10 Must-Take Virtual Business Courses for Entrepreneurs

What’s one must-take virtual business course and why?

The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

virtual business courses
photo credit: University of Salford Press

1. Coding Fundamentals

If you want to win in the tech sector, a basic understanding of computer programming can be extremely empowering, whether you’re an entry-level or a top-tier executive. Codecademy offers free online courses that provide everything you need to know from the basics to creating beautiful, fully functioning websites from scratch. And if you’re game for the really technical stuff, they’ve got that, too.

Matt Ehrlichman, Porch

2. Behavioral Economics

Dan Ariely taught at Duke University and is now teaching his course through Coursera. It blends the best thinking in economics with psychology and marketing. He is also highly engaging; you will love every minute and forget you are learning tips for your business.

Suzanne Smith, Social Impact Architects

3. Introduction to Business

Introduction to Business is offered by Kaplan University, and it’s a must-take for anyone looking to gain the basics of business management, economics, HR and communications.

Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance

4. Accelio

Accelio is a great source for real-world, need-a-focused-answer-now kind of virtual business course. Instead of buying large courses, Accelio gives you a focused checklist of what you need to do to achieve a particular result or deliverable. It’s been a great resource for me, and its mini courses cover every aspect of business.

Liam Martin, Staff.com

5. Mixergy

Mixergy has a ton of great business classes focused on every part of running a successful business. Whether you’re weak in lead generation, sales, systems, customer service, etc., Mixergy likely has a course suited exactly for your current situation.

Patrick Conley, Automation Heroes

6. Noah Kagan’s YouTube Videos

Watch one of Noah Kagan’s longer video interviews or speeches on YouTube, and you’ll get an (entertaining) virtual business education in entrepreneurship and marketing.

Brett Farmiloe, Digital Marketing Agency

7. One Month Rails

One Month Rails teaches the fundamentals of Ruby on Rails over a span of 30 days. At the end of one month, you will have successfully used GitHub, Heroku hosting and designed a successful project with Ruby on Rails. It also teaches the basics of Twitter Bootstrap.

Dave Nevogt, Hubstaff

8. The World-Changing Writing Workshop

You need to be able to tell your story in order to market your company effectively. Pace and Kyeli Smith’s workshop is an effective way to learn not only how to write well, but also how to reach readers emotionally with your writing. That’s the core of marketing when you get down to it.

Thursday Bram, Hyper Modern Consulting

9. A Crash Course on Creativity

Tina Seelig, executive director at Stanford Technology Ventures Program, teaches an essential course on creativity that helps individuals understand creativity and its role in organizations. It’s more structured than many virtual classes but highly effective.

Brandon Wu, AdCrafted

10. Data Analysis

General Assembly offers a fantastic set of courses and certifications for technology and business topics. In particular, check out data analysis. Students learn Excel hacks, infographic creation, mobile analytics and more. It’s all about using data sciences to gain insight about users, products and content.

Doreen Bloch, Poshly Inc.