t prepared, it’ll show.

Classes

Classes begin with a “cold call,” a challenging question the teacher poses to a single student to open the case. What comes next is eighty furious minutes of analysis, argument, and fervent persuasion. Individual contribution is critical.